PhD Thesis - ResearchSpace@Auckland - The University of Auckland

taken up by the Health Department. 158 Another organisation, the New Zealand
Paediatric Society, was also in favour of the vaccine, so much so that Dr Samuel
Ludbrook, President of the Paediatric Society, was part of the Polio Vaccine Advisory
Committee. The New Zealand Paediatric Society had been established in 1946 by Dr
Ludbrook and consisted of 32 members, mainly GPs with a special interest in child
health. 159 Both these societies helped to promote and legitimise the vaccine within the
community.
The medical profession themselves tended to have mixed feelings about the long term
efficacy of the Salk vaccine. Although after 1956 most acknowledged its safety; the
immunity it produced was more open to question. The Auckland Star reported in
April 1956 that ‘Dr Turbott said the Salk vaccine would do the job required of it and
would be “the best for the task until something else came along”’. 160 The importance
of the vaccine was that it prevented paralytic polio; its acknowledged drawback was
that it did not prevent the spread of the disease. Departmental policy was that even
though the vaccine was not 100 per cent effective, ‘it is of value as a public health
measure’ and the public was advised accordingly. 161 Both in New Zealand and
abroad unfolding events were observed with interest especially as it was known that
Dr Albert Sabin in the United States was trying to develop an oral vaccine that would
hopefully give better protection than Salk’s. 162 The public was made aware of these
developments through the press and J. A. R. Miles, Professor of Microbiology at
Otago and a member of the Polio Vaccine Advisory Committee, advised in 1957 that
the live oral vaccine was about five years away and that it could be superior to Salk. 163
158
EP, 17 February 1955.
159
The Paediatric Society was founded in 1946 by Auckland doctor, Samuel Ludbrook, with the first
AGM held in 1947 and attended by 32 GPs and paediatricians. Its aims and objectives were ‘to
stimulate interest in and to promote the scientific study of child health and paediatrics in New Zealand,
and to engage in all activities, clinical and educational, which in the opinion of the Society, may be
necessary from time to time in the interest of child health’. The Society consisted of over 155 members
in 1972 although too small to publish a journal or undertake research work. By the late 1990’s
membership had risen to over 240 members who were specialists in the area of Child health, had
passed Part 1 FRACP (Paediatrics), or who practised mainly in the arena of child health. See A.
Arthur, History 1947-1993, unpublished work, held by Paediatric Society. Also, Editorial, ‘Paediatric
Society of New Zealand’, NZMJ, May 1972, p.303.
160
AS, 5 April 1956.
161
NZH, 6 April 1956.
162
The vaccine was developed in the USA but its trials took place in the Soviet Union. This was
because many American children had already received Salk’s vaccine, whereas the children of the
Soviet Union had not.
163
NZH, 18 November 1957.
154