n 1969, a debate took place between John M. Neff, MD, and Samuel Lawrence Katz, MD, on whether to continue to immunize children against smallpox given that, at the time, the disease was under control in the country. (Think of polio today, where it is found only in areas of Central Asia, yet children in the United States and other countries continue to receive the vaccine.) The debate was televised and archived by the US National Library of Medicine.
Because of vaccination of pets and other animals in the United States, as well as a robust surveillance system to find rabid animals and control the spread of the disease, it has been years since a resident of the United States contracted rabies domestically.
It is National Immunization Awareness Month in the United States, and we are kicking it off with a television interview that Dr. Jonas Salk, creator of the injected polio vaccine, gave to James Day in the Public Television program Day at Night on April 28, 1974. The interview runs about 28 minutes.