State Polio Committee Balks At Resuming Salk Injections

The Massachusetts Polio Advisory Committee will not approve any further use of the Salk vaccine at this time, the group announced yesterday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

John F. Enders, associate professor of Bacteriology and Immunology, one of 14 Faculty members on the 21-man committee, explained yesterday that the decision was made because of difficulties in manufacturing the vaccine and in developing adequate safety checks.

Enders, who with Dr. Thomas H. Weller, Richard Pearson Strong Professor of Tropical Public Health and Dr. Frederick C. Robbins of Western Reserve won the 1954 Nobel Prize for growing the polio virus, cautioned that there was "nothing permanent" about the decision. Enders added that "everything points to ultimate success for the Salk vaccine."

Commenting on the report, Dana L. Farnsworth, Director of the University Health Service, suggested that students with an opportunity to be inoculated wait until February or March before making a decision. He felt that much more would be known then, and added that before late spring there was no great cause to fear polio.

As a result of the decision, Massachusetts will not continue the program of inoculation of school children which it began last spring. Private physicians can still use the vaccine if they please, but the tone of the report discourages this. Apparently many doctors have been waiting for the committee's report before going ahead with inoculations.

The report in the journal lists six reasons for the decision:

1. "Possible presence of living virus in vaccine."

2. "Apparent undependability of safety tests."

3. "The presence of the toxic Mahoney strain as the representative of Type I virus." 4. "Continuing difficulties of production."

5. "The potential hazard, however slight, to the vaccinated person."

6. "The potential hazard to unvaccinated persons "from carriers of a live virus in the vaccine employed.