Salk Poliomyelitis Vaccine Telecast - Basil O'Connor

Photograph of Mr. Basil O’Connor, head of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (later the March of Dimes), reading Mrs. Hobby’s licensing message during the live telecast on the development of the poliomyelitis vaccine. The woman in the center foreground holds up cue cards for Mr. O’Connor. The names of the manufacturers are printed on the cards in four-inch size lettering.

The photograph was taken on April 12, 1955, during the live telecast informing the American public that the field trial to test the inactivated polio vaccine was successful. The telecast was filmed at Rackham Hall at the University of Michigan. Eli Lilly & Co. funded the hour and a half long broadcast, narrated by Bob Emerick. It was watched by an estimated 54,000 doctors in special screenings in movie theaters and heard by millions of people around the world on the radio.

Dr. Jonas Salk (not pictured), developer of the poliomyelitis vaccine, received his MD from New York University College of Medicine in 1939.