Two polio vaccines are used throughout the world to combat poliomyelitis (or polio). The first was developed by Jonas Salk and first tested in 1952. Announced to the world by Salk on April 12, 1955, it consists of an injected dose of inactivated (dead) poliovirus. An oral vaccine was developed by Albert Sabin using attenuated poliovirus. Human trials of Sabin's vaccine began in 1957 and it was licensed in 1962. Because there is no long term carrier state for poliovirus in immunocompetent individuals, polioviruses have no non-primate reservoir in nature, and survival of the virus in the environment for an extended period of time appears to be remote. Therefore, interruption of person to person transmission of the virus by vaccination is the critical step in global polio eradication. The two vaccines have eliminated polio from most countries in the world, and reduced the worldwide incidence from an estimated 350,000 cases in 1988 to 1,652 cases in 2007.

Development

In the generic sense, vaccination works by priming the immune system with an 'immunogen'. Stimulating immune response, via use of an infectious agent, is known as immunization. The development of immunity to polio efficiently blocks person-to-person transmission of wild poliovirus, thereby protecting both individual vaccine recipients and the wider community. Philadelphia pathologist John Kolmer also claimed to have developed a vaccine that same year, but it too produced no immunity and was blamed for causing cases of paralytic polio, nine of them fatal.

during the early days of the National Polio Immunization Program.]]

A breakthrough came in 1948 when a research group headed by John Enders at the Children's Hospital Boston successfully cultivated the poliovirus in human tissue in the laboratory. This development greatly facilitated vaccine research and ultimately allowed for the development of vaccines against polio. Enders and his colleagues, Thomas H. Weller and Frederick C. Robbins, were recognized in 1954 for their labors with a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Other important advances that led to the development of polio vaccines were: the identification of three poliovirus serotypes (Poliovirus type 1 — PV1, or Mahoney; PV2, Lansing; and PV3, Leon); the finding that prior to paralysis, the virus must be present in the blood; and the demonstration that administration of antibodies in the form of gamma-globulin protects against paralytic polio.

In 1952 and 1953, the U.S. experienced an outbreak of 58,000 and 35,000 polio cases, respectively, up from a typical number of some 20,000 a year. Amid this U.S. polio epidemic, millions of dollars were invested in finding and marketing a polio vaccine by commercial interests, including Lederle Laboratories in New York under the direction of H. R. Cox. Also working at Lederle was Polish-born virologist and immunologist Hilary Koprowski, who claims to have created the first successful polio vaccine, in 1950. His vaccine, however, being a live attenuated virus taken orally, was still in the research stage and would not be ready for use until five years after Jonas Salk's polio vaccine (a dead injectable vaccine) had reached the market. Koprowski's attenuated vaccine was prepared by successive passages through the brains of Swiss albino mice. By the seventh passage, the vaccine strains could no longer infect nervous tissue or cause paralysis. After one to three further passages on rats, the vaccine was deemed safe for human use. On February 27, 1950, Koprowski's live, attenuated vaccine was tested for the first time on an eight year old boy from Letchworth Village, New York. The boy suffered no side effects and Koprowski enlarged his experiment to include 19 other children.

The development of two polio vaccines led to the first modern mass inoculations. The last cases of paralytic poliomyelitis caused by endemic transmission of wild virus in the United States occurred in 1979, with an outbreak among the Amish in several Midwest states. A global effort to eradicate polio, led by the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and The Rotary Foundation, began in 1988 and has relied largely on the oral polio vaccine developed by Albert Sabin. The disease was entirely eradicated in the Americas by 1994. Polio was officially eradicated in 36 Western Pacific countries, including China and Australia in 2000. Europe was declared polio-free in 2002. As of 2008, polio remains endemic in only four countries: Nigeria, India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.

The Salk vaccine, or inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV), is based on three wild, virulent reference strains, Mahoney (type 1 poliovirus), MEF-1 (type 2 poliovirus), and Saukett (type 3 poliovirus), grown in a type of monkey kidney tissue culture (Vero cell line), which are then inactivated with formalin. Salk's vaccine was then used in a test called the Francis Field Trial, led by Thomas Francis; the largest medical experiment in history. The test began with some 4,000 children at Franklin Sherman Elementary School in McLean, Virginia, and would eventually involve 1.8 million children, in 44 states from Maine to California. By the conclusion of the study, roughly 440,000 received one or more injections of the vaccine, about 210,000 children received a placebo, consisting of harmless culture media, and 1.2 million children received no vaccination and served as a control group, who would then be observed to see if any contracted polio. Soon after Salk's vaccine was licensed in 1955 children's vaccination campaigns were launched. In the U.S, following a mass immunization campaign promoted by the March of Dimes, the annual number of polio cases fell from 35,000 in 1953 to 5,600 by 1957. By 1961 only 161 cases were recorded in the United States.

boy is injected with inactivated poliovirus vaccine (Mogadishu, 1993)]] An enhanced-potency IPV was licensed in the United States in November 1987, and is currently the vaccine of choice in the United States. In some countries, a fifth vaccination is given during adolescence. When the current formulation of IPV is used, 90% or more of individuals develop protective antibody to all three serotypes of poliovirus after two doses of inactivated polio vaccine (IPV), and at least 99% are immune to poliovirus following three doses. The duration of immunity induced by IPV is not known with certainty, although a complete series is thought to provide protection for many years.

Oral vaccine

, the "Wellbee", encouraging the public to receive an oral polio vaccine.]]

Oral polio vaccine (OPV) is a live-attenuated vaccine, produced by the passage of the virus through non-human cells at a sub-physiological temperature, which produces spontaneous mutations in the viral genome. Oral polio vaccines were developed by several groups, one of which was led by Albert Sabin. Other groups, led by Hilary Koprowski and H.R. Cox, developed their own attenuated vaccine strains. In 1958, the National Institutes of Health created a special committee on live polio vaccines. The various vaccines were carefully evaluated for their ability to induce immunity to polio, while retaining a low incidence of neuropathogenicity in monkeys. Based on these results, the Sabin strains were chosen for worldwide distribution.

There are 57 nucleotide substitutions which distinguish the attenuated Sabin 1 strain from its virulent parent (the Mahoney serotype), two nucleotide substitutions attenuate the Sabin 2 strain, and 10 substitutions are involved in attenuating the Sabin 3 strain. which alters stem-loop structures, and reduces the ability of poliovirus to translate its RNA template within the host cell. The attenuated poliovirus in the Sabin vaccine replicates very efficiently in the gut, the primary site of infection and replication, but is unable to replicate efficiently within nervous system tissue. OPV also proved to be superior in administration, eliminating the need for sterile syringes and making the vaccine more suitable for mass vaccination campaigns. OPV also provided longer lasting immunity than the Salk vaccine.

In 1961, type 1 and 2 monovalent oral poliovirus vaccine (MOPV) was licensed, and in 1962, type 3 MOPV was licensed. In 1963, trivalent OPV (TOPV) was licensed, and became the vaccine of choice in the United States and most other countries of the world, largely replacing the inactivated polio vaccine.

OPV is usually provided in vials containing 10-20 doses of vaccine. A single dose of oral polio vaccine (usually two drops) contains 1,000,000 infectious units of Sabin 1 (effective against PV1), 100,000 infectious units of the Sabin 2 strain, and 600,000 infectious units of Sabin 3. The vaccine contains small traces of antibiotics— neomycin and streptomycin—but does not contain preservatives. One dose of OPV produces immunity to all three poliovirus serotypes in approximately 50% of recipients. Clinical disease, including paralysis, caused by vaccine-derived poliovirus (VDPV) is indistinguishable from that caused by wild polioviruses. This is believed to be a rare event, but outbreaks of vaccine-associated paralytic poliomyelitis (VAPP) have been reported, and tend to occur in areas of low coverage by OPV, presumably because the OPV is itself protective against the related outbreak strain.

As the incidence of wild polio diminishes, nations transition from use of the oral vaccine back to the injected vaccine because the direct risk of iatrogenic polio (VAPP) due to OPV outweighs the indirect benefit of immunization via subclinical transmission of OPV. When IPV is used, reversion is not possible but there remains a small risk of clinical infection upon exposure to reverted OPV or wild polio virus. Following the widespread use of polio vaccines in the mid-1950s, the incidence of poliomyelitis declined rapidly in many industrialized countries. The use of OPV was discontinued in the United States in 2000 and in 2004 in the UK, but it continues to be used around the globe. VAPP is more likely to occur in adults than in children. In immunodeficient children, the risk of VAPP is almost 7,000 times higher, particularly for persons with B-lymphocyte disorders (e.g., agammaglobulinemia and hypogammaglobulinemia), which reduce the synthesis of protective antibodies.

Outbreaks of VAPP occurred independently in Belarus (1965–66), Canada (1966–68), Egypt (1983–1993), Hispaniola (2000–2001), Philippines (2001), Madagascar (2001–2002), and in Haiti (2002), where political strife and poverty have interfered with vaccination efforts. In 2006 an outbreak of vaccine-derived poliovirus occurred in China. Cases have been reported from Cambodia (2005–2006), Myanmar (2006–2007), Iran (1995, 2005–2007), Syria, Kuwait and Egypt. Since 2005, The World Health Organization has been tracking vaccine-caused polio in northern Nigeria caused by a mutation in live oral polio vaccines.

Contamination concerns

In 1960, it was determined that the rhesus monkey kidney cells used to prepare the poliovirus vaccines were infected with the SV40 virus (Simian Virus-40). SV40 was also discovered in 1960 and is a naturally occurring virus that infects monkeys. In 1961, SV40 was found to cause tumors in rodents. More recently, the virus was found in certain forms of cancer in humans, for instance brain and bone tumors, mesotheliomas, and some types of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. However, it has not been determined that SV40 causes these cancers.

SV40 was found to be present in stocks of the injected form of the polio vaccine (IPV) in use between 1955 to 1963.

In 1998, the National Cancer Institute undertook a large study, using cancer case information from the Institutes SEER database. The published findings from the study revealed that there was no increased incidence of cancer in persons who may have received vaccine containing SV40. Another large study in Sweden examined cancer rates of 700,000 individuals who had received potentially contaminated polio vaccine as late as 1957; the study again revealed no increased cancer incidence between persons who received polio vaccines containing SV40 and those who did not. The question of whether SV40 causes cancer in humans remains controversial however, and the development of improved assays for detection of SV40 in human tissues will be needed to resolve the controversy. The results of these human trials have been controversial, and accusations in the 1990s arose that the vaccine had created the conditions necessary for transmission of SIV from chimpanzees to humans, causing HIV/AIDS. These hypotheses have, however, been refuted. often relating to fears that the vaccine might induce sterility. The disease has since resurged in Nigeria and in several other African nations, which epidemiologists believe is due to refusals by certain local populations to allow their children to receive the polio vaccine.

References

External links

History of Vaccines Website – History of Polio History of Vaccines, a project of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia

CGDev.org - 'Vaccines for Development', Center for Global Development

PBS.org - 'People and Discoveries: Salk Produces Polio Vaccine 1952', PBS

Documents regarding Jonas Salk and the Salk Polio Vaccine, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library

Conquering Polio, Smithsonian Magazine, April 2005

Category:Poliomyelitis Category:Vaccines Category:Live vaccines

Coordinates	33°51′35.9″N151°12′40″N
Name	Jonas Edward Salk
Caption	Magazine photo by Yousuf Karsh, 1956
Birth date	October 28, 1914
Birth place	New York, New York
Death date	June 23, 1995
Death place	La Jolla, California, United States
Residence	New York, New YorkPittsburgh, PennsylvaniaLa Jolla, California
Nationality	American
Ethnicity	Russian-Jewish
Field	Medical research,virology and epidemiology
Work institution	University of PittsburghSalk Institute
Alma mater	City College of New YorkNew York University
Doctoral advisor	Thomas Francis, Jr.
Known for	First polio vaccine
Prizes	Lasker Award (1956)
Spouse	,
Signature	Jonas Salk signature.svg

Jonas E. Salk (October 28, 1914June 23, 1995) was an American medical researcher and virologist, best known for his discovery and development of the first safe and effective polio vaccine. He was born in New York City to parents from Ashkenazi Jewish Russian immigrant families. Although they themselves did not have much formal education, they were determined to see their children succeed. While attending New York University School of Medicine, he stood out from his peers not just because of his academic prowess, but because he chose to do medical research instead of becoming a physician.

Until 1955, when the Salk vaccine was introduced, polio was considered the most frightening public health problem of the post-war United States. Annual epidemics were increasingly devastating. The 1952 epidemic was the worst outbreak in the nation's history. Of nearly 58,000 cases reported that year, 3,145 people died and 21,269 were left with mild to disabling paralysis, with most of the victims children. The "public reaction was to a plague", said historian William O'Neill. "Citizens of urban areas were to be terrified every summer when this frightful visitor returned." According to a 2009 PBS documentary, "Apart from the atomic bomb, America's greatest fear was polio." When news of the vaccine's success was made public on April 12, 1955, Salk was hailed as a "miracle worker", and the day "almost became a national holiday." His sole focus had been to develop a safe and effective vaccine as rapidly as possible, with no interest in personal profit. When he was asked in a televised interview who owned the patent to the vaccine, Salk replied: "There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?"

In 1960, he founded the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, which is today a center for medical and scientific research. He continued to conduct research and publish books, including Man Unfolding (1972), The Survival of the Wisest (1973), World Population and Human Values: A New Reality (1981), and Anatomy of Reality: Merging of Intuition and Reason (1983). Dr. Salk's last years were spent searching for a vaccine against HIV.

Early life

Jonas Salk was born in New York City on October 28, 1914. His parents, Daniel and Dora Salk, were from Russian-Jewish immigrant families, and did not receive extensive formal education. According to historian David Oshinsky, Salk grew up in the "Jewish immigrant culture" of New York. He had two younger brothers, Herman and Lee. The family moved from East Harlem to the Bronx, with some time spent in Queens.

Education

High school

When he was 13, Salk entered Townsend Harris High School, a public school for intellectually gifted students. Named after the founder of City College of New York (CCNY), it was, wrote Oshinsky, "a launching pad for the talented sons of immigrant parents who lacked the money—and pedigree—to attend a top private school." In high school "he was known as a perfectionist...who read everything he could lay his hands on", according to one of his fellow students.

College

Salk enrolled in City College of New York from which he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in 1934. Oshinsky writes that "for working-class immigrant families, City College represented the apex of public higher education. Getting in was tough but tuition was free. Competition was intense, but the rules were fairly applied. No one got an advantage based on an accident of birth." "As a child I was not interested in science. I was merely interested in things human, the human side of nature, if you like, and I continue to be interested in that.

Medical school

According to Oshinsky, NYU based its modest reputation on famous alumni, such as Walter Reed, who helped conquer yellow fever. Tuition was "comparatively low, better still, it did not discriminate against Jews, ... while most of the surrounding medical schools - Cornell, Columbia, University of Pennsylvania, and Yale - had rigid quotas in place." Yale, for example, accepted 76 applicants, in 1935, out of a pool of 501. Although 200 of the applicants were Jewish, only five got in.

He was later approached by the director of research at the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis and asked if he would like to participate on the foundation's polio project, which had earlier been established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, at the time thought to be a victim of polio himself. He quickly accepted the offer saying he "would be happy to work on this important project."

Joining the fight against polio

The worst disease of the postwar era

Polio was a medical oddity that baffled researchers for years. It was first recorded in 1835 and grew steadily more prevalent. It took a long time to learn that the virus was transmitted by fecal matter and secretions of the nose and throat. It entered the victim orally, established itself in the intestines, and then traveled to the brain or spinal cord.

At the start of the 20th century, during the 1914 and 1919 polio epidemics in the U.S., physicians and nurses made house-to-house searches to identify all infected persons. Children suspected of being infected were taken to hospitals and the child's family was quarantined until they were no longer potentially infectious, even if it meant they could not go to their child's funeral if the child died in the hospital.

There are many famous polio victims, most of whom were able to overcome their disabilities, while others were less fortunate: Itzhak Perlman, one of the world's finest violinists, was permanently disabled at age four, and still plays sitting down; actor Donald Sutherland; writer Arthur C. Clarke; writer Robert Anton Wilson; actress Mia Farrow; singer-musician Neil Young; Olympic dressage rider Lis Hartel; actor Alan Alda; musician David Sanborn; singer Dinah Shore; singer Joni Mitchell; former Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas; director Francis Ford Coppola; nuclear physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer; actor Lionel Barrymore; and Congressman James H. Scheuer.

According to American historian William O'Neill, "Paralytic poliomyelitis (its formal name) was, if not the most serious, easily the most frightening public health problem of the postwar era." He noted that the epidemics kept getting worse and its victims were usually children. By 1952 it was killing more of them than any other communicable disease. In the twenty states that reported the disease back in 1916, there were 27,363 cases. New York alone had 9,023 cases of which 2,448 (28%) resulted in death, and a larger number in paralysis. At the age of 39, Roosevelt was left with severe paralysis and spent most of his presidency in a wheelchair.

Subsequently, as more states began recording instances of the disease, the numbers of victims grew larger. Nearly 58,000 cases of polio were reported in 1952, with 3,145 people dying and 21,269 left with mild to disabling paralysis. In November, 1953, at a conference in New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, he said, "I will be personally responsible for the vaccine." He announced that his wife and three sons had been among the first volunteers to be inoculated with his vaccine.

It was critical that he develop the trust of the US public for his experiments and mass tests that would become necessary. An associate of his noted, "That boy really suffers when he sees a paralytic case. You look at him and you see him thinking, 'My God, this can be prevented'." At least one hundred million people had contributed to the March of Dimes, and seven million had donated their time and labor as well.

With the hopes of the world upon him, "Salk worked sixteen hours a day, seven days a week, for years...", wrote Denenberg.

The nation celebrates

Within minutes of Francis's declaration that the vaccine was safe and effective, the news of the event was carried coast to coast by wire services and radio and television newscasts. According to Debbie Bookchin, "across the nation there were spontaneous celebrations... business came to a halt as the news spread. The mayor of New York City interrupted a city council meeting to announce the news, adding, 'I think we are all quite proud that Dr. Salk is a graduate of City College.'"

Global acceptance and hope

Six months before Salk's announcement, optimism and hope were so widespread that the Polio Fund in the U.S. had already contracted to purchase enough of the Salk vaccine to immunize 9,000,000 children and pregnant women the following year. And around the world, the official news prompted an immediate international rush to vaccinate. Medical historian Debbie Bookchin writes, "Israel had committed to the Salk vaccine just days before the final report was released, and now Canada, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, West Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Belgium all announced plans to either immediately begin polio immunization campaigns using Salk's vaccine or to gear up to quickly do so. "Overnight", she adds, "Salk had become an international hero and a household name. His vaccine was a modern medical miracle." Because he was the first to prove that a killed-virus could prevent polio, medical historian Paul Offit wrote in 2007 that "for this observation alone, Salk should have been awarded the Nobel Prize.

Other countries where the vaccine was not yet in use suffered continued epidemics, however. In 1957, Hungary, for example, reported a severe epidemic requiring emergency international assistance. By the first half of the year they had 713 reported cases and a death rate of 6.6%, and the peak infection months of summer were still ahead. Canada sent a shipment of vaccine to Hungary by a refrigerated plane, and Britain and Sweden sent iron lungs. A few years later, during a polio outbreak in Canada, "masked bandits" stole 75,000 Salk vaccine shots from a Montreal university research center.

Worldwide eradication successes

By the end of 1990 it was estimated that 500,000 annual cases worldwide of paralysis as result of polio had been prevented due to immunization programs carried out by WHO, UNICEF, and many other organizations. In developing countries, estimates ran as high as 350,000 cases each year in 1988. As a result, in 2002, more than 500 million children were immunized in 93 countries, In 1991 transmission of polio was declared as "interrupted" in the Western hemisphere.

;China In 1993, China initiated a national immunization program with over 80 million children getting vaccinated in just 2 days; by the following year the country reported only 5 cases of polio.

;Africa In 2003, after an outbreak in Nigeria, international organizations spent $10 million to vaccinate 15 million children in Nigeria and neighboring countries.

Remaining eradication efforts

In 1988 numerous international medical organizations launched a campaign to eradicate polio globally, as was successfully done for smallpox. By 2003 polio had been eradicated in all but a few countries, among them Afghanistan, India, Nigeria, and Pakistan However, mullahs in northern Nigeria began to oppose the vaccination program, claiming that it was a plot to spread AIDS and sterility, and preventing any vaccination. Polio cases in Nigeria tripled over the next three years.

In India, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is helping sponsor a campaign to eradicate polio, and whose Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation committed nearly $1 billion to health and development projects throughout India. As a result, the number of cases have dropped by over 50% since 2002.

New medical research projects urged

Just two weeks after the vaccine was announced, Senator Hubert H. Humphrey (Democrat, Minnesota) urged President Dwight D. Eisenhower "to show the nation's gratitude to Dr. Jonas E. Salk for his new polio vaccine by 'loosening the purse-strings' on Federal medical research." Salk knew it would take time to verify his theories and improve the vaccine. "He still wants to find out a number of things about polio", wrote the New York Times that summer. Questions remained: "How long will the immunity last? Are there any children who cannot be immunized? What improvements can be made?" Beyond that, "he has far bigger goals - 'more in the nature of dreams right now' - involving other diseases." In 1965, he also said "a vaccine for the common cold is a matter of time and of solving some technical problems."

On October 20, 1998, after eighteen years of using the Sabin vaccine, however, the federal government recommended that children use the Salk vaccine exclusively. Sabin's polio vaccine is no longer available in the United States.

While OPV is not recommended by the CDC, its website explained that Sabin's OPV is more suited to areas where polio is endemic, because of "its advantages over IPV in providing intestinal immunity and providing secondary spread of the vaccine to unprotected contacts."

;Looking back - Public confusion over which vaccine to use In September 1962, public health officials in the U.S. and Canada faced a "major dilemma": whether or not to continue using the recently begun Sabin vaccine inoculations, until further studies were conducted, due to reports of polio cases among persons who had received it. The U.S. Surgeon General, Luther Terry, recommended a temporary halt due to sixteen cases of confirmed polio in adults. And "the Canadian Federal Health Department recommended against mass use of the [Sabin] oral vaccine pending further study of its effects." One of the unfortunate results caused by the controversy was that "many authorities have deplored the confusion that has been created in the public mind."

Due to the American Medical Association's (AMA) "obstructive tactics, however, which caused numerous delays", writes O'Neill, the AMA had called for mass vaccinations in early 1962 employing Sabin's vaccine rather than Salk's. However, writes O'Neill, "as live-virus was more dangerous, it caused an unknown number of polio cases... [but] the medical establishment seemed not to mind, having gotten its own way at last." But, concludes O'Neill, "polio was conquered all the same, even if not so quickly and safely as it might have been."

;Basil O'Connor enters the controversy Two months after the Salk vaccine was announced to the world, in 1955, Basil O'Connor found it necessary to respond to critics of the vaccine, especially Dr. Sabin. As the President of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, he said, during a news conference before a Congressional group in Washington, that "criticism of the Salk vaccine program by Dr. Albert Sabin of the University of Cincinnati was 'old stuff'." According to the New York Times, "Dr. Sabin recommended at a hearing before a House Investigating subcommittee that Salk inoculations be suspended" until a safer preparation could be perfected. O'Connor responded in a prepared statement: (excerpt) :"He's been using it [criticism] for years. He used it in an attempt to stop the field trials of the Salk vaccine... The Salk vaccine is safe and effective and will protect children from paralytic polio to the extent of 60 to 90 percent... In the United States, Canada and Denmark, 7,675,000 children have actually received the Salk vaccine with no untoward results. There could be no better proof of its safety than this. No vaccine in the history of the world has ever had such a test for safety. Anyone who would seek to prevent its use for other than unanswerable scientific reasons would be acting neither as a scientist nor as a humanitarian....

:"Those who would prevent its use must be prepared to be haunted for life by the crippled bodies of little children who could have been saved from paralysis had they been permitted to receive the Salk vaccine."

The Cutter incident

In 1955 Cutter Laboratories was one of several companies licensed by the United States government to produce Salk's polio vaccine. In what came to be known as the Cutter Incident, a production error caused some lots of the Cutter vaccine to be tainted with live polio virus. It was one of the worst pharmaceutical disasters in U.S. history and caused several thousand children to be exposed to live polio virus, causing 56 cases of paralytic polio and 5 deaths.

10th anniversary ceremonies

On April 12, 1965, leaders of the Senate and House presented Salk with a joint resolution expressing the nation's gratitude to him, his colleagues in the project and the March of Dimes, which helped to finance the work. President Lyndon B. Johnson called him to the White House to congratulate him personally. Dr. Luther Terry, Surgeon General of the United States said in a statement marking the anniversary that only 121 cases of polio were reported the previous year, as opposed to more than 28,000 ten years ago. "This represents an historic triumph of preventive medicine - unparalleled in history", Dr. Terry said.

30th anniversary - "Jonas Salk Day"

On May 6, 1985, President Ronald Reagan proclaimed that day to be "Jonas Salk Day."

:One of the greatest challenges to mankind always has been eradicating the presence of debilitating disease. Until just thirty years ago poliomyelitis occurred in the United States and throughout the world in epidemic proportions, striking tens of thousands and killing thousands in our own country each year. Dr. Jonas E. Salk changed all that. This year we observe the 30th anniversary of the licensing and manufacturing of the vaccine discovered by this great American. Even before another successful vaccine was discovered, Dr. Salk's discovery had reduced polio and its effects by 97 percent. Today, polio is not a familiar disease to younger Americans, and many have difficulty appreciating the magnitude of the disorder that the Salk vaccine virtually wiped from the face of the Earth.

:Jonas E. Salk always had a passion for science. It was because of this that he finally chose medicine over law as his career goal. Even after his great discovery, he continued to undertake vital studies and medical research to benefit his fellow man. Under his vision and leadership, the Salk Institute for Biological Studies has been in the forefront of basic biological research, reaping further benefits for mankind and medical science.

:In recognition of his tremendous contributions to society, particularly for his role in the epochal discovery of the first licensed vaccine for poliomyelitis, and in celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of its mass distribution, the Congress, by House Joint Resolution 258, has designated May 6, 1985, as "Dr. Jonas E. Salk Day" and authorized and requested the President to issue a proclamation in observance of this event. Now, Therefore, I, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim May 6, 1985, as Dr. Jonas E. Salk Day. I urge the people of the United States to observe the day with appropriate tributes, ceremonies, and activities throughout the Nation and by paying honor, at all times, to this outstanding physician and to his life's work. In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this sixth day of May, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eighty-five, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and ninth.

Becoming a public figure

Celebrity versus privacy

in Jerusalem, 1959]] Salk preferred not to have his career as a scientist affected by too much personal attention, as he had always tried to remain independent and private in his research and life. But this proved to be impossible. "Young man, a great tragedy has befallen you—you've lost your anonymity", the late television personality Ed Murrow said to Salk shortly after the onslaught of media attention.

Author Jon Cohen noted that "Jonas Salk made scientists and journalists alike go goofy. As one of the only living scientists whose face was known the world over, Salk, in the public's eye, had a superstar aura. Airplane pilots would announce that he was on board, and passengers would burst into applause. Hotels routinely would upgrade him into their penthouse suites. A meal at a restaurant inevitably meant an interruption from an admirer... and scientists approached him with drop-jawed wonder, as though some of the stardust might rub off."

For the most part, however, Salk was "appalled at the demands on the public figure he has become and resentful of what he considers to be the invasion of his privacy", wrote the New York Times, a few months after his vaccine announcement. The Times article noted that "at 40, the once obscure scientist ... was lifted from his laboratory almost to the level of a folk hero." He received a Presidential citation, a score of awards, four honorary degrees, half a dozen foreign decorations, and letters from thousands of fellow citizens. His alma mater, City College of New York, gave him an honorary degree as Doctor of Laws. But "despite such very nice tributes", the New York Times wrote, "Salk is profoundly disturbed by the torrent of fame that has descended upon him.... He talks continually about getting out of the limelight and back to his laboratory... because of his genuine distaste for publicity, which he believes is inappropriate for a scientist."

He enjoys talking to people he likes, and "he likes a lot of people", wrote the Times. "He talks quickly, articulately, and often in complete paragraphs." And, notes the Times, "He has very little perceptible interest in the things that interest most people - such as making money." That belongs "in the category of mink coats and Cadillacs - unnecessary", he said.

:In an interview about his future hopes at the institute, he said, "In the end, what may have more significance is my creation of the institute and what will come out of it, because of its example as a place for excellence, a creative environment for creative minds."

Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the DNA molecule, was a leading professor at the institute until his death in 2004.

AIDS vaccine work

Beginning in the mid 1980s, Salk also engaged in research to develop a vaccine for another, more recent plague, AIDS. To further this research, he co-founded The Immune Response Corporation with Kevin Kimberlin, to search for a vaccine, and patented Remune, an immune-based therapy. The AIDS vaccine project was discontinued in 2007, twelve years after Jonas Salk's death in 1995.

Although many advances have been made in treating AIDS, "the world still waited for the miracle vaccine the conqueror of polio had sought", wrote historian Alan Axelrod.

Salk's "biophilosophy"

In 1966, the New York Times referred to him as the "Father of Biophilosophy." According to Times journalist and author Howard Taubman, "he never forgets... there is a vast amount of darkness for man to penetrate. As a biologist, he believes that his science is on the frontier of tremendous new discoveries; and as a philosopher, he is convinced that humanists and artists have joined the scientists to achieve an understanding of man in all his physical, mental and spiritual complexity. Such interchanges might lead, he would hope, to a new and important school of thinkers he would designate as biophilosophers."

Salk describes his "biophilosophy" as the application of a "biological, evolutionary point of view to philosophical, cultural, social and psychological problems." He went into more detail in two of his books, Man's Unfolding, and The Survival of the Wisest. In an interview in 1980, he described his thoughts on the subject, including his feeling that a sharp rise and an expected leveling off in the human population would take place and eventually bring a change in human attitudes:

:"I think of biological knowledge as providing useful analogies for understanding human nature.... People think of biology in terms of such practical matters as drugs, but its contribution to knowledge about living systems and ourselves will in the future be equally important.... In the past epoch, man was concerned with death, high mortality; his attitudes were antideath, antidisease", he says. "In the future, his attitudes will be expressed in terms of prolife and prohealth. The past was dominated by death control; in the future, birth control will be more important. These changes we're observing are part of a natural order and to be expected from our capacity to adapt. It's much more important to cooperate and collaborate. We are the co-authors with nature of our destiny."

Personal life

The day after his graduation from medical school, Salk married Donna Lindsay, a master's candidate at the New York College of Social Work. David Oshinsky writes that her father, Elmer Lindsay, "a wealthy Manhattan dentist, viewed Salk as a social inferior, several cuts below Donna's former suitors." Eventually, her father agreed to the marriage on two conditions: first, Salk must wait until he could be listed as an official M.D. on the wedding invitations, and second, he must improve his "rather pedestrian status" by giving himself a middle name." and was buried at El Camino Memorial Park San Diego

Honors and recognition

1955, one month after the vaccine announcement, he was honored by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, where he was given their "highest award for services" by Governor George M. Leader, Meritorious Service Medal, where the governor added,

::"... in recognition of his 'historical medical' discovery... Dr. Salk's achievement is meritorious service of the highest magnitude and dimension for the commonwealth, the country and mankind." The governor, who had three children, said that "as a parent he was 'humbly thankful to Dr. Salk,' and as Governor, 'proud to pay him tribute'."

1955, City University of New York city creates the Salk Scholarship fund which it awards to multiple outstanding pre-med students each year

1956, awarded the Lasker Award;

1957, the Municipal Hospital building, where Salk conducted his polio research at the University of Pittsburgh, is renamed Jonas Salk Hall and is home to the University's School of Pharmacy and Dentistry.

1958, awarded the James D. Bruce Memorial Award;

1958, elected to the Polio Hall of Fame, which was dedicated in Warm Springs, Georgia;

1975, awarded the Jawaharlal Nehru Award and the Congressional Gold Medal;

1976, named the Humanist of the Year by the American Humanist Association;

1977, awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Jimmy Carter, with the following statement accompanying the medal:

::"Because of Doctor Jonas E. Salk, our country is free from the cruel epidemics of poliomyelitis that once struck almost yearly. Because of his tireless work, untold hundreds of thousands who might have been crippled are sound in body today. These are Doctor Salk's true honors, and there is no way to add to them. This Medal of Freedom can only express our gratitude, and our deepest thanks." 1996, The March of Dimes Foundation created an annual $250,000 cash "Prize" to outstanding biologists as a tribute to Salk

2006, the United States Postal Service issued a 63 cent Distinguished Americans series postage stamp in his honor.

2007, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver inducted Salk into the California Hall of Fame

2009, BBYO boys chapter chartered in his honor in Scottsdale, Arizona, Named "Jonas Salk AZA #2357"

Schools in Mesa, Arizona; Spokane, Washington; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Bolingbrook, Illinois; Levittown, New York; Old Bridge, New Jersey and Sacramento, California are named after him.

Documentary films

In early 2009, the American Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), aired its new documentary film, American Experience: The Polio Crusade. The documentary, available on DVD, can also be viewed online: PBS video, 1 hr.

In the summer of 2009, the new film by Michael Moore, Capitalism: A Love Story , includes a segment about Salk. According to Moore's website, "One of the film's heroes is polio researcher Dr. Jonas Salk, who could have enriched himself by claiming patent rights to his vaccine. He gave it away for free. Saving millions from paralysis and death was reward enough."

On April 12, 2010, to help celebrate the 55th anniversary of the Salk vaccine, a new 66-minute documentary, The Shot Felt 'Round the World', had its world premiere. Directed by Tjardus Greidanus and produced by Laura Davis, the documentary was conceived by Hollywood screenwriter and producer Carl Kurlander to bring "a fresh perspective on the era."

Salk's book publications

Man Unfolding (1972)

Survival of the Wisest (1973)

World Population and Human Values: A New Reality (1981)

Anatomy of Reality: Merging of Intuition and Reason (1983)

References

External links

The American Experience: The Polio Crusade video, 1 hr. by PBS

"Legacy of Salk Institute", video, 30 minutes, history of Salk vaccine

"Polio Vaccine" intro., Britannica, video, 1 minute

The Time 100 Most Important People of the Century

Jonas Salk Trust

Salk Institute for Biological Studies

Documents regarding Jonas Salk and the Salk Polio Vaccine, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library

1985 Open Mind interview with Richard D. Heffer: Man Evolving...

University of Pittsburgh Jonas Salk site

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette feature on Jonas Salk and the Polio cure 50 years later

The Salk School of Science (New York, New York)

Patent US Patent 5,256,767 : Vaccine against HIV

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