I was in first grade when the Salk polio vaccine was put on the market. We all lined up and went to the school office where we got a shot* and a Hershey bar. A few years later, everyone in my family went to the local high school to take the Sabin oral vaccine series. No Hershey bar but the vaccine was on a sugar cube.
Poliomyelitis was ruthless. Look at small-town newspapers from the 1940s and early 1950s. You would be dismayed at how often new cases were announced in the paper. Things peaked in the U.S. in 1952, when 58,000 new cases were reported. A dozen years later the number of reported new cases was only 121. What an amazing accomplishment!
The first widespread outbreak of polio in the U.S. was in Vermont in 1894. Sixty years later, TIME did a story on Jonas Salk's efforts to develop a vaccine. His project required "Moslem trappers" to catch rhesus monkeys in India. Hindu workers had religious objections to the work. It's interesting to read about Salk's field trials. He asked school children to participate and 80-85 percent of the parents agreed to let their children be inoculated. That percentage compares with the "herd immunity" level that is considered necessary to keep contagious diseases at bay.
What does it take to encourage these brilliant scientists? I know! More bureaucracy! We'll use even more monkeys and give them typewriters!
*That newspaper account is not about me or my school. I got my shot at Presbyterian Day School of Victoria, Texas.
Poliomyelitis was ruthless. Look at small-town newspapers from the 1940s and early 1950s. You would be dismayed at how often new cases were announced in the paper. Things peaked in the U.S. in 1952, when 58,000 new cases were reported. A dozen years later the number of reported new cases was only 121. What an amazing accomplishment!
The first widespread outbreak of polio in the U.S. was in Vermont in 1894. Sixty years later, TIME did a story on Jonas Salk's efforts to develop a vaccine. His project required "Moslem trappers" to catch rhesus monkeys in India. Hindu workers had religious objections to the work. It's interesting to read about Salk's field trials. He asked school children to participate and 80-85 percent of the parents agreed to let their children be inoculated. That percentage compares with the "herd immunity" level that is considered necessary to keep contagious diseases at bay.
What does it take to encourage these brilliant scientists? I know! More bureaucracy! We'll use even more monkeys and give them typewriters!
*That newspaper account is not about me or my school. I got my shot at Presbyterian Day School of Victoria, Texas.