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The Infamous 'Cutter Vaccine' Changed My Family Forever — But We Still Support Vaccination

By Laurie Maffly-Kipp

Jan. 15, 2025

Maffly-Kipp is the Richard Lyman Bushman professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia.

If anyone should have lobbied against the use of vaccines in this country, it was my family.

My Aunt Jean, my father's older sister, was a victim of the infamous Cutter vaccine, an early variant of the polio vaccine presumed to contain an inactivated version of the live virus. Except that it wasn't inactive. Some 200,000 children in Western and Midwestern states received that vaccine in the spring of 1955. That number included three of my cousins — Aunt Jean's children. The dosages had been administered by my father, then chief resident at Herrick Memorial Hospital in Berkeley, California. His father, my grandfather, was then the hospital's chief administrator. The vaccine had been offered to the young members of the families of health care workers, and so my cousins lined up and were inoculated.

The rest of that tragic story has been recounted in the aggregate: 40,000 cases of polio, 200 children paralyzed to some degree (one of the vagaries of polio is that it attacks everybody differently), several dozen people killed. My cousins all contracted mild cases but emerged without ongoing health issues. My aunt, however — a vibrant 29-year-old mother of three young boys — caught the virus from them. She spent the following six months in an iron lung and nearly died. Her doctors told her that she might make it to age 30 but had little chance of surviving long with the damage to her lung capacity and swallowing muscles.

Easy story, isn't it? Vaccines are the problem. Science isn't perfect and we shouldn't trust it.

Except that's not the lesson that my aunt or my father took from this horrible experience, not by a long shot.

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They had already seen children dying or permanently disabled by the ravages of the virus. Pediatrician Paul Offit, in his study of the Cutter incident, reminds us that before the vaccine arrived, in all its bumpy and imperfect beginnings, tens of thousands of children were maimed or killed by polio every year. Parents fretted over sending their children to swimming pools for lessons, and by the 1950s feared the frequent summer disease outbreaks almost as much as the atomic bomb. We don't have to wonder what would have happened without the arrival of the vaccine, because so many families lived that reality. We know.

My father knew. I asked him, many years later, what it was like to be the one that distributed that vaccine to his nephews, and then helplessly watch the terrifying illness attack his beloved sister. He answered immediately: "I have no regrets. That vaccine was flawed, but polio was horrible, and there was no other humane choice. Science isn't perfect, but it is the best human beings can do to provide protection."

Jean Wight Courtesy Laurie Maffly-Kipp

I have hesitated to write this story for many years, ever since vaccines themselves became the object of suspicion and fear. Won't this story simply give fuel to anti-vaxxers, so ready to latch onto a tale of vaccines gone wrong?

But that is exactly why this story needs to be told. It is a tale of personal tragedy, yes, but also of a faith in public health, in the greater good, and in the ability of science to self-correct as it pushes toward cures for horrible diseases. Those who have died from polio can't tell that tale. We are left, then, with stories from critics, most of whom do not have evidence to back their claims of scientific failure. And they are too often led by those looking to benefit from unregulated "cures" with even less of an evidentiary basis.

My aunt was the victim of regulatory failure. Yet she saw the greater good that was at stake and chose to remain focused on that. She lived to age 70, disabled but enjoying the presence of her children and grandchildren, building a rewarding career as a counselor, and knowing that her life, while forever altered by polio, was not defined by it. My father and grandfather also kept their eyes on the possibility for self-correction in health care. Other vaccine companies, following Jonas Salk's protocol, produced viable vaccines that saved a generation of children, including me, from having to fear swimming pools or public skating rinks. We lined up for our sugar cube vaccines at school to contribute to the public good that would, we knew, save many more individuals from the ravages of the virus.

I don't share Jean's story to suggest that disease has redeeming possibilities for those who survive. Perhaps it can, but when we have the means of prevention in front of us, we should celebrate and seize that victory, however imperfect. It is a shoutout from the front lines to celebrate the breakthroughs of research, recognizing that not everything will be an unqualified win. Public health requires us to think beyond individual needs, to recognize that unless vaccines are widely distributed (and yes, even required in some cases) they will be of no use to anyone. It also urges us to recognize that some battles have already been litigated and do not need to be revisited when the evidence of success is overwhelming.

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The recent back-and-forth between Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And President Trump regarding the polio vaccine reflects a lack of logic in both respects. In responding to Kennedy's vaccine criticism, Trump recently remarked that he would want to end some childhood vaccines "if I think it's dangerous." But dangerous for whom? For the one, the 200, or the millions who might benefit? I hate to contemplate harm to anyone, but as my aunt would have attested, there are lesser and greater risks in life. All that science can do is mitigate risks, not eradicate them.

Similarly, clear success of vaccine use, demonstrated by years of health statistics in the case of polio, gives lie to the notion that we should relitigate all decisions regarding vaccination, as Kennedy and others might have it. This is not to say that we should eliminate robust regulatory mechanisms that detect potential problems and question methods. But it does raise the obvious question of what sort of proof is being sought. What qualifies as adequate scientific evidence of failure or success? I have not heard any vaccine critics answer that question clearly and precisely. Until they can and do, we are left with little more than fearmongering without a clear goal in mind.

My aunt would have had no patience for these debates. Perhaps because of her close and prolonged brush with death, she always kept the bigger picture in mind. She vaccinated her family on recommended schedules. In her later years she developed post-polio syndrome, a pernicious condition that gradually robbed her of the gains her health had made since the 1950s. Still, she kept her eyes on the present and future, never turning her anger on the faulty vaccine that had altered her life. Millions of children lived long and healthy lives because of the polio vaccine, and public memory of the horrible history of a previously uncontrollable virus faded from view for many. Science is what removed that scourge, and despite its imperfections, she knew it was an ally to be nurtured and even questioned with precise evidence, but never dismissed without cause.

Laurie Maffly-Kipp is the Richard Lyman Bushman Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia.

Jury Awards $133K To MGM Grand Detroit Worker Who Refused COVID-19 Vaccine

(CBS DETROIT) - A former MGM Grand Detroit casino employee has won a federal lawsuit against the company over a COVID-19 vaccination requirement imposed on some employees in 2021.

The case, Hratvch Yeremian v. MGM Grand Casino, resulted in a jury verdict in the Eastern District of Michigan federal court in favor of the former employee, along with $133,000 in damages that included $33,000 in back pay, according to court records.

Attorneys for Yeremian issued a press release Thursday about the case and the decision, explaining that the former employee was denied a vaccine exemption he sought based on sincerely held religious beliefs.

"Neither the government nor a corporation has a right to force an individual to choose between his or her career and conscience," Jonathan "Jon" Marko of Detroit, one of his attorneys, was quoted in the press release as saying.

The COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic resulted in widespread disruptions to workplaces and public spaces in the United States starting in March 2020. The immediate steps taken in an effort to limit the spread of the virus included limits on large group meetings, shifts to remote work and schooling, instructions as to who could work on-site under "essential employee" exemptions and face masks commonly worn in public.

Vaccines against COVID-19 became available to the public starting in December 2020, with increasing availability during the next few months.

In response to the new vaccines, some workplaces invoked in 2021 a requirement that employees who work on-site must be vaccinated against the virus.

MGM Grand was among those companies, announcing a vaccine requirement for all salaried employees on Aug. 16, 2021.

That being said, Yeremian's lawsuit points out that the MGM COVID-19 vaccine policy did not apply to its union employees, who are about 80% of the workforce.

Yeremian had worked for MGM Grand since June 1999, earning promotions up to warehouse manager, according to his attorneys. After COVID-19 pandemic restrictions began, he was among those designated as an "essential employee" so he could work on-site.

In response to the vaccination policy announcement, Yeremian filed a religious accommodation request on Sept. 16, 2021. Yeremian, who, according to his lawyer, is an Apostolic Orthodox Christian, related that receiving that particular vaccine would violate his religious beliefs.

His request "proposed several accommodations instead of vaccination," such as continued practice of social distancing, wearing masks, or working remotely when possible.

MGM denied his request, saying it would face undue hardship by allowing the exemption.

The company then fired Yeremian on Oct. 15, 2021; his attorney said the reason was insubordination.

"Mr. Yeremian refused to renounce his faith and beliefs and was wrongfully terminated from his job," Marlko said in the press release. "The jury's verdict today tells MGM that religious discrimination has no place in America and affirms each person's right to religious freedom."

In November, a federal jury awarded a $13 million verdict to a former Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan employee who claimed she was fired for refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccine due to her religion.

CBS News Detroit has reached out to MGM for comment on this verdict and has not yet received a response.

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