Thousands of Polio Vaccines Stolen In 1959: Lessons We Can Learn From The Incident

Now that vaccines against COVID-19 are available, the world is again faced with another predicament. Many people are anxiously awaiting when their life will be back to normal, and getting vaccinated is just a step away from regaining that beloved "old normal."

Countries are eagerly awaiting the arrival of COVID-19 vaccines from various vaccine developers. Yet, the roll-out seems to be slow and disorganized at the moment with a lot of countries facing vaccine shortages.

It is a time when opportunists could exploit the situation, with reports of unethical line-jumping by wealthy elites and the potential black market trade in vaccines. This is also not the first time that the world has waited anxiously for the vaccine. Looking at history, there is one particular event that brought uneasiness and dark consequences to people.

This was the Montreal vaccine heist in 1959 wherein thousands of stolen polio vaccines were reported to be missing from its storage at the Microbiology Institute at the University of Montréal in Canada, ScienceAlert reported.

The Montreal Heist in 1959

On the last day of August in 1959, a group of masked gunmen entered Montreal's Institute of Microbiology and Hygiene. It was at the peak of the polio epidemic at that time and their target is the 75,000 doses of Salk's polio vaccines that are necessary for inoculating children at risk of the disease.

The Montreal Gazette reported that the gunmen entered the laboratories at 3AM, locking up watchman Arpolis Beland. He told the robbers that the place has no money but one of them only replied that they know what they are getting in the laboratory.

The robbers were able to steal the polio vaccines worth $50,000 that were set to be distributed across Quebec and Montreal where 500 new polio cases were under treatment. They loaded the 25 crates of vaccines at night using the watchman's car as their getaway car while Beland spent an hour trying to escape his cage.

The children were the victims at that time as the next shipment of vaccines would not arrive for another month, and the vaccine could be spoiled if it is without proper refrigeration. Apprehending the suspects was very crucial at that time.

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Several days passed and more tips about the culprits came in. They traced all the information to a small unfurnished apartment in East Montreal where they were able to recover almost all of the vaccines. The building manager described to the officers a tall man with dark hair in his 40s who rented the apartment on the night of the heist.

The police were able to name Jean Paul Robinson as one of the suspects and a year later arrested a young man named Gilles Hebert. Despite the mountain of evidence against Robinson, Judge Henri Loranger ruled that prosecutors had "failed to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt," Montreal Gazette reported.

What Can We Learn From This Incident?

As millions of people worldwide await the arrival of COVID-19 vaccines in their countries, the Montreal heist in 1959 serves as a warning today of the possible consequences of disorganized and poorly planned vaccine programs.

One of the problems they face in distributing vaccines is the logistics. At first, Pfizer-BioNTech's vaccine was required to be stored at ultra-cold temperatures but recently changed it to make distribution easier like the other vaccines.

The 1959 polio vaccine heist indicates that governments should be more vigilant in distributing vaccines to address shortages and avoid history from repeating itself.