Harry Weaver (neuroscience) died at his home in San Clemente, California, age 68. The polio vaccine was discovered and developed by Jonas Salk between 1952 and 1955. Weaver, acting as the Director of Research at the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, now known as the March of Dimes,from 1946 to 1953, supported Salk's work with a sense of urgency for the development of the Polio vaccine. Weaver's urgency for developing a vaccine as quickly as possible was somewhat counter to the development of the Oral polio vaccine by Albert Sabin between 1954 and 1961. However, his support of Salk's vaccine was considered to
Cold War tensions and the polio vaccine flew to Leningrad in June, 1956. As a result of a cooperation of Sabin and Chumakov in Leningrad, Sabin was able to test his attenuated vaccine when funding in America was declined. While Sabin was working behind the Iron Curtain, the Sabin-Chumakov vaccine was determined to be safe and effective. Cold War tensions caused Western scientists to refuse the reports from the Russians about the effectiveness of the Sabin vaccine. However, mass vaccinations of Sabin's vaccine spread throughout Eastern Europe from 1960–1963. Just as some Soviet virologists did not trust the Western Salk vaccine, Americans had similar reservations about the