Polio history: After the successful field trial of Salk's vaccine was announced, the Eisenhower administration bowed to pressure from drug companies to let several firms mass-produce it at once, while failing to monitor their procedures closely to ensure safety. /1
One company screwed up and contaminated several lots of vaccine. As a result, dozens of kids got polio directly from that company's vaccines - and the crisis halted mass vaccination for over a year, so >25K more kids got polio from being unvaccinated for the 1955 polio season. /2
Meanwhile, in Canada, the government took over production from the outset, vaccine production was safe from the beginning, and everyone got vaccinated faster. /3
And before someone says the genius of private industry developed the vaccine, that's not true - the genius of philanthropy developed the vaccine. Salk famously said the vaccine belonged to the people - "There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?" /4
Source: this very good book by David Oshinsky global.oup.com/ushe/product/p…
