Jonas Salk Essay, Research Paper

From the beginning of mankind, man has looked for cures of illness. Jonas Salk found a

cure for one of the worst illnesses in the history of man, polio. Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine

was a great discovery of his time, and it is still being used today to eradicate polio

worldwide. Dr. Salk is also known for other medical discoveries. He was a quiet man

who lived a rough childhood. He was not looking for fame, instead, it found him. During

the time before the vaccine, many people, mostly parents with young children, were very

scared. Dr. Salk’s vaccine was a great relief to everyone. Yet, today polio is still affecting

people, even after receiving the vaccine. Just as polio is still around today, so is the flu

virus. Dr. Salk did invent a flu vaccine to help in keeping the flu virus at a low. At this

time, Jonas Salk is working on a vaccine for the most feared disease of today, AIDS.

Jonas Edward Salk was born to Polish-Jewish immigrants, Daniel B. and Dora

Salk, on October 28, 1914. Dr. Salk was born in upper Manhattan, but then moved to

the Bronx where he went to school. “His first spoken words were, ‘Dirt, dirt,’ instead of

the conventional, uninspired ‘No, no’ or ‘Momma.’ He was a responsive child.” Dr. Salk

was “raised on the verge of poverty.” Although his family was poor, he did do

exceptionally well in all the levels of education. He graduated from Townsend Harris

High School in 1929 and then went on to the College of the City of New York where he

received his B.S. in 1934. He finally earned his M.D. degree in June of 1939 from the

New York University College of Medicine. Jonas Salk was “a somewhat withdrawn and

indistinct figure” but was always reading whatever he could lay his hands on. Dr. Salk

went on to intern for two years at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. He then moved on

to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor as a research professor in the Department of

Epidemology. It was here that he found a vaccine for influenza, commonly called the flu,

while he worked with Dr. Thomas Francis Jr. In 1947, when the University of Pittsburgh

expanded, he went to work there with a part in his contract that said he could go back to

Ann Arbor if things didn’t work out, no questions asked. At this school he became what

he is known as today, a bacteriologist. It was here that he developed the polio

vaccination. Dr. Salk then left his field of endeavor because of all the fame and ridicule

from his colleagues. In 1963, Jonas Salk set up the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in

La Jolla, California. This facility was made possible through funds from the March of

Dimes. At this time, he is eighty years old and working on a cure for AIDS.

“Poliomyelitis, commonly known as polio, is an acute viral infection.” Polio is the

“inflammation of the gray anterior matter of the spinal cord.” The inflammation would

destroy the nerve cells. As a result of the lost nerve cells, the muscles that those nerve

cells controlled would no longer be functional.

Polio has long been a disease in this world. Mummies with one leg shorter than

the other, and a memorial that shows a priest with one leg withered are two examples of

ancient artifacts possibly proving the polio virus’s existence as far back as 1500 B.C. The

first written record of an outbreak of polio is in 1835. It occurred in Workshop, England

with the record stating, “Four remarkable cases of suddenly induced paralysis, occurring in

children…” Nevertheless, it was not until 1916 that the United States became well aware

of the polio dilemma. In that year, there were 27,363 cases of polio with 7,179 resulting

in death. Unfortunately, the problem didn’t go away; in New York City there were 9,023

cases with 2,448 deaths. “The epidemics peaked in the United States from 1942 to

1943,…In 1950, there were more than 33,000 United States cases.” The state of Florida

was one of the many states that was hit hard with polio. The director of the Florida

Department of Public Health, Dr. Wilson Sowder, said, “I have not seen a communicable

disease that has disrupted a community…as this has.” The disease “was communicable as

an intestinal virus that would spread from the stomach to the nervous system.” It was

“transmitted in fecal matter or in secretions of the nose and throat, the virus enters its

victim by way of the mouth…” It was not only the fact that it was so easy to get that

made it terrifying, but it was the effects the disease had on its victim. There would be

those that somehow recovered completely, yet that was not the usual. Some would die,

others would not be able to use their legs or both their legs and arms. Even more

staggering, there were those that could only move an arm, or just their fingers and eyes.

“Some would remain in an iron lung–a great, 1,800-pound casketlike contraption…The

iron lung hissed and sighed rhythmically, performing artificial respiration by way of air

pressure”, said Charles L. Mee. During the summers in Florida, kids would not be

allowed to go to the movies or to the pools because of the parents fear of them

contracting the virus. Due to the consequences, polio “aroused as much alarm in that era

as does AIDS today.”

Finally, on April 12, 1955 it was announced that Dr. Jonas Salk, using a technique

reported by Dr. John F. Enders in 1949, had discovered a cure that could be depended

upon to immunize humans from polio. “Overnight, Jonas E. Salk was a hero,” said

Kathleen Arsenault, a librarian at the University of South Florida at Bayboro.1 Everyone

was so relieved that a vaccine had been found that they “observed moments of silence,

rang bells, honked horns, blew factory whistles, fired salutes, kept their traffic lights red in

brief periods of tribute, took the rest of the day off, closed their schools or convoked

fervid assemblies therein, drank toasts, hugged children, attended church, smiled at

strangers, forgave enemies.” It “consummated the most extraordinary undertaking in the

history of science.” Although Dr. Salk tried to take no credit for what he and his fellow

workers had accomplished, the public ignored his words and gave all the credit to him.

Jonas Salk “awakened that morning as a moderately prominent research professor on the

faculty of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He ended the day as the most

beloved medical scientist on earth.” Dr. Salk did not patent his vaccine, therefore, he did

not receive any royalties for it, though he could have been a millionaire. As it was though,

he received many tokens of gratitude.

“The ardent people named schools, streets, hospitals, and new-born infants after

him. They sent him checks, cash, money orders, stamps, scrolls, certificates,

pressed flowers, snapshots, candy, baked goods, religious medals, rabbits’ feet and

other talismans, and uncounted thousands of letters and telegrams, both individual

and round-robin, describing their heartfelt gratitude and admiration. They offered

him free automobiles, agricultural equipment, clothing, vacations, lucrative jobs

in government and industry, and several hundred opportunities to get rich quick.

Their legislatures and parliaments passed resolutions, and their heads of state

issued proclamations. Their universities tendered honorary degrees. He was

nominated for the Nobel prize, which he did not get, and a Congressional medal,

which he got, and membership in the National Academy of Sciences, which

turned him down. He was mentioned for several dozen lesser awards of national

or local or purely promotional character, most of which he turned down.”

Dr. Salk is thought of most for his polio vaccine, yet he is the scientist who

invented the flu shot. The flu virus is an illness that affects the digestive track, most often

the stomach walls. He and Dr. Francis developed the vaccine in 1976 at the University of

Michigan in Ann Arbor. That vaccine helps many people today to get through the flu

season without any or little suffering.

The United States has been free of polio since September of 1991. The United

Nations agency stated that this was true in all of the Western Hemisphere: the United

States, Canada, the Caribbean, and Latin America. Even though the Western Hemisphere

is polio free, the rest of the world is very far from it. There are still approximately

120,000 cases a year. That number is decreasing: in 1992 there where a reported 15,911

cases in a total of 58 countries, whereas in 1993 there where only 7,898 cases reported in

a total of 46 countries. That is a 50 percent decrease in only one year. There was also

141 countries that reported no cases of polio in all of 1993. One organization affiliated

with polio elimination is The Rotary Foundation. This group has developed a program

called PolioPlus. This program’s goal is to eradicate polio worldwide by the year 2005.

This goal will prove to be a very expensive endeavor; over 10 years it could cost up to as

much as 1.4 billion dollars. One event that has helped make the United States polio free

is that children must have received the polio vaccination before they can enter the public

school system. Everyone is working together, though, to try and eradicate polio

worldwide. Japan and the United States have agreed to a joint health program for children

to do away with polio by the year 2000. Although the whole world seems to be on its

way to being polio free, the polio survivors are still suffering. “Nearly a third of the 1.6

million polio survivors have begun to develop puzzling ailments, such as fatigue, muscle

weakness and atrophy, and in some cases difficulty breathing.” This “ailment” is known as

post-polio syndrome. The theory behind this problem is “the initial viral attack kills a

number of motor neurons and weakens some of the surviving nerve cells. As the

post-polio patient ages, these damaged neurons increasingly lose their connections to

muscles, which stop responding.” Other symptoms that accompany post-polio syndrome

are as follows: chronic muscle pain, sensitivity to cold weather, and sleeping problems.

Of all the polio survivors, ninety percent of them are predicted to contract post-polio

syndrome. It has been found that from the time of the original disease to the time of the

contraction of post-polio syndrome is about thirty years. Herman Oliger had to quit work

because of post-polio syndrome. “Any strenuous activity would have to be followed with

more than eight hours of sleep and in some cases, two days of rest.” As a result of this

debilitating illness, some people must go back to the use of leg braces or wheelchairs or

even the iron lung. The only organization that has been formed to help this type of people

is the Arkansas League of Polio Survivors located in Little Rock. This organization was

founded by Margie R. Loschke who is a post-polio sufferer herself. It is a non-profit

establishment, there are no dues, and they give moral support to those who are suffering.

Post-polio syndrome is an inept thing to happen, yet there are no doctors that are capable

of helping these people. “Polio hasn’t been taught in medical school since the vaccine

came out, so there’s not but a very few doctors (and) therapists who know anything about

polio and the polio muscles,” said Margie Loschke. As a result of the polio survivors,

physical therapy was born. “And now they’ve pushed them away and forgotten all about

them.” If there were to be an accident involving a post-polio syndrome person “there’d be

nobody in that hospital, no medical personnel…that would know how to handle a

post-polio body without injuring it,” said Loschke.

Not only are there people being affected by polio in one way or the other, there are

still people being affected by the flu. Jonas Salk also invented a flu vaccine, however, it is

more on a temporary scale. Another reason the flu is still around is that there are many

different strains of the flu, and doctors have a hard time predicting the ones that will be

infecting people in the up and coming flu seasons.

Lastly, Jonas Salk is now working on a vaccine for the polio of today, AIDS.

He is working on a vaccine made of killed viruses, but so far he has not acquired any

substantial results. In the summer of 1994, the United States did conduct a large-scale

test of Dr. Salk’s proposed AIDS vaccine. This vaccine has shown the “growth of the

human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, slowed substantially in infected volunteers given

three injections of the vaccine.” However, Dr. David Ho of the Aaron Diamond AIDS

Research Center said, “There’s absolutely no evidence that the vaccine did any good.” Dr.

Ho is not alone in his thoughts, many experts on the Food and Drug Administration panel

feel the same. This panel also said that this has “lowered the standards” and has caused

more confusion on how to treat AIDS patients. It is ironic, in a way, that Dr. Salk is

working on a vaccine for AIDS. Some scientists truly believe that “the AIDS epidemic

was sparked 30 years ago by a polio vaccine, which was accidentally contaminated with a

monkey virus.” Through all the criticism though, Dr. Salk said, ” My job, at the moment,

is to help people see what I see. If it’s of value, fine. And if it’s not of value, then at least

I’ve done what I can do.”

Jonas Edward Salk may be the most well known scientist because of his polio

vaccine. Although he was poor growing up, he did well in school. This standard was

continued into his employment as a bacteriologist. During his stay at Pittsburgh

University, the world was suffering immensely from the polio disease. Dr. Salk was

named a hero when he found the vaccine for it. He also helped in the suffering from the

flu viruses. Dr. Salk has attributed to the polio free Western Hemisphere of today, yet

another problem has arisen in the post-polio syndrome ailment. Now, Jonas Salk is

working on a vaccine for the dreaded disease at this time, the AIDS virus. It might be

possible for one man to save two generations of people in one lifetime. As Dr. Salk says,

“I have this way of being right.”