Analysis Of Jonas Salk And The Conquest Of Polio

Polio an American story is a scholarly readable and informative book which covers the lives of many American eminent scientists who struggled a lot to eradicate polio. This book mainly focuses on the mid twentieth century where the people are very eager to find a vaccine to eradicate polio .This book also covers the entire topics from appearance of polio symptoms to post polio syndrome which shows the valuable thesis done by David M. Oshinsky.

In addition to health-related advances, such as the artificial heart valve, DNA structure decay, penicillin, and antibiotics. As well, we can not forget the start of the fight with cancer by the memorable world’s first cancer treatment with Cobalt-60 radiation. Although, new surgical procedures were introduced like the first successful kidney transplant and immunizations like typhoid, smallpox, tetanus, and polio vaccines. Polio epidemics had been occurring in the United States since 1916 according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The viral disease struck even important figures as President Franklin Roosevelt that forced him to use a wheelchair and wear steel braces on his legs privately. “In the 1940s and 1950s, widespread polio epidemics terrorized the nation. Finally, research scientist Jonas Salk developed an injectable vaccine to prevent polio. In 1955 the vaccine became available to the general public. American scientist Albert Sabin then developed an oral vaccine for polio. Safer and more convenient than Salk’s injection vaccine, the Sabin vaccine became the most common method for preventing the disease. The threat of polio nearly disappeared and many more diseases no longer affected the American people” (Appleby, Joyce 2004). Therefore, the treatments and cures of several epidemics and diseases were an important factor that caused the Baby Boom due to the decrease in the children’s mortality rates and their possibility to reach adult

President Carter took initiative and created a program for prevention, “The administration’s program had two main goals: to immunize 90 percent of all children against seven preventable infections by October 1979, and to establish a permanent system to ensure the full and timely immunization of the 3 million children born each year.” Measles has been terminated before as an inconvenience, but vaccine supporters stressed that measles could have many dangerous side-effects including encephalitis, deafness, and brain damage. Mumps was also transformed from a “mild” disease to the childhood with alarming difficulties. Male sterility and mental retardation were main concerns. Elena Conis argues that the beginning of the mumps, measles, and rubella vaccine by Merck in 1971 ensured that American children would be vaccinated against the mumps, but she does not believe that a profit-seeking pharmaceutical company duped Americans into vaccinating their children. Rather, she argues that the concern about the declining birth rate made the possible complications of the mumps seem more serious. During this as well, an alarm about rubella-induced birth defects increased support for the rubella vaccine. Fascinating enough, both the mumps and rubella vaccination was not promoted towards the groups that needed it. Younger children were vaccinated because they were an easier target. “As state health boards and legislatures began taking steps to mandate the hepatitis B vaccine for infants, kindergarteners, and seventh-graders, many instead attributed these steps directly to the Vaccines for Children Program.” Also, because universal childhood vaccination could eventually protect the entire

Heather Green Wooten’s The Polio Years in Texas: Battling a Terrifying Unknown chronicles the history of polio in Texas in a very extensive timeline. The book goes all the way back to the beginning of the polio epidemic and essentially progresses to the present. The time in this book certainly exceeds that of, The Captured and Isaac’s Storm. The Captured chronicled a long period of captivity, but did not appear to exceed a decade. Isaac’s Storm traced the initial development of Weather Bureau and covered a great period, but did not exceed that of The Polio Years. Several themes begin to emerge further into the book. Obvious themes included, the support for March of Dimes, impact on families affected by polio, the growth and development of rehabilitation facilities, and more importantly the response to the disease by Texans. Oddly, Wooten discusses the fact that other diseases such as, measles, diphtheria, and tuberculosis took more lives than Polio. However, people feared Polio more than the rest. Wooten attributes polio’s terrifying affect to the uncertainty. Several uncertainties such as, how to prevent it, why did some become crippled, why did some die, and why did it only essentially affected children made polio very terrifying in the 20th century. Texas appeared to have been hit the hardest in comparison to other states. Wooten’s research examined the time during and then after World War II. During this period, Texas saw an immense amount of polio contractions. Per

Poliomyelitis was a highly infectious disease that spread through many Americans in the early 20th century. As a matter of fact, over 3,000 Americans died of the disease each year. Families were overwhelmingly desperate for doctors to find a cure. When one suffered from polio, they generally experienced painful symptoms which included not only fatigue and muscle weakness, but even death. Therefore, when the polio vaccine was introduced by scientist Jonas Salk in 1953, it greatly contributed to Americans in numerous positive ways. Environmentally, the vaccine saved countless young American lives affected by the disease thus decreasing American mortality rates. Socially, the polio vaccine convenienced families who were either directly afflicted

He knew that Polio caused paralysis, and invaded the nervous system. As a result, he wanted to end the greatest epidemic in America at that time. As he began researching, the president of the March of Dimes Foundation, Basal O’Connor, wanted to help Salk create the Polio vaccination. His goal was to fund Salk to find a cure against Paralytic Poliomyelitis, or Polio. Jonas devoted the next 8 years of his life working to develop the vaccine. He finally was able to create the vaccine, using formaldehyde, or a chemical compound. Salk used the killed Polio virus to immunize without being infected, or becoming infected after the injection. Soon after the vaccine was created, they began to test it on monkeys; and then they tested it on children who already had Polio at the Watson Institute. After that trial was done, the testing spread to volunteers who wanted the vaccine; this included Jonas, his wife, and his family. By 1954, national testing began on children between the ages of 6-9. On April 12, 1955, they were able to conclude that the vaccine was safe and effective. Salk became known as a miracle worker, although he remained selfless. Jonas wanted no major payment, or recognition for the creation of the vaccine. In fact, he credited that the vaccine creation was accomplished due to the help of John Enders, a Harvard researcher. Enders was the man

Poliomyelitis (polio) is a disease that attacks the nervous tissue in the spinal cord and the brain stem resulting in paralysis (Document One). Polio is caused by the poliovirus, but it is unknown how this virus is acquired. The virus enters the digestive tract and stays in the intestines for up to eight weeks, and then attacks the lymphatic system, the blood stream and eventually travels to the brain and spine (Document Four). Once it is infected in one’s body, the disease is highly contagious and can be spread through contact of saliva, food, germs, or feces (Document Two). “The poliovirus causes most of its infections in the summer and fall. At one time, summer epidemics of polio were common and greatly feared” (Document Four). This may

When the Polio outbreak was thriving in 1953, Jonas Salk wasn’t just lying around. He was tiredly working on the improvement of the Polio vaccine (Fact Check). The previous vaccine was unreliable and unaffective. It led some patients to be infected with Polio and die

When Polio hit New York City the people were desperate for anything that would save their children’s live. When Jonas Salk came out with the vaccine the people were relief that there is a chance to protect their children from Polio. Little do they know that even with the ultimate goal of fighting the vaccine the people taking part in it had other ideas. Salk wanted to be the man that everyone looked up to because he had developed a vaccine that safe lives of thousands. The foundation that Salk worked under would show that the money that the government put in didn’t go too wasted. For the federal government by helping finding a vaccine they can say that they are there to protect the people and that the people would not have found the vaccination if it wasn’t for the government. Although the vaccine hadn’t proven to work the foundation decided that they are going to put $9 million more into the study. The press then took it as the vaccination is working and that no one would put $9 million in for just a vaccination trails and announce it to the people. Thomas Francis was Salk’s advisor at the time and he was asked to write a review about Salk work and he began his speech by saying that the vaccine is “safe, effective, and potent”. During his speech he also said other things to warn the people about the vaccine, but the people never listened because they have already heard what they want. The vaccine was given and the people had high hopes for it, but the vaccine didn’t work

David Oshinsky's 2005 Polio: An American Story, is a history of the fight to eradicate polio in the 20th century. Polio became one of the most, if not THE most, feared diseases of the century due to the influence and example of President Franklin Roosevelt, who was stricken with the disease as an adult in 1921. Owner of a Warm Springs, GA resort dedicated to polio rehabilitation(where he died in 1945), Roosevelt needed to raise funds to keep the resort operational. In 1934, he allowed planners to throw a nationwide series of birthday parties (over 6,000) for him to raise money for the care of polio survivors and for the upkeep of Warm Springs. The success of these parties and recognition that the key to raising money during the Great Depression

Investigative reporter, Joan Salk, breaks down the propaganda of the Anti-Vaccine Movement. Joan’s in-depth coverage takes a look behind the scenes at the Center for Disease Control and their important research that refutes the myths perpetuated by anti-vaxxers. She takes

Max is overall healthy 2 years old boy, which is in 90th percentile for his height and weight. His BMI is 16.8.

The discovery of the polio vaccine was an important medical and scientific breakthrough because it saved many lives since the 1950s. In the summer of 1916 the great polio epidemic struck the United states. By the 1950s hundreds of thousands of people had been struck by the poliomyelitis. The highest number of cases occurred in 1953 with over 50,000 people infected with the virus.

Jonas salk invented the IPV vaccine. He was born October 28, 1914 to Russian parents. His parents had no education but wanted him to be successful so they encouraged him to work hard. “In 1939 he received a Medical Degree from New York University College of Medicine. In 1942 he joined one of his professors at the University of Michigan School of Public Health” (Petersen, Jennifer B). Jonas and his professor developed vaccine for influenza, which was Salk’s first invention. Then he traveled to Pittsburgh and became a Professor. There, he also became head of the virus research lab. He worked on a vaccine there. He used the killed virus to prevent people from contracting it. On July 2, 1952 he vaccinated 42 children who did not have polio and his trials succeeded. On April 12, 1955 Salk vaccinate 1.8 million children and right after he announced that his trial were effective and that the vaccine works (Petersen, Jennifer B).

The similarity between the poliovirus and already solved plant virus’s led to a better understanding of how the poliovirus can regenerate within a host. Although the virus was similar to other plant viruses. The poliovirus was covered with more elaborate loops that are the site of monoclonal antibody escape mutations (Hogle, Chow and 229: 1358-1365Filman, Science). Individual proteins of the virus particle are produced by proteolytic cleavages from a larger precursor, yet the amino and carboxy-termini produced by proteolysis are very distinct. By noting this, Hogle and his team were able to conclude that proteolysis was not just making a lot of proteins from one gene, it is also controlling the timing of assembly (Hogle, Chow and Filman, Science 229: 1358-1365).