Were animals used in developing and testing polio vaccines?
Testing on animals, especially animals that are closely related to humans such as monkeys and chimpanzees, gave researchers a good idea about the safety and efficacy of their vaccine before giving the vaccine to people. Early polio vaccine tests were done with rabbits, mice, guinea pigs, chimpanzees and monkeys. Also, animal organs were used to grow the polio virus that was killed or weakened to make the vaccines. Monkeys were the most common animal used to grow the polio virus for early vaccines.
