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By the 1950s, polio replaced tuberculosis as the deadliest communicable disease in the United States. The first publicly available vaccine, the Salk Vaccine, was made available to the public by academic institutions such as Cal State LA. Colleges…

Despite the fact that polio vaccines had been in use for nearly 15 years with great success, a small subset of the population remained skeptical, some going so far as to theorize that their distribution was part of a “Communist plot.”

Flu shots offered for free.

Cal State LA continued to serve as a center for public health in the 1980s by offering flu vaccines much in the same way it had offered polio vaccines in the 1960s.

Cal State LA served as a vaccination site, offering free Salk vaccines to combat polio in the 1950s. Full immunity required three shots of the Salk vaccine, and despite constant re-supplying, some vaccination sites struggled to keep up with demand.

By the 1960s a new type of polio vaccine was developed - the Sabin Oral Vaccine. Drops of vaccine were administered orally, dropped on a sugar cube and dissolved on the tongue. As with the Salk vaccine, the Sabin Oral Vaccine was once again…

Once a disabling and life-threatening disease, polio was eradicated from the Americas by the 1990’s, with widespread distribution of vaccines such as the Sabin oral vaccine, distributed at the Campus Health Center.

Initially offered at no cost, by 1958 Cal State LA began offering low-cost vaccinations to students and their family members under the age of 40.

The Sabin Oral Polio Vaccine could be offered at just a 25 cent donation and was recommended to persons of all ages, even those that had previously received the Salk vaccine.

Sabin Oral Polio Vaccine registration forms such as this were printed in issues of Cal State LA’s newspaper, The College Times in an effort to encourage students to get vaccinated against polio.