Against the background of the Cold War and the international fight against polio, this article examines the conflicts in politics and medicine that accompanied the introduction of oral polio vaccine in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) in 1961. In addition, this paper analyzes the role of the media and the influence vaccination policies in Eastern Europe – particularly in the GDR – had on the scientific, political, and public debates of oral polio vaccine in the FRG. However, the success in polio control presented by the East German government did not play a decisive role in the scientific discourse in the FRG. The West German government could justify its rejection of the East German vaccine supply by pointing to the strict manufacturing and control regulations for live polio vaccine that experts had demanded. For the West German media and their public, on the other hand, the vaccination strategy in Eastern Europe provided significant evidence for the effectiveness of oral vaccination.