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In August 1954, Dr. Bernice Eddy had been testing a batch of polio vaccines from Cutter Laboratories and she noticed that the vaccine had given polio to a test monkey. She found that three of the six samples had paralyzed test monkeys. She knew something was wrong and brought it to the attention of her supervisor, William Workman. Because of the previous polio epidemics and the race to create a vaccine, Dr. Eddy and her team had been working around the clock testing the Salk vaccine. Amidst the scientific and bureaucratic chaos, Workman never told the licensing committee, and the Cutter vaccine was approved and shipped out. In the spring of 1955, the year following a field trial that showed the Salk inactivated (killed) polio vaccine to be safe and effective, DBS licensed several firms to produce the vaccine. One, Cutter Laboratories, accidentally released vaccine that retained live polio virus, resulting in 260 paralytic cases of the disease, a disaster that caused panic among parents and scientists alike. Amidst the controversy, Dr. Eddy was relieved of her polio control testing duties in 1955 but continued to work in biologics.

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