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Sabin Oral Polio Vaccine registration forms such as this were printed in issues of Cal State LA’s newspaper, The College Times in an effort to encourage students to get vaccinated against polio.

Originally developed in 1907 as a fundraiser to fight tuberculosis, Christmas Seals were a special type of stamp sold to raise money for respiratory diseases. Still in use today, the campaign has grown to include other forms of respiratory disease…

Despite the fact that polio vaccines had been in use for nearly 15 years with great success, a small subset of the population remained skeptical, some going so far as to theorize that their distribution was part of a “Communist plot.”

Though vaccination was beginning to successfully protect people against diseases like polio, healthcare professionals continued to reiterate the importance of thorough and frequent handwashing.

Renamed California State Universities, Los Angeles

From October to March more than 120 students reported at the campus Health Center for herpes simplex virus Type 2, or genital herpes.

Cal State LA began to offer medical care for free to students.

By the 1980s there was a growing awareness of the risk of sexually transmitted diseases such as the herpes virus. College campuses such as Cal State LA sought to shed light on the risks by spreading awareness.

The emergence and rapid spread of AIDS in the 1980s led to fears about procedures such as blood donation. Very little was known about the cause of the disease, which later was discovered to be a virus called HIV.

In the early 80s, not much was known about AIDS or HIV. It was erroneously and dangerously characterized by the media as a disease affecting gay men, African Americans, and drug users.