PBS American Experience - The Polio Crusade (2009 HDTV SoS)

Originally aired: 2009.02.02

"The program chronicles the decades-long crusade to eradicate polio, one of the 20th century's most dreaded diseases.

The polio epidemic terrified Americans for many years, affecting thousands of children, leaving many crippled, paralyzed

or condemned to life in an iron lung. Then on April 26, 1954, hope emerged. At the Franklin Sherman Elementary School in

McLean, Virginia, six-year-old Randy Kerr stood at the head of a long line of children and waited patiently while a

nurse gently rolled up his sleeve, then filled a syringe with a cherry-colored liquid containing the world's first polio

vaccine. Developed just a few years earlier by virologist Jonas Salk, the polio vaccine had not yet been widely tested

on humans. No one was certain it was safe or whether it could provide effective protection against the disease. In the

coming weeks,nearly two million school children in 44 states received the shots. The Salk vaccine trials were the

dramatic culmination of years of research and a multi-million dollar investment, made up in large part by public

donations. This film examines the largest public health experiment in American history and is based in part on David

Oshinsky's Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Polio: An American Story."

more info: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/polio/

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Runtime: 51:52


Source: OTA High Definition 1080i


Encoding: xvid.720x416.1738kbps.mp3.160.vbr


File Size: 700MB

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