Annual Morris Saffron Lecture: Paul Offit, MD--"The Cutter Incident: America's Worst Biological Disaster and Its Ironic Legacy"

In April 1955, Cutter Laboratories made a polio vaccine that paralyzed 164 people and killed 10. It was the worst biological disaster in American history. Although the event led to the birth of modern-day vaccine regulation, it also opened a door that has never been closed. A door that made medical products much more difficult to research and produce.

Paul Offit, MD, is the director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, as well as the Maurice R. Hilleman Professor of Vaccinology and a professor of pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.  The co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine for infants and a member of the FDA's vaccine advisory committee, he is a national and international authority on Covid-19 and has published more than 180 papers in medical and scientific journals.  His eleventh book, Tell Me When It's Over, published in February 2024, engagingly and authoritatively addresses fundamental issues involving Covid-19 and the recent pandemic and serves to clear up misconceptions that have confounded public understanding.