In 1935, Maurice Brodie, a research assistant at New York University, attempted to produce a formaldehyde-killed polio vaccine from ground-up monkey spinal cords. Brodie tested the vaccine on himself and several of his assistants. and later gave the vaccine to three thousand children, many of whom developed allergic reactions, but none developed immunity to polio.

Brodie’s work provided a cautionary tale of how not to run a vaccine trial. The lack of rigorous documentation for the California study left its results open to criticism and, when lumped together with Kolmer’s inept and dangerous work, made future trials seem irresponsible.

Philadelphia pathologist John Kolmer also claimed to have developed a vaccine in 1935, but it too produced no immunity and was blamed for causing cases of paralytic polio, nine of them fatal.