Polio Vaccine : An Infectious Disease

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.

The first supportive argument of mandating vaccines is that vaccines save lives. In their article “A Mandatory HPV Vaccine Will Save Lives” (2010), Ellen M. Daley and Robert J. McDermott argue the importance of mandating the human papillomavirus, HPV, vaccine. They first note one of the most well-known successful vaccinations: the polio vaccine. Created in 1955 and revamped in 1962 by Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin, the vaccine was first introduced when polio infections were over 16,000 cases and 1,900 deaths a year, and initially lowered the infection rate to less than 1,000 cases per year after 1955 (Daley and McDermott par. 2). This fact provides evidence that the first vaccine significantly reduced the number of

John Salk made the polio vaccine in 1955. It was one of the first preventives against diseases. It became very widespread and effective in eliminating diseases.

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

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

In February 1952, Jonas Salk at University of Pittsburgh announced that he’d developed the world’s first polio vaccine, but he couldn’t begin offering it to the children until he’d tested it on a large scale to prove it was safe and effective. And doing that would require culturing cells on an enormous, industrial scale, which no one had done before (Rebecca Skloot).

With the last outbreak of Polio in the US being in 1979, many today have no recollection of the terror of this disease. The disease primarily infected children, and there seemed to be no pattern to who succumbed to it. No one could feel safe. Polio as a disease presents such horrors that even those who overcome it once can be plagued by its aftereffects in later life. Before vaccines, single outbreaks could devastate entire communities. One outbreak

Polio had already killed 3,000 people at its peak rate in 1952; sadly, it had already paralyzed thousands of more people (Soylent 1)On April 12, 1955 the polio vaccine developed by Salk was allowed to be used by the public after it had been tested with 1.8 million children (Biography 1). The vaccine had drastically reduced the number of polio cases in children by 90%; 57,000 cases were recorded in 1952 and less than one thousand cases a decade later (Soylent 1). In addition, Jonas Salk later established his own institution for research named Salk Center for Biological Studies in 1963. The institution “remains one of the world's most prestigious facilities for research into AIDS, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's

In 1988, 350,000 cases of polio, an incurable virus that can cause permanent paralysis or death, were reported. In 2014, only 359 cases were reported (“Poliomyelitis”). The reason for this dramatic decline in cases was a global initiative to vaccinate children and eradicate the virus. No longer did parents have to warn their children away from crowded areas or swimming pools for fear of their child contracting polio. However, as the relief faded and polio became little more than a historical relic, a new movement gained traction. People started focusing more on the possible dangers of vaccines than on their numerous advantages. It culminated in an “anti-vaccination” movement, and ever since science and advocates have been fighting over the issue. Vaccines have since been studied closely for years, and a myriad of investigations have proven that vaccinations are crucial. Every person should receive necessary immunizations because they protect people from dying of preventable diseases, their benefits far outweigh the risks, and vaccinated people protect all members of their community, especially those who cannot receive vaccinations.

Immunizations have lowered the morbidity rate over the course of many years. Before vaccines were introduced, during 1900 through 1904, an average of 48,164 cases and 2528 deaths were caused by both severe and mild forms of smallpox in the United States. After the smallpox vaccine was introduced, the disease ceased to stop and the last case to ever be reported was in 1929. Getting vaccinated against the smallpox actually eradicated the disease, meaning it has been wiped out. Next, in 1951- 1954, on average, 16,316 polio cases and 1879 polio deaths were reported each year. Once the polio vaccine was introduced, less that 1000 cases were reported in 1962. As of 1991, wild-type polio viruses have been eliminated from the Western Hemisphere. But

On March 26, 1953, Dr. Jonas Salk made an announcement that changed the world. He had successfully created and tested a vaccine against polio. At the time, polio was one of the most debilitating and feared of the childhood diseases, with over 33,000 cases reported in 1950 in the United States alone ("PHI: Incidence Rates of

However, it wasn’t until 1955, when Salk’s vaccine was released for polio, that vaccinations really become accessible and used by the public (Mnookin, 2011). Since then, vaccines have been tested and more diseases can be prevented by getting vaccinated. Vaccinations prevent serious diseases such as measles and smallpox. Overall, the purpose of vaccines are to make the body immune to an array of diseases by introducing a weak form of an disease to the immune system, thus allowing white blood cells to fight the disease and protect the body from that disease (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,

Polio or poliomyelitis was one of the most frightening diseases to parents and their children in the early 20th century. Polio has since been researched and eradicated in many countries but still continues to be a problem in others.

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.

The 1952 polio epidemic became the worst outbreak, of the nearly 58,000 cases reported 3,145 died and 21,269 were left with mild to disabling paralysis. Three years later, Dr. Jonas Salk from The University of Pittsburgh, became a national hero when he developed the first safe and effective polio vaccine in 1955 with the support of the March of Dimes. In the two years before the vaccine was, widely available, the average number of polio cases was more than 45,000. By 1962, that number had dropped to 910. By 1979, the virus had been completely eliminated across the country. There is no cure for polio once a person becomes infected. Therefore, treatments include antibiotics, pain killers, ventilators to help breathing, and moderate exercise. The disease can kill and remains incurable, but vaccines have assisted in almost total eradication in the world. Polio vaccination in the United States is still recommended because of the risk of imported cases, children are recommended to receive the inactivated polio vaccine at 2 months and 4 months of age, and then twice more before entering elementary