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This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) All Versions of this Article: AJPH.2007.117952v1 99/1/34    most recent Submit a response View Shopping Cart Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when eLetters are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Services Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Hampton, L. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Hampton, L. Related Collections Global Health Immunization/Vaccines History Other Child and Adolescent Health

Lee Hampton, MD, MSc

Lee Hampton is with the Department of Pediatrics, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT.

Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Lee Hampton, Dept of Pediatrics, PO Box 208064, New Haven, CT 06520 (e-mail: lee.hampton{at}yale.edu).

Albert B. Sabin, MD, developer of the oral polio vaccine, was also a major proponent of its use in annual vaccination campaigns aimed at the elimination of polio. Sabin argued that administering his vaccine simultaneously to every child in a country would break polio's chains of transmission. Although he was already promoting mass vaccination by the 1960s, Sabin's efforts expanded considerably when he became an adviser to groups fighting polio in the Americas in the 1980s. Sabin's experiences provide a window into both the formation of the coalition that eliminated poliomyelitis from the Western Hemisphere and what can happen when biomedical researchers become public health policy advisers. Although the polio elimination coalition succeeded in part because member groups often accommodated each other's priorities, Sabin was often limited by his indifference to the interests of those he was advising and to the shortcomings of his vaccine.