Every Sunday, “Back in the Day” looks at an article that ran on this date in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. The items are verbatim, so don’t blame us today for yesteryear’s bad grammar
An 18-calorie addition to the diet next month is the goal of a group of doctors, legislator, businessmen and educators.
And during "Operation Swallow" on October 14, they hope to get 600,000 Hawaii residents to swallow those calories as well.
The calories are in each lump of sugar on which Sabin oral vaccine to combat Type I polio will be distributed during "Operation Swallow."
More than 500 members of the State and Honolulu Medical Associa- tions are sponsoring the distribution of the medicated cubes along with the State Department of Health.
Money for free polio vaccine to children under 18 — others will be asked to donate 50 cents — was appropriated by the State legislature. The bill for $75,000 was passed in 1960.
The sugar cubes — six and a half tons for more than 600,000 State residents — were donated by the Hawaii Sugar Planters Association. …
Sixty-five public elementary schools on Oahu and those on Neighbor Islands will be used as the distribution points.
Such an all-out effort may seem uncalled for since Hawaii has fortunately had no polio cases to date this year and had only six cases last year.
But though the polio epidemics which struck Hawaii and other areas in the early 1950s have subsided, they aren’t a thing of the past. For example, Japan was struck with a large polio outbreak last year and Texas had an epidemic last spring.
The communities which were struck had the protection of Salk vaccine.
So does Hawaii, where individuals can still receive shots from their physicians.
The Salk vaccine insurance worked; polio dropped from the ranks of the top, most worrisome diseases.
The worry is gone … but polio isn’t.
The new Sabin vaccine, which can be taken by mouth and need not be repeated, appears to be the final answer.
It is actually three separate vaccines, one to combat each type of polio. Each vaccine is taken in one swallow and the October 14 date will be the first of three.
