Fifty years ago a team of doctorsand nurses from the Nova Sco-tia Department of Health and

Dalhousie University conducted whatbecame known as the WedgeportPolio Trial in which the oral trivalentSabin vaccine was administered to anentire community in Southwest NovaScotia. The results of the field trialwere published in this journal in1962;1 50 years on the trial is part ofCanadian medical history. As CMAJcelebrates one hundred years of pub-lishing medical research in Canada itis interesting to look at the trial fromthe perspective of the distinguishedphotojournalist, Bob Brooks, whoaccompanied the researchers on theirrounds in March 1961.

Canada experienced great lossesfrom paralytic polio epidemics in the20th century. By 1934, almost half ofCanada’s disabled population could belinked to polio and in 1953, the year ofthe worst outbreak in Canadian history,almost 9000 cases were reported.2

While the injectable Salk vaccinehelped control some of the epidemic, itdid not stop all outbreaks, and moreaggressive polio immunization cam-paigns were needed. Connaught Med-ical Laboratories, now Sanofi Pasteur,had been developing the trivalent Sabinvaccine (available at the time only inthe United States), and this promptedfield studies in Manitoba, Saskatchewanand Nova Scotia, which were pivotal inencouraging the licensing of the Sabinvaccine in Canada.

In Nova Scotia, Dr. C.E. vanRooyen, Professor of Bacteriology andAssociate Provincial Bacteriologist atDalhousie University, and Dr. VernonRideout, Director of the Western NovaScotia Health Unit of the ProvincialDepartment of Health, headed the teamdestined for Wedgeport, an Acadianfishing community in YarmouthCounty. Wedgeport (with the neigh-bouring community of Comeau’s Hill)

© 2011 Canadian Medical Association or its licensors CMAJ 1

Immunization from a photographic perspective: the 1961 polio trial in Nova Scotia

100 Years CMAJ

Dr. C.E. van Rooyen, Professor of Bacteriology at Dalhousie University [left] and Dr. Ver-non Rideout, Director of Public Health for Western Nova Scotia with a map of Wedge-port at the start of the trial.

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Early release, published at www.cmaj.ca on April 4, 2011. Subject to revision.

was chosen for several reasons: it is astatic and relatively isolated communityperfect for epidemiological study, theprevious health of the district had beengood and polio-free for 20 years andthe public health immunization recordswere readily available. The objectiveswere to study any illness occurringafter vaccination, to compare antibodylevel against polio before and after vac-cination, to search the area for the pos-sible presence of enteroviruses whichmight interfere with gut infection, tocorrelate excretion of vaccine viruswith Salk status, antibody level, andage, and to determine whether vaccinepoliovirus would spread to surroundingcommunities.

In addition to van Rooyen and Ride-out, the team included Drs. RudyOzere, Horace B. Colford, as well aslocal doctors, Milton O’Brien and W.C.

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Dr. van Rooyen immunizes nuns from St. Michael’s Convent, including Sisters Firma andClaude Colombière as registered nurse Doris LeBlanc looks on.

Mme Marie-Elizabeth Boudreau with many of her 15 children awaiting vaccination. The Boudreau family was one of 20 index families whoagreed to more extensive testing. Talking to the children is public health nurse Cécile Amirault while Dr. Rideout measures the dose.

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O’Brien. The compliance of the com-munity was due in part to the coopera-tion of St. Michael’s Parish. With theaim of obtaining complete family par-ticipation, all age groups received thevaccine, ranging from a week-oldinfant to a 96-year-old woman. A totalof 1692 people were offered the vac-cine; 97.1% were ultimately vacci-nated. Results of the trial indicatedthere were no ill effects attributable tothe vaccine either during or after thevaccination period.1 In the summermonths following the trial, no cases ofpoliomyelitis were reported in WesternNova Scotia. As a result of the Wedge-port polio trial as well as the sisterdemonstrations in Manitoba andSaskatchewan, the oral trivalent Sabinvaccine was licensed in Canada inMarch 1962.

Bob Brooks (1927–1999) was a dis-tinguished Nova Scotia photojournalistwho, in the course of his career,received more than 40 internationalphotography awards. His photographsappeared in more than 30 publicationsincluding National Geographic,Harper’s and The London Times, aswell as in several books, including hisown work Yarmouth County. He alsocovered some controversial news sto-ries including the 1962 decision of the

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Dr. Rudy Ozere, Professor of Pediatrics atDalhousie University, and one of the reg-istered nurses making their way down amuddy track in Comeau’s Hill. The cap-tion in Dr. Rideout’s photo album stated:“Did someone say muddy? It was me andDr. Ozere.”

Dr. Rideout takes blood from Henry Boudreau, lobster and tuna fisherman as DelbertPothier looks on.

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city of Halifax to demolish the Blackcommunity of Africville and in 1964 heaccompanied Canadian Peacekeepersto Cyprus on the HMCS Bonaventurefor The Star Weekly. Brooks died in 1999.

In 1961, he accompanied the physi-cians and nurses in Wedgeport andComeau’s Hill to document the immu-nization campaign. In a 48-hour periodbeginning on Mar. 4, 1961, doctor–nurse teams, and Bob Brooks, trudgedto homes, shops, and wharves inWedgeport and Comeau’s Hill. Theresult was a series of remarkable blackand white photographs. Brooks had awonderful eye for composition and incombination with that stark, unforgiv-ing palette he captured the bleak coastallandscape in late winter and the good-natured cooperation of this fishingcommunity; his work was honest andunemotional, but not without an occa-sional touch of humour.

Individual photographs from thisseries were subsequently published in

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Fishermen returning from the lobster grounds found Dr. Rideout and public health nurseCécile Amirault at the Tuna Wharf waiting for them. The caption in Dr. Rideout’s albumstated: “Steady now or someone will fall in.”

Dr. Horace B. Colford, Director of Child and Maternal Health and Communicable Disease Control at the Nova Scotia Department ofHealth, immunizes Mr. and Mrs. Edmund LeBlanc in their well-stocked shop in Lower Wedgeport.

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the local press and the series was in -cluded in a retrospective of Brooks’swork at the Yarmouth County Museumin 1994. In the second half of April2011, which is the 50th anniversary ofthe trial, 20 of these photographs willbe exhibited at the Yarmouth Re gionalHospital.

A recent editorial in the Nova ScotiaPolicy Review3 contrasted Brooks’swork with the type of photojournalismcurrently practiced in the province,declaring that, “his photographs displaythe human face of policy decisions —malevolent and benevolent.” With ref-erence to the Wedgeport photographs,

the editor continued, “If these sameevents were unfolding today, imageslike these would give us greater insightinto how such decisions affect peoplefor good or for ill.”3

Rosalind Ashton BA&ScClass of 2012Medical SchoolDalhousie UniversityHalifax, NSSusan H. Young PhDWestern Counties Regional LibraryYarmouth, NS

References1. van Rooyen CE, Rideout V, Ozere RL, et al. Oral

vaccination against poliomyelitis: report of a field trialat Wedgeport, Nova Scotia, CMAJ 1962; 86:1185-91.Available: www.cmaj.ca /100/pdfs /oral _vaccination_against_poliomyelitis.pdf (accessed 2011 Mar. 15).

2. Rutty CJ, Barreto L, Van Exan R, et al. Conqueringthe crippler: Canada and the eradication of polio.Can J Public Health 2005;96:I1-I24.

3. Brighton R. Human documents. Nova Scotia Pol-icy Review 2008;2:2-3.

Acknowledgements: Permission to reproducethe photographs illustrating this article waskindly given by the Yarmouth County MuseumArchives and the authors would like to acknowl-edge the assistance of the archivist, Jamie Serran.Brooks donated his negatives pertaining to eventsin the County to the Yarmouth County Museumand Archives, which also holds Dr. Vernon Ride-out’s souvenir photograph album containing 21photographs with captions.

CMAJ 2011. DOI:10.1503/cmaj.110286

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Dr. Ozere in conversation with 96-year-old Marie-Jeanne Pothier. In the foreground, LeviMeuse whittles lobster pegs. The caption in Dr. Rideout’s album stated: “Not even Sabinvaccine interferes with my peg-making.”

Mme Marie-Jeanne Pothier wore hergood dress for the occasion.

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