In the 1920s, “whooping cough” killed 6000 children per year. Infected citizens were expected to quarantine. However, the time required was unclear.
Pearl Kendrick had studied Bacteriology while a teacher. She now worked at a Michigan State lab at Grand Rapids, Michigan. She recruited Grace Eldering – another researcher with a similar background.
She asked her boss if she and Grace Eldering could research whooping cough as an extra project. As a starting point, she and Eldering laboriously created a cough plate onto which people in the community coughed. If the Pertusis bacteria grew, they were infected.
Soon, they established people were infectious for 4 weeks. That led to a more specific recommended quarantine. However, they didn’t consider their work done.
As they continued collecting data from the community, they saw the impact of whooping cough first hand. It strengthened their resolve to develop a vaccine.
They followed a step-by-step systematic vaccine creation approach that took them 4 years. Eventually, the vaccine they developed involved a killed version of several strains of the bacterium. They started testing on mice and eventually tested on themselves. Once they were sure it was safe, they needed to set up a clinical trial.
Now, again, they didn’t want to set up a control group with the established practice at the time – with orphans who were excluded. Instead, with the help of local authorities and Kent County statistics, they found a control group with similar demographics who had missed out on the vaccine for various reasons.
4 of 712 kids in the treatment group had whooping cough in the following months whereas 45 of the 880 unvaccinated control group did – a ~10x reduction!
When they announced their results, they were met with lots of skepticism. A renowned Johns Hopkins doctor even visited their lab twice to inspect their trial to then declare there was nothing wrong.
Kendrick then wrote Eleanor Roosevelt who came down to Grand Rapids and spent 13 hours with the team. This helped them get funding for a second trial. This time, they had a stronger vaccine administered with 3 injections instead of 4. The results held again.
In 1940, Michigan mass produced their vaccine. The world followed.
It is estimated that their work saved hundreds of thousands of lives were saved in the US alone. And many millions the world over.
The rise of vaccine skepticism in the US has seen a rebound of this disease. However, the 18,617 cases and 7 deaths pale when compared to 215,343 cases in 1932 (when the population was roughly a third of what it was today).
Kendrick and Eldering received very little recognition and reward – in fact, they actively shunned it. They shared their methods and formulae with everyone in the world. They did everything right – at every step.
They never became rich or famous. By all accounts, they continued staying in a home in Grand Rapids, hosting friends, and taking care of each of other into their old age. All the while, they saved the lives of millions of children at modest cost… secure knowledge of that fact was the reward they chose.
I often think of two ideas about values. The first is that value are values only when they cost us money. And the second is that it is easier to fight for our values than to live by them.
Theirs is a story that has gotten me reflecting on both of these truths about values while inspiring me to examine my own.
(That’s Grace Eldering on the far right watching a colleague administer the vaccination)
H/T: How Innovation works by Matt Ridley, The Smithsonian Magazine’s excellent article
