Cutter Laboratories
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2008-05-28T16:13:31Z
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'''Cutter Laboratories''' was a [[pharmaceutical company]] located in [[Berkeley, California]].
==The Cutter incident==
In [[1955]] Cutter Laboratories was one of several companies licensed by the United States government to produce [[Jonas Salk|Salk]] [[polio vaccine]]. In what came to be known as the '''Cutter Incident''', a production error caused some lots of the Cutter vaccine to be tainted with live polio virus.
The Cutter incident was one of the worst pharmaceutical disasters in U.S. history and caused several thousand children to be exposed to live [[polio|polio virus]] upon [[vaccination]].<ref>{{cite journal | author = Offit PA. | title = The Cutter incident, 50 years later | journal = N. Engl. J. Med. | year=2005 | volume=352 | issue = 14 | pages=1411–1412 | url=http://content.nejm.org/cgi/reprint/352/14/1411.pdf | pmid = 15814877 | doi = 10.1056/NEJMp048180}}</ref>
==Numbers affected==
The mistake resulted in the production of 120,000 doses of polio vaccine that contained live polio virus. Of the children who received the vaccine 40,000 developed [[poliomyelitis#Classification|abortive poliomyelitis]] (a form of the disease that does not involve the [[central nervous system]]), 56 developed paralytic poliomyelitis and of these 5 children died as a result of polio infection.<ref>{{cite journal | author = Nathanson N. and Langmuir AD. | title = The cutter incident. poliomyelitis following formaldehyde-inactivated poliovirus vaccination in the United States during the spring of 1955. II. Relationship of poliomyelitis to cutter vaccine | journal = Am. J. Hyg. 1963 Jul;78:29-60 | year=1963 | volume=78 | pages=29–60 | pmid = 14043545}}</ref>
==Other incidents==
In the 1980s Cutter Laboratories produced unsafe blood products to treat [[hemophilia]]. The pharmaceutical product, which was produced from blood given by donors all across the US, was contaminated with [[HIV]]. These problems were the subject of lawsuits over the next twenty years.<ref>{{cite web | title = Waage v Cutter Biological Division of Miles Labs (11/22/96) | url = http://touchngo.com/sp/html/sp-4434.htm | accessdate = 2007-12-03}}</ref>
==References==
{{reflist}}
==External links==
*[http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/goldenage/wonder/Archive/Popular/harpers0855.htm Harpers Magazine article, August 1955]
[[Category:Pharmaceutical companies of the United States]]
[[Category:Medical disasters]]
[[Category:1955 disasters]]
[[Category:Berkeley, California]]
[[Category:Poliomyelitis]]
[[Category:Disasters in the United States]]
[[Category:Disasters in California]]