Polio vaccine developer dies at 96

Apr 15, 2013 |

Dr Hilary Koprowski, the Polish-born researcher who developed the first successful oral vaccination for polio, died this week at his Philade-lphia home. He was 96.
Although not as well-known as fellow res-earchers Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin, Koprowski’s 1950 clinical trial was the first to show it was possible to vaccinate against polio, the crippling and sometimes fatal disease that’s now all but eradicated. Kopro-wski’s son, Christo-pher, said on Saturday his father liked the scientific recognition his work received without the celebrity of Salk and Sabin. “He enjoyed not having his scientific work disrupted,” said Christopher Kopro-wski. Not that he was a modest individual, mind you.” Christopher Kopro-wski said his father had been sick for several months before dying Thursday in the same home he’d lived in since 1957.

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