Local Failure in a Global Success

Abstract

At first, it seemed that the unprecedented cooperation between emigrants, international organisations, the Catholic Church and the communist government of Hungary was fully successful. Medimpex, the state company that imported the vaccine in the summer of 1957, received an award for its efforts. The following year there was no epidemic and the government celebrated the feat. However, a new and severe outbreak in the summer of 1959, when almost 2,000 children fell prey to the disease, prompted the state and the medical profession to re-evaluate their success. How could such a severe epidemic happen when a high number of children were supposed to have been protected by the Salk vaccine? What went wrong? Who was to blame? Public health officials, parents, ministers and doctors tried to work out the reasons for what appeared to be a complete failure. They engaged in a conversation on effectiveness and prevention by using and producing medical data in various ways, clashing lay and medical experiences, and revealing a broad set of expectations. The introduction of the Salk vaccine, its perceived success and eventual failure was an overtly political issue that manifested in the pages of medical journals and daily newspapers, during visits to the doctor and in private conversations. The uncertainties of knowledge and practice in polio vaccination brought to the fore sweeping, high-stakes problems at all levels of governance and daily life. The controversy that followed the 1959 epidemic provides a glimpse into the way a new vaccine, introduced worldwide over the course of a few years, played out locally, raising the question of the extent to which vaccination with a particular vaccine in different locales could be interpreted as the same. When