Cold Vaccines

Our reasons for adding to the already voluminous literature on the use of vaccines for the prevention of colds are, first, that few studies of these vaccines have been adequately controlled and, second, that in spite of their questionable value cold vaccines are administered to hundreds of thousands of persons throughout the country each year. Physicians in private practice have little or no opportunity to evaluate such preparations and so are apt to base their opinions as to value on the reports of individual patients. On the other hand, organizations such as college and industrial health services, which are charged with the prevention of illness among large groups of persons, have a special interest in colds and have made various attempts to evaluate vaccines and other preventive measures. If vaccines are effective in a considerable proportion of cases and are harmless, they should be used extensively; if not, doctors and