Science Past from the issue of June 18, 1960

USSR USES SABIN VACCINE — The Sabin live polio virus vaccine, developed in the United States but not yet licensed here, is “completely harmless” and extremely effective, Russian scientists have found. They have already immunized millions of children in the USSR with the live vaccine.… The scientists said they had been particularly careful to study the possibility that the attenuated Sabin strains might turn into dangerous virus forms. They found the live vaccine to be “completely harmless.” There is no “threat of the vaccine strains’ reversion to a more virulent state.” They advised that the live vaccine be made compulsory, as in the case of smallpox and diphtheria in many areas.