The Epidemic Of The Polio Virus

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.

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

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).

Roosevelt became president with infantile paralysis (polio), which was diagnosed in 1921, and the public found out.9 Having the American people's president seem weakened by such a disease but push on through expectations showed that little to nothing was going to get in his way and stop him.10 Including FDR's case, close to 25% of those age 21 and older had paralytic cases by the early 1950s.11 Before the vaccine, there was a peak of about 50,000 cases of polio in 1953.12 Concern of the people was also around it's highest point due to the increasing risk of the horrid disease most feared at this time. Hopes for a solution were still going strong. Friends, family, and even strangers kept prayers for those in need. Anything that could be done was done until the vaccine was established. There were even several hundred thousand children placed in a control study and out of the 749,000, only 33 from the vaccinated group developed paralytic polio.13 In addition to this trial and other performed, and conclusion was drawn stating that the vaccine was 80-90% effective against the paralytic branch of polio.14 Chances for a new beginning were showing up all over with this vaccine, even if it only helped those who haven't been diagnosed

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

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

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

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).

During the twentieth century Americans were afraid. They were afraid of the Russians, they were afraid of the economy, they were afraid of Hitler, and they were afraid of polio. A disease as indiscriminate as a nuclear bomb, it struck young and old, rich and poor, white and black. It caused fear and hysteria, confusion and anger, paralysis, and even death. By this time the United States had endured smallpox, cholera, yellow fever, and tuberculosis; but it had never experienced a wide-spread epidemic of a disease that seemed to specifically target children before the twentieth century. Although polio effects people of all ages, children are the most susceptible due to their weak immune systems. Many victims of polio were partially or completely paralyzed, and thousands died. The “summer plague” would run rampant in the United States for nearly four decades.

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).