Dorothy Millicent Horstmann played a significant yet often unacknowledged role in the development of the polio vaccine . In the late 1940s and early 1950s, before polio immunizations were considered feasible, she conducted groundbreaking animal studies...

Poliomyelitis, also known as infantile paralysis, is an acute viral infection that can invade the nervous system and cause paralysis. Where the disease is common, most infections probably go unnoticed or result in mild symptoms, such as fever, sore...

Two polio vaccines are used throughout the world to combat polio. The first was developed by Jonas Salk, first tested in 1952, and announced to the world by Salk on April 12, 1955. It consists of an injected dose of inactivated (dead) poliovirus. The...

Polio vaccine, cancer link remains unclear By DENISE GRADY New York Times Monday, October 28, 2002 The polio vaccine used in the United States from 1955 to 1963 has long been known to have been contaminated with a cancer-causing monkey virus....

The PBS documentary "A Paralyzing Fear: The Story of Polio in America" {"A Poignant Portrait of Polio," Style, Oct. 5} painted an evocative portrait of the terror Americans felt about polio before the development of the Salk vaccine. As one who lives with the...

The U.N. health agency plans to vaccinate nearly 3 million children in the Horn of Africa this year against polio, a crippling disease that experts fear could spread rapidly along the region's volatile and porous borders. The campaign,...

During an official check to certify that Namibia remained polio-free a decade after it declared it had conquered the disease, officials made a surprising find: A 39-year-old man stricken with the virus. Since that first case in May, Namibia has...