Person Preferred Name

Thomas Milton Rivers

Salk Poliomyelitis Vaccine Telecast - Thomas M. Rivers, Jonas Salk, Hart Edgar Van Riper

Image

Dr. Thomas M. Rivers discussing the Salk poliomyelitis vaccine with Dr. Jonas Salk and Dr. Hart Edgar Van Riper. 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, developer of the poliomyelitis vaccine, received his MD from New York University College of Medicine in 1939.