In the months before Pearl Harbor, Thomas Francis, Jr.
joined the new School of Public Health at the University
of Michigan in Ann Arbor. There, he built a Department of
Epidemiology that studied a host of infectious diseases. Francis also mentored
Jonas Salk, a research fellow and postgraduate student who would later develop
the polio vaccine. According to the University
of Michigan, Francis taught Salk "the
methodology of vaccine development" and recruited him for America's war on influenza.
Flu Vaccine Trials
As Director of the U.S. Army Epidemiological Board's Commission
on Influenza, Thomas Francis was tasked with establishing hygienic and
environmental controls, as well as evaluating bacteriological, viral, and
pathological variables. The flu commission's first-year budget, the modest sum
of $159, 600 (USD), helped lay the groundwork for preliminary vaccine trials on
200 psychiatric patients at Ypsilanti
State Hospital,
a now-defunct facility where "bodily treatments", according to The Michigan Daily, ranged "from the benign to the bizarre".
In June 1943, Thomas Francis, Jr. and the U.S. Army's
Commission on Influenza were authorized to conduct large-scale vaccine trials
at universities and military installations. Of the 12,500 people who were
vaccinated, half were injected with small amounts of a chemically-inactivated
flu virus. The other half, a control group, were given what Time magazine later called "a phony
material."
During the fall of 1943, the largest influenza epidemic
since 1918 – 1919 put Thomas Francis' flu vaccine to the test. As Allied armies
battled their way across Italy,
the U.S. Army's Commission on Influenza claimed victory. Out of every five test
subjects who had contracted the flu, only one had been vaccinated. Although the
flu virus in California
showed evidence of antigenic change, Francis reported that "a number of
factors" were responsible for statistical anomalies there.
Preventing Polio
During the 1950s, Thomas Francis, Jr. was asked to design, supervise and analyze
the field trials of Jonas Salk's poliomyelitis vaccine. A highly-contagious
viral infection, polio had infected almost 60,000 Americans at the height of an
epidemic in 1952. Insisting upon a double-blind method of statistical analysis,
Francis staged a massive trial of approximately 1.8 million children from 217
areas of the United States, Canada and Finland. Finally, on April 12,
1955, he announced that Jonas Salk's polio vaccine was "safe, effective, and
potent."
The Atomic Bomb Casualty
Commission
Towards the end of 1955, Thomas Francis visited Japan to evaluate the troubled Atomic
Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC). Established by President Harry S. Truman in
1946, the ABCC was charged with the long-term study of the survivors of the
atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Budgetary and
organizational problems plagued the ABCC's work, however, and the commission
was nearly disbanded in 1953. The result of Thomas Francis's work, a document
known as the Francis Report, led to the creation of a comprehensive epidemiological
study called the "Unified Study
Program". Today, the study of A-bomb survivors is the world's longest
continuing health survey.
The Tecumseh Study
The last major project of Thomas Francis' career, the Tecumseh Study of
respiratory illnesses, deepened science's understanding of the epidemiology of
chronic disease. In establishing a laboratory in the town of Tecumseh,
Michigan,
Francis hoped to assess the role of factors such as community history,
geography, and culture. During the first 190 weeks of the Tecumseh
study, a total of 11,308 respiratory illnesses were reported.
Participation in the study was strong, with 86% of
recruited families remaining through a one-year program.
Thomas Francis, Jr. died on October 1, 1969.
Editor's Note: Click here for Part 1 of this biography.
Resources
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=33857
http://www.salk.edu/jonas/jonas_about.php
http://media.www.michigandaily.com/media/storage/paper851/news/2005/09/29/TheStatement/Opening.Its.Doors.Again-1431670.shtml
http://www.kidshealth.org/parent/infections/bacterial_viral/polio.html
http://www7.nationalacademies.org/archives/ABCC_1945-1982.html
http://www.polio.umich.edu/history/francis.html
http://www.medaloffreedom.com/ThomasFrancis.htm
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,850443,00.html?promoid=googlep
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