Kids Cube/4_History.iso/jubilee/jonas.dat

Text File | 1992-04-30 | 3KB | 48 lines

     In the summer months of the early '50s "everyone had
a friend who was stricken with polio, a classmate who died,
a cousin paralyzed in her prime.  During the summer months
there were pictures in the local paper -- kids who lived
just down the block,snatched from play and entombed in
iron lungs. On the fron page there was always a little box
with the baseball scores and another box that gave the
numbers on polio: how many hospitalized yesterday,how
many dead. Don't go to the beach, parents warned. Stay out
of the pool. Don't drink from the water fountain." [Jane S.
Smith,Patenting the Sun].
     When Michael Dukakis was asked in the 1988
Presidential debates who the country's heroes should be,he
answered with the name,Jonas Salk, who "discovered the
vaccine that cured one of the most dread diseases".Salk had
a flair for getting things done. He was a compelling public
speaker and was able to obtain support and funding from the
National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis which ran the
March of Dimes. At that time a charitable concern could run
a large drug trial for safety and effectiveness of a
polio vaccine with almost no Federal intervention.
     Jonas Salk conducted his research at the University of
Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
     Jonas Salk demonstrated that killed viruses of three
strains of polio could induce antibody formation in
monkeys.A vaccine teaches the immunes system about invaders
it has not yet encountered. A "killed" vaccine uses viruses
that have been inactivated by chemicals or radiation. A
"live" vaccine uses mutant viruses bred to lack the ability
to cause disease. In both situations, the vaccine triggers
an immune response. The Sabin research used the other
approach. "Albert Sabin was out for me from the very
beginning. I remember in Copenhagen in 1960 he said to me
that he was out to kill the killed vaccine", said Jonas
Salk.
     In 1952, Salk conducted successful field tests of a
killed virus vaccine. He was able to use flasks of monkey
cells to grow strains of the three virus types (by using
a methodology previously developed by the virologist,
John Enders). He then was able to figure out the best
recipe for killing the strains with formaldehyde. The
procedure had to prevent batches of vaccine from
containing live while still maintaining effectiveness.
On April 12,1955, the vaccine was released for use in the
United States.
     He was honored by being awarded the Presidential
Medal of Freedom in 1977.