In 1955, Jonas Salk developed a polio vaccine, and immediately five laboratories started making the vaccine.
Shortly before the vaccine was due to be released to the public, it was sent to Dr. Bernice Eddy at NIH to safe-test. Her finding was shocking; she found that the vaccine itself could cause paralysis. She warned of an upcoming tragedy with that vaccine, yet the pro-vaxxers insisted on barreling ahead.
One of the those who barreled ahead with this vaccine was the famous Dr. Alton Ochsner from New Orleans. He had holdings in one of the laboratories producing the vaccine and refused to believe that the vaccine was dangerous. In 1955 Ochsner assured a group of physicians at Tulane Medical School that the Salk vaccine was safe. Ochsner said he wouldn’t ask them to support something he wasn’t willing to use on his own family and that he was going to give his two grandchildren the Salk vaccine right there in front of them. Which he did.
A few days later, his 30-month-old grandson was dead; and his granddaughter had polio. An attending physician to the grandson also contracted polio and was crippled.