The Public Health Service's final figures on the 1957 rate of incidence of disease, published last week, showed a generally good picture.
While the Salk vaccine proved to be "60% to 90% effective," polio remained, by shifting targets, a major problem. It used to be primarily a disease of the oft-diapered, well-scrubbed upper-income groups, whose infants were protected against the mild (often undetectable) infections that give immunity against later and more serious attacks. Things were different with the infants of the poor, who lived amid filth, got an infection in their first few months while still protected by passive immunity from inherited...
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