John Salamone



TORGHELE: It is November 6, 2017. We're at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta with John Salamone. First, I want to say welcome to Mr. Salamone, and thank you for agreeing to participate in the Global Health Chronicles Oral History of Polio Project.

SALAMONE: My pleasure.

TORGHELE: Mr. Salamone has been Congressional liaison at Immigration and Naturalization Services. He did that from 1979 to 1984, for five years. He was executive director and chief administrative officer of the National Italian American Foundation from August 1984 to November 2008, for twenty-four years--did fundraising for them for the most part, and organized it. He is now president of Salamone Associates, LLC, and has been for nine years. So before we get started on your polio-related activities, I wonder if you could tell us a 00:01:00little bit about your background.

SALAMONE: Well, I originally came from New York. And at the age of nineteen there was an opportunity, and I came down to Washington [D.C.] and I worked for a member of Congress from Illinois. I had a pretty good writing ability. Prior to coming down, I was a news broadcaster for WKQW radio out of New York, so I developed some writing skills. So he used me a lot for his speechwriting and his legislation. I actually became the youngest legislative director in the Congress at age nineteen, and I stayed with him for ten years while going to college. Got my degree in journalism. I actually started off to be a veterinarian because my grandmother always wanted me to be a doctor. I realized I couldn't stand the sight of blood and made the smart choice to change over to journalism. I 00:02:00graduated while working for the Congressman and, as you noted, after ten years with him then I went over to the Department of Justice, head of Congressional affairs, and the rest is history.

I met my wife Kathy in 1980--actually, I met her in 1978, but then we didn't reconnect. I lived in Maryland at the time, she lived in Virginia, and the geography just didn't work. But we met again in 1980 when I had moved to Virginia, and we were married in 1981. Had our first child in 1984, a girl, Elizabeth. And then in 1990 we had David. They're both grown now, and we have a couple of grandchildren. So life is good.

TORGHELE: How did you get interested in polio-related activities?

SALAMONE: Well, it got interested in me. Our son, David, was born in 1990, as I 00:03:00mentioned, and we did our dutiful thing and brought him for his regular vaccinations. In October 1990 he got his polio vaccination--I think it may have been his second one. He developed rashes and some fever, and we were told not to worry too much about that because that can happen. That seemed to get better. He still had a lot of infections, and that continued. Of course, that wasn't related to the vaccine. And then in February of 1991, we suddenly noticed that he couldn't crawl anymore--that, effectively, the bottom half of his body was paralyzed and his foot was just dangling. And we, of course, panicked, and we 00:04:00brought him to Children's Hospital [Children's National Medical Center] in Washington. He was there for three days, and they fully evaluated him, and they're a very good hospital. But in the end they said, well, he's got interior horn cell damage, and we really don't know why it's polio-like. They never thought it was polio, but they said it's kind of polio-like, but it's really unknown how he got it.

So we left a little frustrated, a little dejected, but prepared for what we knew would be a lifetime of physical therapy and neurologists and orthopedists, and all those things. We started him on physical therapy at a young age. He was fitted for a brace. And he was doing pretty well, but he was experiencing this pain during physical therapy, which wasn't normal. So our physical therapist suggested that we take him in to see a rheumatologist, of all things. We brought 00:05:00him in to see a rheumatologist, he was a great man at Georgetown Hospital [Georgetown University Medical Center] in Washington. He said, you know, I've got some ideas here, having heard the history, if you will, of David--medical history. He said, I'd like to do some tests.

So he did some tests and he came back to us a couple days later and he says, "Your son has Bruton's." And of course, we had no idea what Bruton's was, but it's what's called X-linked agammaglobulinemia. Effectively, he was born without B cells. Your body has B cells and T cells. If you don't have both, you're what they call a "bubble baby." Well, David was half of a bubble baby so his immune system was quite compromised. He suddenly put together the dots and the timeline and said, "Clearly, your son got polio from the vaccine." Of course, we were 00:06:00devastated. But to be honest with you, the damage--whether you call it polio or anything else, he was damaged. But now we knew we had this new problem to deal with. They said, well, for the rest of his life, he's going to have get infusions of gamma globulin a couple times a week in order to survive. So we geared ourselves up accordingly.

I think maybe out of a sense of frustration and as part of our coping skills, we had to do something. You just couldn't accept that your kid---you brought your kid to the pediatrician one day, a seemingly healthy baby, and then the next day your kid got polio. We were part and parcel to that, certainly not with any malicious intent, but just trying to do the right thing. I think in order to 00:07:00deal with it, I had to find out more about it. So back then we didn't have the Internet to do all of our research on, so I went to the library, and I read up and discovered that there were two polio vaccines out there- what's called the oral polio vaccine, which was what David received, and that's a live virus, and then there's the inactivated, or what they call IPV [inactivated polio vaccine], the original Jonas Salk vaccine--and that for convenience, many years ago, and expense, they changed over to an all-OPV [oral polio vaccine] schedule. And it was a good thing, I think, at the time. They decided that the vaccine of choice to deal with a polio epidemic was the oral polio vaccine. You could line kids up, give them this sweet sugar cube, and you also had the benefits of what they called the herd effect, others within the community might actually get some form 00:08:00of immunization because you've immunized one. And that really was a system that worked very well for us for decades.

Then, of course, we got to the point--in 1979, I believe it was--when they said, great, we no longer have wild polio in America. It was a reason to celebrate. But no one was bringing up the point that every year--and I found this out later on, because I had no idea--kids and some adults were getting polio from the oral polio vaccine, either because they had compromised immune systems or maybe they were a little sick at the time. And so they were getting polio, they say, well, maybe a dozen a year. Of course, that's only a dozen reported a year, keeping in mind that many of these cases were not properly diagnosed because doctors didn't 00:09:00really know what to look for. I mean, most doctors today, and even twenty years ago, had never seen a case of polio. So they were misdiagnosed, oftentimes.

TORGHELE: How did David's polio diagnosis impact his childhood?

SALAMONE: Well, you know, the thing is, I think for any child who has--I hate to use the word handicapped, but physical issues from literally birth--they never know anything else. So he really acted like a pretty normal kid, was able to put that brace on and off with ease. I think it only became more apparent to him when he started to go to school. I'll never forget when he came home one day in elementary school and he said to me, "Dad, what's a gimp?" At first I choked, 00:10:00and then I wanted to cry, because it was a realization that he was not going to be normal. He couldn't be normal. He wasn't going to [be] playing baseball with those other kids, he wasn't going to be doing all those activities that you associate with growing up. So we really focused for him on things that were a little bit more academic. When he went to elementary school, he went to a Spanish immersion elementary school. Actually, half of his day was taught in Spanish, so he's fluent in Spanish. He was interested in computers, so he was at every computer camp you can imagine. We were going to make sure that he had enough other things to keep him active and interested, that the fact that he had this minor problem wasn't going to impact his life. He was going to be a normal 00:11:00kid, and that was our goal.

But as we go back to the issue in trying to make it so other kids did not have to experience what David experienced, I knew that--from research that we did at the library--that in 1991 the ACIP--which is the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, an organization I got to know much better going forward--that they actually started a discussion in 1991 on the need for some action to deal with vaccine-associated paralytic polio. They knew it was happening. These cases were being handled by a vaccine commission. As you know, there was legislation back in 1988 in the Congress that created a compensation 00:12:00commission, a compensation fund, so that a percentage of every vaccine that was sold, that money went into a compensation fund to handle people who had vaccine injuries. Which, by the way--we found out about this program only years after we found out David had polio, and he benefited from that program. It's not a windfall. I mean, I think his pain and suffering was $150,000. And then it assured his medical bills being covered for the rest of his life. And we did that. They started--as I mentioned, ACIP started this discussion back in 1991, but then it just kind of died.

TORGHELE: And David was born in 1990, is that right?

SALAMONE: He was born in 1990. So literally the next year, the year he was 00:13:00diagnosed--no, I'm sorry, he wasn't diagnosed until two and a half years old, because nobody could figure it out until then. But the year that he really contracted the polio, that it did really set in, was the year that ACIP was having their discussions about, "We probably should look at this." And then it just kind of lay dormant for years.

I can't necessarily fault them. There were many other things going on, and they have to deal with many vaccines and outbreaks. And this was kind of under control here in many people's minds: Look at this, we took a disease that was overwhelming, scaring people to go into public parks and to swimming pools, and we took this and we managed to control it just by giving kids this little sugar cube. This little sweet syrup. So it was a great accomplishment. The thing is, 00:14:00we didn't take time to look at what I call the risk-benefit ratio at a certain point: Okay, now that we've eradicated wild polio, we still have polio, and the only polio that's out there is coming from the very vaccine we developed to fight it, so something's wrong with this from a risk-benefit ratio. That decision should've been made in 1979 when we eradicated wild polio, but instead there was this comfort level. I mean, it was cheap, it was easy, nobody was making a stink, so it continued.

But when David got it, I was determined it was not going to continue, and I started to write. I'm a journalist by degree, so I had to use what I had. I 00:15:00worked in the Congress for a while, and I used that. I wrote to the Congress, I wrote to the White House, I wrote to the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention]. I expressed my concern that there shouldn't be any future cases of polio from the very vaccine designed to prevent it, that there was a safer polio vaccine out there, the now modified and improved IPV, the modification of the original Salk vaccine. So why aren't we using that vaccine? Why are we risking any cases of polio in America? How can we really say we eradicated polio in America when dozens of kids were getting polio every year from the vaccine? So it was a battle that kind of fell on deaf ears. I'd say no meaningful action was 00:16:00taken. It went on for maybe a year of writing letters or so.

So I decided that another approach--and it was to take my case, if you will, to the public. So I started to write to newspapers, broadcast media, and I spent many days researching, realizing this was just my battle now. And who am I? I researched and found dozens of other families who had vaccine-associated paralytic polio, what we call VAPP. And it wasn't easy, because the CDC wasn't going to provide me with that information. They'll provide you with statistics, they will not give you names and addresses and all that. So I looked for articles with the keyword polio, and all over the United States. And then somebody would tell me about somebody else, and before you know it, I compiled 00:17:00this database of these families. I decided that I had to do something with them at some point, and so we started to meet, we started to talk, we exchanged notes. We talked about different doctors that might help, but better doctors for braces that we could recommend to each other, certain physical therapy things that were working better for our child. And the communication really was a wonderful thing, to find out you weren't alone out there, and there were others that were experiencing the same thing you were experiencing.

Then out of the blue, in 1995, June, I was invited to testify at the Institute of Medicine Conference in Washington, D.C. It was the first time I had ever publicly spoken about David. I didn't know what to expect, but to my surprise there were cameras there, there was media there. The next day AP [Associated 00:18:00Press] ran a story, and they focused on David. His story. And it went viral. Literally hundreds of newspapers picked it up. Then I was asked to be interviewed many times, and further questions, and USA Today is calling and they want to do a story, and suddenly--and there was this newfound interest. I apologize, I'll have to look at my notes because it's a complicated timeline, but in June--that same month, after all that--I saw there's going to be a meeting of ACIP in Atlanta, and this is our opportunity. So I communicated back with all those families, my new-discovered friends, and now my family, and I said, we need to go down. And a dozen of our families, at their own expense, 00:19:00came down to the CDC--wheelchairs, crutches, braces--rolled into the ACIP meeting and we testified. We talked to them.

I have to admit, up until this time I looked at ACIP as this group of doctors who just didn't get it. They didn't understand. I mean, after all, how many years had gone by and they still were clinging to this old science, holding onto it, not changing. But as I was testifying and I looked down at these members, I could've sworn I saw a tear in a couple of eyes. I mean, they really got it. By the time we were done with that meeting, they voted, and they decided, we're going to start working toward what they called a sequential schedule. A 00:20:00part-IPV, part-OPV--maybe in the early years IPV, and then later on OPV, so they could "reduce" or have some impact on vaccine-associated paralytic polio. So it was our first little victory, if you will, realizing that it would take years, more, and a lot more work before we could take it to the next step.

Shortly after, the Washington Post, on their health section full-page cover, there's David, all about the story. And that just kind of, again, kept this momentum going, and you could tell that people at the CDC, everybody was kind of feeling it now. And in fact, the next month I get a letter from the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Donna Shalala, asking me to serve on an advisory 00:21:00commission on childhood vaccines, which I thought was great because I felt I was representing all those other families. It was kind of the start of my getting into that camp, if you will, a little bit, and gaining a respect for that camp also, and the dedication of the people in that camp.

In June 1996, exactly one year after they decided to review the idea of a sequential schedule--or an enhanced role, I should say, for IPV--the ACIP officially recommended the sequential schedule for polio vaccinations that would include both, again, IPV and OPV. The recommendation now goes to the director of the CDC, Dr. David Satcher, for him to sign off on, approve. Normally a 00:22:00formality, candidly, because he recognizes that experts had been looking at this for years. Don't ask me why we kept waiting. We kept waiting. Two months later, still waiting. I was a little frustrated that it hadn't been signed off on yet. And the advantage of living and working in Washington for decades is you know people. And I knew Leon [E.] Panetta. Leon Panetta was a former member of Congress who I was with when I worked in the Congress in the '70s, and now he was the chief of staff to President [William J.] Bill Clinton. So I called him up and said, Leon, I got to meet with you. I went to the White House. I explained everything to him. I said, we're waiting, Leon. I need the White House to weigh in on this. And he did. Two weeks later, it was signed off on, and 00:23:00officially went into effect--the sequential schedule. Our first victory tied up, put into a bow.

But I do have to tell you, I was wondering why--and you can feel free to edit this out if you want--but I was wondering why this long delay between ACIP deciding that we need to do this, we've approved it, we've voted on it, and months and months later it finally gets signed off on. And I realized there was very strong lobbying going on here, because even when we testified before the ACIP, I recall that those who were testifying against changes in the polio 00:24:00vaccine policy were "concerned citizens" who are coming down--who, after I was there for a while, I found out that they just weren't coming down on their own dime, they were being paid to come down by the very pharmaceutical company that stood to lose a $230-million-a-year business producing oral polio vaccine. So you knew that that exclusive producer of that vaccine was not going to give up easy.

So the argument now that was still going on after ACIP made its recommendations was that, well, you know, this is just another injection, and so that's going to impact our inner cities: fewer people are going to get vaccinated. Our vaccinations being down, more people are going to get chronic illnesses. And this is really going to impact on the black community. The African American community is going to have reduced immunizations, and so we really should think 00:25:00twice, Mr. Director--Mr. African American Director of the CDC, who might have a special concern that this could impact the African American community. Now, I can't give you anything in black or white that that's what delayed this, but I do know that that was going around, because I had a number of people who had expressed that to me. In any case, it's what happens in the end that counts. And it was a beginning.

TORGHELE: You told me how you got the people on the committee to ask a particular set of questions that would clarify who those people were and why they were there.

SALAMONE: Well, what happened was, as I was getting ready to testify, I sat next to a gentleman and we started to talk. And we didn't get into too much dialogue, except that I was able to introduce myself as John Salamone, whose son got polio from the vaccine. The next day some guy runs over to him and says, hey, you 00:26:00better be ready, this guy John Salamone from Washington whose son got polio is going to be testifying, and he's brought all these other families with him. But don't worry, we have it covered with our people. Of course, he didn't realize that John Salamone was right there, sitting next to his boss, who worked for Wyeth-Ayerst [Pharmaceuticals], the producer of the oral polio vaccine.

So when I went up to testify, I looked at the members and I said to them, you know, I want to tell you a story. I told them about the story of the young man coming over and running and talking to the Wyeth-Ayerst's representative. I said, I can tell you right now that I paid for my way here. Every one of these families and their children in wheelchairs paid their way here. All that I ask is that before you allow anyone to testify before this commission, this committee, that you ask them: Did you pay for your own trip here, did anyone 00:27:00reimburse you for expenses related to your testimony here today? I said, just do me that favor. And they did. And sure enough, one after one after another, they had to admit that their trips were paid for, they were bought and sold. Of course, they had zero credibility, which I'd like to think contributed to our passionate testimony on the other side. Because we had nothing financially to gain here. All that we want--our kids were already impacted. Our only interest, our only concern, was for the next kid. It was too late for us.

But I guess the point is, it took a year and a half for ACIP to finally go from the point of their deciding that this had to happen to when it finally happened. You know, if I have one criticism, it's the wheels move so slow. Every year. Every month. Every day. Their delaying meant another kid was getting polio from the vaccine. And the passion had to be there. There had to be something to make them move faster. And even so, you know, I'm greedy. We got to the point where we got the sequential schedule, and you'd think I'd be happy and that would be it. But no, because even with the sequential schedule, a certain percentage of 00:29:00kids--mind you, maybe it's only that one in a million, but if it's your kid it's one in one--a certain percentage of kids were still going to get polio from the vaccine, and there was no excuse for it. So from the day they passed that sequential schedule, we began the fight for an all-IPV schedule. We formalized, if you will, an organization, Informed Parents Against VAPP. I humbly placed myself as president and gave official roles as vice president, secretary, to different families affected by VAPP. And we proceeded with our next mission.

TORGHELE: Can you talk a little bit about the range of effects that other families had from the polio vaccine on their children?

SALAMONE: Yes. As bad as we thought David was, when I met these other families, 00:30:00you realized that we really needed to count our blessings. I mean, there was Gordon Pearson, whose family came in from--I believe it was Illinois. And Gordon was in a wheelchair. Gordon never spoke, could never hear, couldn't eat. His parents were--they had six children, and they needed twenty-four-hour nursing care for him. He couldn't even breathe properly. He was on a respirator. I think I could be wrong, but I think he's still alive, which is amazing. They actually 00:31:00managed to somehow get him a high school degree. They were devoted to Gordon. And there were other children in wheelchairs, and some were fortunate enough to just have to deal with their braces. Some were more impacted with their breathing and their lungs. So it really ran the gamut, which has always been the case with polio. It hit people different ways. It's a terrible, devastating disease, and God bless the scientific community and the CDC and these committees for the work they're doing to not just eradicate polio, but other diseases.

I never understood how--and I've dealt with these people who have said, well, 00:32:00you know, vaccines are bad. And they started rumors about, you know, you can get--from the mumps, rubella, or pertussis, you can get autism. Zero scientific basis. At least what I was discussing had full scientific statistical backing. But you want to talk risk-benefit ratio? If you don't have vaccines in the world, it would not be a very pleasant world to be in. We are very fortunate. And so instead of becoming an anti-vaccine person, I became a pro-safe-vaccine person. But I became as much a champion of universal vaccinations, even though 00:33:00my son suffered, than anyone could be.

TORGHELE: You also knew of cases of parents who got polio from being passed from their children who'd been vaccinated with the live vaccine, is that right?

SALAMONE: Yeah. In fact, it's interesting. I did my research, and I live in Virginia. I discovered that my lieutenant governor, John [H.] Hager, has polio that he contracted by changing his child's diaper who had just received the oral polio vaccine. So there are adults who get polio from the vaccine also indirectly. The Hagers have become very good friends of ours. They live only about an hour from our house in Virginia. Their son married Jenna Bush, who is 00:34:00on NBC now, and, as you know, her name is Jenna Bush-Hager, and just a wonderful family. The great thing about this project is that we really got to meet some wonderful people. And I include among those people doctors that I met, not only the ones that cared for David, but the ones who served on the commissions with me to deal with the vaccine issues across America. Now, mind you, when I served on those commissions, it was broader than just polio at that time. Because polio really--we had gotten it under control, which is a good thing. But I really 00:35:00gained a lot of respect for the professionals who work in this field. Anyway--and maybe wish that I'd become that doctor my grandmother wanted me to be.

TORGHELE: When you were working with ACIP and got used to their system, were there things about it that frustrated you? I know that the time it took to make decisions and to change things was a big frustration. Were there other things in the way they worked that you would've changed?

SALAMONE: I'm sorry. Would you repeat that? I was looking at my notes.

TORGHELE: When you started with ACIP, when you went to give testimony and became so actively involved and watched how their proceedings went, were there things you would have changed that you think would have improved the process?

SALAMONE: I'll be the first to admit, I was the first layman, the first "consumer representative" to serve on ACIP. I was surrounded by some of the most 00:36:00brilliant doctors in the world. So I was a little intimidated. Far be it from me to say what I would change. I do know this, that any of these commissions are very dependent on the private sector, because, let's face it, the government doesn't produce vaccines, the private sector does. So if you want expertise, you want information, you have to have this relationship with the private sector, if only for the technical knowledge that you get from them. So at these meetings, while the members sat in a large table horseshoe, a few seats back were all of those pharma representatives, which was a little uncomfortable also. In fact, we 00:37:00would have votes that certain members of the commission said, well, I can't vote on that, because I received a grant from such and such pharmaceutical company and so I'm recusing myself from voting. And I understood that and appreciated that they did it, but it happened a lot. And I began to realize that there is this cozy relationship with the pharmaceutical industry, which is not necessarily an evil thing, it's a necessary thing, but we always have to be careful. And I wouldn't doubt that to a certain extent, the delay in changing vaccines that would remove a major, major business from one company and effectively deliver to another company, you know, could be something that members give a second thought to. But in the end, they'll do the right thing, 00:38:00and they did the right thing.

It just took longer than it should've taken. We shouldn't have had to fight that hard. We shouldn't have had to work that hard. I felt I was very Pollyanna. I thought that once we present it to them, once we march in there, manna will fall from heaven and it'll all be good. It's a process, and I went through the process patiently, but I would've rather done it a lot quicker. I had to still support my family while starting a movement, if you will. It was a lot of time, a lot of effort. A lot of reward. I have to admit, I've done some pretty good things in my life, and it's not over yet, but I'm retirement age. And I think I told my wife, you know, as much as I've been fortunate enough to meet every 00:39:00president since 1976, to work with the greatest celebrities in the world, to raise millions and millions of dollars for charities as part of my work, on my tombstone, I think the thing I would like to be written is, "He made a difference and saved children."

TORGHELE: That would be a very well-earned inscription, may I say. I have talked to more than one person in this project who has said that you single-handedly came in and changed them overnight. During this process, when you were involved with ACIP, there must've been some input from the medical associations. Can you 00:40:00talk a little bit about that?

SALAMONE: I always kept a close eye on the AAP, the Association of [American] Pediatricians. Because they're really the front lines. So whatever they did, I wanted to make sure what they were recommending, what they were saying. So as I told you, they were always a little behind the ACIP, because, I mean, their members are doctors who'd never seen a case of polio, for the most part, so they didn't get it. They didn't understand. Why are we changing this? Why are we fixing it? It ain't broken. And now you're making me give another shot. So it was a little slow getting them along. But finally, in January 1999, AAP called for the sequential schedule for polio vaccine vaccinations, and they stated they expected that there would be an all-IPV schedule by 2001. So we had really made 00:41:00a lot of progress. But we still weren't making--there was nothing official that was going to be making that happen. So I decided to kind of push a little bit more.

My background was in Congress, so I arranged and testified before the Congress, before the committee oversight of something or other, but indirectly it had to do with the CDC. I testified to them in favor of legislation that would require the CDC to adopt an all-IPV schedule. And there was an actual legislation introduced in the Congress. I got hold of members of Congress, friends of mine who were in the Congress, to co-sign. It was getting some momentum. Well, and 00:42:00I'm not sure if this prompted things any more, but that year the ACIP came back and they finally voted in favor of an all-IPV schedule. It was not officially recommended to go into effect, I think, until January 2000. But the most important thing to realize--and we have the statistics to show it, that from that day forward there never was another case of vaccine-associated paralytic polio in America. And there still isn't, and there will never be again, and that's really what it's all about. Kids.

Anyway, the National Vaccine Advisory Committee asked me--I was asked to serve 00:43:00on that commission. I later on became the vice chairman of that commission, and this had to do with the compensation program which our son was a beneficiary of. I served on that commission, and then the official recommendation was published, I believe--I can't tell you the exact date, but in 2000. The official MMWR [Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report] of the CDC published the changes, but in the end it took, when you think about it--so that was 2000, the discussion began in 1991 at ACIP, so it took almost a decade for us to finally get to an all-IPV 00:44:00program. Again, my only complaint. And I have some nerve to complain, because we changed something, and it's a wonderful thing that we changed it. But we did it, and David did it, and all of these kids who got polio from the vaccine did it. The lieutenant governor of Virginia did it, because all of us put a face to a disease that shouldn't have happened. It changed history--vaccine history, anyway, which is our little corner of the world. So we're happy and proud about that.

In 2002, I was asked by the Secretary of Health and Human Services to serve as 00:45:00the first layman, the first consumer representative, on the ACIP. The very commission that I testified before a number of years before. Little did I know that I would be sitting there with them now and receiving testimony, but it's a good thing. Actually, ever since then they've made sure they always have a consumer representative on ACIP. It's a positive thing. These are brilliant, brilliant men and women, but once in a while you've got to have somebody from the other side to just interject. Let them know that there's other things going on out there beyond this scientific community. There's people with faces like our kids.

In 2010--I jumped ahead--Dr. Paul [A.] Offit, who became a very good friend, 00:46:00published a book entitled Deadly Choices. He devoted a section of that book, pages 79 to 83, to the vaccine education and changes in the schedule that were worked through with our group. I think he liked to talk about us because he realized that here there were all these families, devastating impact from a vaccine, yet in unison they will say to you, we believe in a universal vaccine program. So I think it was something he felt he had to include in the book, and we're grateful that he did. Today, the World Health Organization recommends 00:47:00that, in countries throughout the world that still rely on oral polio vaccine--as well they should, if they have a lot of cases of polio, because the right vaccine for the right time, and that is the right vaccine for many of these third-world countries that are still experiencing wild polio. The World Health Organization said, well, three years after you've come to the conclusion that there is no more wild polio in your country, that's when you should think about changing over to an IPV, a dead virus, so that you do not have vaccine-associated polio as your only cause of polio. I calculated that since wild polio was eradicated in 1979, that we should've done that in 1982. So we're a couple of decades behind. But we did it, and that's a good thing, and that's a happy ending to this story.

TORGHELE: What do you think about the possibility of polio being eliminated from the human population soon?

SALAMONE: I think it's wonderful. Again, I think the important thing is in every--country by country, as they conclude that it's been eradicated--and my understanding is that that now represents--a lot of countries have been totally eradicated--that they automatically--and I like to think that they learned a lesson from America, they're not going to wait twenty years--that within a few months, a year, you better change it over to IPV so that you don't have to look children in the face and look at the faces of their parents and say, I'm sorry, we just didn't change over fast enough. So I think it's wonderful, and I think 00:49:00as we're making this transition, let's just make sure we educate people, that we educate those who make those decisions on vaccines, that the decisions not be dictated by, well, you know, that little sugar cube is real easy, and it sure is a lot cheaper than that injection. That we make decisions based on those kids, not on the bottom line.

TORGHELE: And you also pointed out that each of the numbers represented in their statistics was represented by a face and a life.

SALAMONE: That's right.

TORGHELE: You showed them. Do you have any final thoughts as we wind up that you would like to convey?

SALAMONE: I would say that I'm pleased and surprised that the CDC has taken the initiative to chronicle, to archive this very important part of our vaccine 00:50:00story in America. Because I think from stories like this you learn, and we make sure that we do things a little bit better. We let generations in the future know that this is how we did it, this is how we could do it better, but in the end the system can work. And always make sure you don't forget it's about the people, not the companies. As long as you keep that in mind, we'll be a better country, we'll be a better world.

TORGHELE: Thank you. Do you also want to say a word or two about David? He 00:51:00wanted to be here very much to tell his story.

SALAMONE: He did. Unfortunately, polio is the least of David's problems. As I mentioned earlier, he was born without half of his immune system. He's lived for the past twenty-five years or so on gamma globulin infusions. They've taken a toll on his body. Two years ago his kidneys shut down. He's on dialysis. He was a candidate for a kidney transplant, but his liver became so diseased from his treatment that he couldn't survive a transplant. So they're now dealing with his liver disease and his spleen, and he's under the care of the best doctors at NIH 00:52:00[National Institutes of Health]. They're on their third experimental treatment, and we just hope and pray that something is going to work, because I think David has a lot to give to the world. I think that if David left us tomorrow, he would say that the most important thing that he ever did was preventing other kids from getting polio.

TORGHELE: And we will talk to him in the future and get his story as well, because I know how important that is to him and to you. I just want to thank you so much. I mentioned before that I've talked to several scientists who named you as the person who changed their mind overnight about the vaccine policy that 00:53:00saved those children from getting paralytic polio. You had a unique set of skills and experience and the drive to do it, and not many people can. Thank you so much.

SALAMONE: Thank you.