Question 1

True or false: Sabin’s oral polio vaccine can, in rare cases, cause vaccine-derived polio outbreaks.

Accepted Answer

True. The live virus in the OPV can mutate and spread in under-vaccinated communities, causing rare cases of polio.

Question 2

True or false: Albert Sabin was a lifelong friend and collaborator of Jonas Salk.

Accepted Answer

False. Sabin and Salk were fierce rivals, often publicly criticizing each other’s approaches to polio vaccination.

Question 3

True or false: Albert Sabin developed the oral polio vaccine that replaced the injected Salk vaccine in many countries.

Accepted Answer

True. Sabin’s live, attenuated oral vaccine was easier to administer and became the global standard, largely replacing Salk’s killed-virus injection.

Question 4

True or false: Albert Sabin was born in Poland and immigrated to the United States as a child.

Accepted Answer

True. He was born in Białystok, Poland, in 1906 and fled anti-Semitic persecution, arriving in the U.S. at age 15.

Question 5

True or false: Sabin won the Nobel Prize for his polio vaccine in 1954.

Accepted Answer

False. Sabin never won a Nobel Prize. The 1954 Nobel in Medicine went to Enders, Weller, and Robbins for growing polio virus in culture.

Question 6

True or false: Sabin’s research included developing a vaccine against sandfly fever for the U.S. military during WWII.

Accepted Answer

True. During World War II, Sabin created a vaccine for sandfly fever, a debilitating disease affecting troops in the Mediterranean.

Question 7

True or false: Sabin’s oral polio vaccine was first tested on himself and his own children.

Accepted Answer

True. To prove safety, Sabin swallowed his experimental vaccine and later gave it to his wife and daughters, who were the first family volunteers.

Question 8

True or false: Sabin also helped develop vaccines for dengue fever and HIV.

Accepted Answer

False. Sabin worked on vaccines for dengue and other viruses, but HIV wasn’t discovered until after his death in 1993.

Albert Sabin Trivia Questions