Post by Catsmate on Jun 8, 2020 12:19:28 GMT
Adapting Greenshaw’s Folly
Inspired by re-watching the Julia McKenzie television adaption of this Agatha Christie short story, utterly different from the original story but interesting and quite atmospheric.
One of the plot-lines is the legacy of Septimus Greenshaw; a scientist who, decades earlier, had been working to develop a polio vaccine. A process that involved experimenting on children, experiments that left many of them paralyzed or dead.
But they were orphans so no-one really cared that much.
This reminded me of the historical process of developing a polio vaccine and specifically the work of Kolmer and Brodie in the 1930s which mixed tragedy, unethical experimentation and a missed opportunity. The two separate programmes to develop a polio vaccine were both showcased at the 1935 annual meeting of the American Public Health Association (held in Milwaukee, the Milwaukee Auditorium and Hotel Schroeder, from 7th to 10th November).
First to present was Professor John Kolmer of Temple University in Philadelphia. He had developed an attenuated poliovirus vaccine which had been tested on about 10,000 children across much of the United States and Canada, most of them in schools and orphanages. There was no control group and at least five of those inoculated had died (later research suggests at least twenty deaths) and more had been paralysed (though Kolmer acknowledged only ten such). Many of the infections had occurred in areas without other polio cases, suggesting the vaccine itself was responsible, especially given that many of the paralysis cases were of the arms in which the injected was made. His vaccine used an attenuated strain of polio, where animals were infected and mutated and (hopefully) harmless virus particles harvested.
Reception was, to put it mildly, poor; there were numerous objections to his research and one delegate called Kolmer a murderer to his face. His poor experiment design, without a control group to compare infection rates, also made deductions from his research difficult.
Unfortunately for him, Dr. Maurice Brodie was scheduled to speak immediately after Pr. Kolmer, also on the subject of vaccine development. Brodie was much younger than Kolmer (only 30 when he presented) and was employed as a researcher at New York University and by the New York City Health Department. His work on a polio vaccine was based on an inactivated (dead, killed by formaldehyde) form of polio and was initially tested on monkeys, then on Brodie and his fellow researchers, and later on about 7,500 children and adults, accompanied by a control group of about 4,500 people.
Hi results were good; the infection rate in those inoculated was tiny, only one confirmed case in the trial group compared to five in the smaller control group. This suggested a reasonably safe and >80% effective vaccine. Unfortunately in the immediate aftermath of Kolmer’s hostile reception his vaccine was seen in a similar light and also condemned, a hastily drawn conclusion that was delay a polio vaccine for decades.
The reaction to Kolmer's experimentation killed off polio research in the United States for more than a decade.
Game uses.
1. The earlier development of an effective polio vaccine would be an interesting alteration in history. If Kolmer was prevented from presenting and Brodie (perhaps with research efforts augmented by some outside assistance) showed a promising avenue for developing such a vaccine thousands of lives and cases of paralysis could have been saved.
2. One thing that's noticeable, and to modern sensibilities jarring, in the history of polio research is phrases like:
... [the] vaccine was tested for the first time on an 8-year-old boy living at Letchworth Village, an institution for the physically and mentally disabled...
and
...the vaccine was tested at and the Watson Home for Crippled Children in Pittsburgh...
Ethical standard were different back then, and there were plenty of other dubious experiments.
In the Whoviverse there could have been other dubious experimentation; recovered alien technology, genetic 'enhancements' and cybernetics for example. The game could easily feature someone who'd been the subject of such procedures. Perhaps damaged or dangerous, perhaps being pursued to silence (or recover) them.
Comments? Ideas? Suggestions?
Inspired by re-watching the Julia McKenzie television adaption of this Agatha Christie short story, utterly different from the original story but interesting and quite atmospheric.
One of the plot-lines is the legacy of Septimus Greenshaw; a scientist who, decades earlier, had been working to develop a polio vaccine. A process that involved experimenting on children, experiments that left many of them paralyzed or dead.
But they were orphans so no-one really cared that much.
This reminded me of the historical process of developing a polio vaccine and specifically the work of Kolmer and Brodie in the 1930s which mixed tragedy, unethical experimentation and a missed opportunity. The two separate programmes to develop a polio vaccine were both showcased at the 1935 annual meeting of the American Public Health Association (held in Milwaukee, the Milwaukee Auditorium and Hotel Schroeder, from 7th to 10th November).
First to present was Professor John Kolmer of Temple University in Philadelphia. He had developed an attenuated poliovirus vaccine which had been tested on about 10,000 children across much of the United States and Canada, most of them in schools and orphanages. There was no control group and at least five of those inoculated had died (later research suggests at least twenty deaths) and more had been paralysed (though Kolmer acknowledged only ten such). Many of the infections had occurred in areas without other polio cases, suggesting the vaccine itself was responsible, especially given that many of the paralysis cases were of the arms in which the injected was made. His vaccine used an attenuated strain of polio, where animals were infected and mutated and (hopefully) harmless virus particles harvested.
Reception was, to put it mildly, poor; there were numerous objections to his research and one delegate called Kolmer a murderer to his face. His poor experiment design, without a control group to compare infection rates, also made deductions from his research difficult.
- Kolmer’s bio at the AAI does not mention his polio research.
Unfortunately for him, Dr. Maurice Brodie was scheduled to speak immediately after Pr. Kolmer, also on the subject of vaccine development. Brodie was much younger than Kolmer (only 30 when he presented) and was employed as a researcher at New York University and by the New York City Health Department. His work on a polio vaccine was based on an inactivated (dead, killed by formaldehyde) form of polio and was initially tested on monkeys, then on Brodie and his fellow researchers, and later on about 7,500 children and adults, accompanied by a control group of about 4,500 people.
Hi results were good; the infection rate in those inoculated was tiny, only one confirmed case in the trial group compared to five in the smaller control group. This suggested a reasonably safe and >80% effective vaccine. Unfortunately in the immediate aftermath of Kolmer’s hostile reception his vaccine was seen in a similar light and also condemned, a hastily drawn conclusion that was delay a polio vaccine for decades.
- Salk’s 1952 research followed similar lines.
The reaction to Kolmer's experimentation killed off polio research in the United States for more than a decade.
Game uses.
1. The earlier development of an effective polio vaccine would be an interesting alteration in history. If Kolmer was prevented from presenting and Brodie (perhaps with research efforts augmented by some outside assistance) showed a promising avenue for developing such a vaccine thousands of lives and cases of paralysis could have been saved.
- One of the key developments in the history of the Salk vaccine was the ability to grow the vaccine in cultured human cells, something first demonstrated in 1948 when Thomas Weller made use of surplus material to make the attempt. This could have been done years earlier.
- Perhaps one of those saved by an earlier vaccine goes on to significantly alter history?
2. One thing that's noticeable, and to modern sensibilities jarring, in the history of polio research is phrases like:
... [the] vaccine was tested for the first time on an 8-year-old boy living at Letchworth Village, an institution for the physically and mentally disabled...
and
...the vaccine was tested at and the Watson Home for Crippled Children in Pittsburgh...
Ethical standard were different back then, and there were plenty of other dubious experiments.
In the Whoviverse there could have been other dubious experimentation; recovered alien technology, genetic 'enhancements' and cybernetics for example. The game could easily feature someone who'd been the subject of such procedures. Perhaps damaged or dangerous, perhaps being pursued to silence (or recover) them.
Comments? Ideas? Suggestions?