I have made – researched, written and drawn – a graphic novel (graphic history) about four partially overseen/forgotten women in science. The book has the name “Matilda-effekten” (The Matilda effect in english) as this coins the phenomenon of historic devaluation and amnesia when it comes to female scientists. The Matilda effect was named and described in 1993 by the american science historian Margaret Rossiter. In my book, you follow four virus researchers from the mid-20th century; two danish and two american. They all worked with the virus disease polio and contributed significantly both to the basic understanding of the disease – and to the developement of the safe and efficient vaccines against it.
The four women are:
- Herdis von Magnus, danish medical doctor
- Isabel Merrick Morgan (later Mountain), american biologist
- Dorothy Horstmann, american medical doctor
- Ebba Lund, danish/swedish chemical engineer.
One of the stories, that can be read in the book, is the story of the ‘Cutter-indicent’. Cutter Laboratories was a California-based vaccine-producing company. When the formalin-based poliovaccine was developed by Jonas Salk (and others) in 1955, there was a need for fast production of a lot of vaccines, to meet the need. The protocol provided by Salk was, however, not good enough and Cutter Laboratories ended up producing vaccine batches with live virus in them. Bernice Eddy, who worked at the NIH at that time, performed safety tests on the vaccine batches – and she discovered that something was wrong. She told her boss, but he ignored her and thus a lot of batches came on the marked, which led to a disaster. Many children were infected with polio and the vaccination program had to be stopped.
In Denmark, there was production of a Salk-based, own variant of the polio vaccine. It was developed by the doctor Herdis von Magnus (and her husband, Preben von Magnus). They had very good control over the production and safety tests. When all other countries stopped their vaccination programs because of the Cutter incident, Denmark was the only country who continued, thanks to the better laboratory practice.
Herdis von Magnus was called to come to the United States to talk about the danish vaccine. And after a while, the production of vaccines in the US – and the vaccination program – could be restarted. And no further problems arose with the Salk-based vaccine. The scandal led to increased control by FDA with respect to new medications and vaccines before use in the public, and therefor a scandal like the Cutter inducent could not take place today, and newly produced vaccines are generally very safe.
I have drawn everything in the book by hand (on a graphic tablet). I have used many different sources for inspiration. Old images from mainly the 1950ies – photographs of my own family – and old newspaper articles, for example. In the beginning and end of the book, I have chosen to make a gallery of many of the people (researchers, polio victims and more) that are part of the book and the stories in it.
The publisher is FADL’s forlag and the book can be purchased on their website. It is also possible to find the book on danish libraries. On Dec 10th, 2025, I gave a lecture/talk about the book and the concept of the Matilda effect on the University of Copenhagen (“Folkeuniversitetet”). See pictures from the talk below.
