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Witness History: The Cutter Incident

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The Cutter Incident

21/10/2020 GMT

BBC World Service - Witness History, The Cutter Incident

How mistakes with the initial production of polio vaccine made thousands of children ill.

How mistakes with the initial production of polio vaccine made thousands of children ill in 1955.

In April 1955, more than 100,000 children in America were inoculated with a defective batch of the brand-new polio vaccine. Because of a manufacturing mistake at a small company called Cutter Laboratories, the children were given live polio virus; around 160 were permanently paralysed and 10 died in the worst disaster in US pharmaceutical history. Simon Watts talks to Anne Gottsdanker, one of the victims of what became known as the Cutter Incident.

PHOTO: Anne Gottsdanker with her father Bob Gottsdanker in 1956 (personal archive)

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