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Volume 354:650-651 February 9, 2006 Number 6
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The Cutter Incident: How America's First Polio Vaccine Led to the Growing Vaccine Crisis

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By Paul A. Offit. 238 pp., illustrated. New Haven, Conn., Yale University Press, 2005. $27.50. ISBN 0-300-10864-8.

"Liability without fault" was the verdict in a 1958 lawsuit in the aftermath of the paralysis of children in the United States who had received a licensed polio vaccine manufactured by Cutter Laboratories. In The Cutter Incident, Paul Offit lays out the meaning of this verdict: that pharmaceutical companies are liable for damage without negligence, even if they make a product according to industry standards using the best science available.

Offit makes the convincing argument that this verdict has figured largely in the decision by many U.S. manufacturers not to develop or produce vaccines. He also provides a comprehensive history . . . [Full Text of this Article]



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