Photo of the Day

It is April 12, 1961, and President Kennedy, in his third month in office, is holding a press conference.

Kennedy meets with the director of a disabled veterans group prior to his news conference, April 12, 1961.

He begins by noting the day’s historical significance:

“Today is the sixteenth anniversary of the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt,” he says.

“It is also the anniversary of the announcement that a vaccine has been discovered to prevent paralytic polio.”

FDR at his home in Hyde Park, New York. FDR contracted polio in 1921, at age 39.

Then and now, FDR was the most recognized polio victim.

Dr. Jonas Salk, above, developed the first successful polio vaccine in 1953. In 1954, two million US school children participated in clinical trials. On April 12, 1955, Salk's vaccine was announced to be safe and effective, leading to widespread distribution to US children.

Kennedy noted that more than ninety million Americans had been vaccinated with the Salk polio vaccine.

But more than eighty million remained unvaccinated.

Fifth Avenue in New York City, 1961. Fifth Avenue in Clinton, Iowa, 1961.

And almost five million of these were children, the majority of whom were younger than five.

Mrs. Dodgion's 1961-62 kindergarten class at Perrymont Avenue School in Lynchburg, Virginia.

The lowest vaccination rates were in poor urban and rural communities where parents couldn’t afford private doctor visits to obtain the vaccine.

But circumstances changed in late 1961.

A child with polio is confined to an iron lung machine to continue breathing despite suffering respiratory failure. The machine maintains respiration by changing air pressure inside the airtight box. Bellows create negative pressure to fill the child's lungs with air, and positive pressure allows the child to exhale.

An oral polio vaccine was licensed which could be administered in drops squeezed into the mouth or placed on moistened sugar cubes.

This development made a national polio vaccination program feasible.

Children and teacher are polio survivors, 1950s.

So, in February 1962, Kennedy asked Congress to fund a nationwide vaccination program which would target polio but also whooping cough, diphtheria and tetanus.

This program would give states money to organize and staff vaccination programs for both children and adults.

And federal funds would cover fully the cost of immunizations for all children under five.

A child in Providence, Rhode Island, receives the polio vaccine. The city faced an epidemic of the disease in 1960, which hit poor neighborhoods the hardest.

Congress over-rode charges that the program would be an inappropriate government intervention in the private medical marketplace and enacted Kennedy’s vaccination bill.

The law’s enactment was a stark break from the past.

Cartoon supporting the Truman national health insurance plan, 1945.

Claims of ‘socialized medicine’ had scuttled Harry Truman’s 1945 proposal for a national health insurance plan which would have covered all Americans.

And Eisenhower’s belief that government must “carefully avoid the socialization of medicine” had kept him from proposing federally funded vaccination programs despite the prevalence of polio during his presidency.

President Eisenhower talks with a polio victim in an iron lung machine, 1952.

Kennedy’s 1962 legislation is now considered the historical starting point for federal involvement in state and local immunization efforts.

This is the Kennedy vaccine legacy.

Kennedy's desk.

So, don’t let the new guy fool you.

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I’ll see you tomorrow.

— Brenda