60 Years Later, Scientist Says Work on Polio Vaccine Topped his Career

Melanie Ferrier, CBC News

“Nothing I have done since can match that," Alex Kanarek wrote on Facebook.

Sixty years after he helped mass produce the polio vaccine in England, a Rockwood, Ont. man is celebrating news from the World Health Organization that the disease could soon be a thing of the past.

In February, Alex Kanarek came across a WHO statement that said reported cases of polio were at "an all-time low in 2017," and that we are "closer to polio eradication than ever before."

That news prompted him to write the following message on his Facebook page:

"In 1958, exactly 60 years ago, the British government started vaccinations against polio with vaccine manufactured by two British companies, Glaxo and Burroughs, Wellcome. I was a member of the Wellcome team that developed and produced the vaccine... Nothing I have done since can match that in terms of my direct effect on children's health."

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