I do wish they would state what the evidence is for early polio vaccine having been trialled on the hospital staff in 1934. There is properly recorded evidence for the use of "convalescent serum" and two alternative forms, the names of which I have forgotten, but these do not seem to be in any way associated with the vaccine. There were accounts written up before it could have been apparent that there would be a long term problem.
I could be persuaded on this, but not without the evidence.
ETA Prophylactic serum was one of the other sera tried.
I've read of lot of contemporary articles from the Los Angeles Times (and elsewhere) written during the 1934 LA epidemic.
There were two types of prophylactic serum used in the outbreak - pooled serum from healthy adults and serum from convalescent polio patients. In both cases the idea was to deliver polio antibodies to patients and those at risk.
[I believe this is actually known as an "antiserum," and an Ebola antiserum seems to have been successful in treating a couple of Ebola cases in the US resulting from the outbreak in Africa a few years back.]
In 1934, the serum of healthy adults had a fair chance of containing polio antibodies despite the lack of a polio vaccine. The reason being that the majority of people who contract polio are either asymptomatic or only have mild, flu-like symptoms. Most people who had been infected with polio back then didn't know it. So, if you pooled the serum of a lot of healthy people back in those days, you could expect to get at least some polio antibodies.
In the LA outbreak, the antiserums actually seemed to
slightly increased the chance contracting polio, while also slightly lowering the chance of developing paralysis. The numbers seem to have been too small to have been statistically significant, though.
About 60% of the patients who developed ME symptoms never got the serum at all, or they developed symptoms prior to or on the same day as they got the serum.
As for the vaccine, three of the doctors involved with the Park-Brodie vaccine decided to test the vaccine on themselves in July 1934 to see if it was safe to give to children. The LA epidemic had already peaked by this point and I haven't seen anything about a "vaccine" actually being given to anyone else during the LA outbreak.
About six months later, according to a newpaper article of the time, the Park-Brodie vaccine
was to be tried on 700 children in Bakersfield, California, during a polio outbreak there in February 1935. In addition to the children, doctors and nurses were
also to be given the Park-Brodie vaccine in Bakersfield. I'm not aware of a subsequent M.E.-like outbreak reported in Bakersfield in 1935.
The Park-Brodie vaccine seems to have been much safer than the contemporary Kolmer vaccine, which actually induced polio in some people and lead to several deaths. The main problem with the Park-Brodie vaccine was that it just didn't work. It offered no protection against polio at all.