Lindsay Graham

My guest today is working to change that.

Karen Torgaly is an epidemiologist and oral historian.

Her book, Albert Sabin, The Life of a Polio Vaccine Pioneer, is due to be published by Yale University Press in June of 2026.

Our conversation is next.

Karen Torgaly, welcome to American History Tellers.

Thank you for having me.

So one of your earliest memories actually involves a polio outbreak in your own family.

I was wondering if you could share that story.

Now, in our series, we described virologist Albert Sabin as someone who could be at times abrasive.

You conducted an oral history project for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where you interviewed dozens of scientists about their work on polio.

And when you had mentioned Albert Sabin to them, what was the reaction?

What did people think about him?

So let's get a sense of this man, Albert Sabin.

Let's begin with his upbringing.

What was his youth like, and how did he eventually get into virology?

But how did he get an interest in virology?

Now, after medical school and when Sabin began his residency training, a terrible polio epidemic hit New York, and he was commissioned to help handle the crisis at Bellevue Hospital, eventually ending up at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research.

How did his experiences with this polio outbreak early on and his time at the Rockefeller Institute afterwards, how did this influence his path as a scientist?

And that about brings us up to the outbreak of World War II when FDR, himself a polio survivor, was in the White House.

And his organization, eventually known as the March of Dimes, was busy raising money for treating polio victims.