Contents
Books
Splendid solution : Jonas Salk and the conquest of polio /
by Kluger, Jeffrey.
The riveting story of one of the greatest scientific accomplishments of the twentieth century, from the coauthor of the #1 New York Times bestseller Apollo 13 . With rivalries, reversals, and a race against time, the struggle to eradicate polio is one of the great tales of modern history. It begins with the birth of Jonas Salk, shortly before one of the worst polio epidemics in United States history. At the time, the disease was a terrifying enigma: striking from out of nowhere, it afflicted tens of thousands of children in this country each year and left them-literally overnight-paralyzed, and sometimes at death’s door. Salk was in medical school just as a president crippled by the disease, Franklin D. Roosevelt, was taking office-and providing the impetus to the drive for studies on polio. By the early 1950s, Salk had already helped create an influenza vaccine, and was hot on the trail of the polio virus. He was nearly thwarted, though, by the politics of medicine and by a rival researcher eager to discredit his proposed solution.
The survival of the wisest
by Salk, Jonas
A book by Jonas Salk that details several of his philosophical and scientific ideas. He suggest that Man’s ability to learn how to act wisely is critically important both for maintaining and improving the quality of human life and for survival on this planet (description from Amazon).
Polio : an American story /
by Oshinsky, David M.
Here David Oshinsky tells the gripping story of the polio terror and of the intense effort to find a cure, from the March of Dimes to the discovery of the Salk and Sabin vaccines–and beyond.
Journal Articles
Closing in on Polio. (1954). Time, 63(13), 58.
The article focuses on the effort of Jonas Edward Salk, a single-minded medical researcher at the University of Pittsburgh’s Virus Research Laboratory, to develop a polio vaccine. Details of Salk’s experiment for the polio vaccine are provided, including his use of monkeys in the experiments. The planned utilization of Salk’s polio vaccine is also considered. The objections of parents to the use of the vaccine are highlighted, along with how Salk addressed such objections.
Barrett, A. (2004). He Put an End To Polio. Businessweek, (3889), 18.
This article profiles the creator of the polio vaccine, Jonas Salk. Not quite 50 years after the Salk vaccine was created, polio in America is a terror of the past. But in the ’50s, tens of thousands of people–mostly children–fell victim to the disease every year. No wonder Dr. Jonas Salk, developer of the first polio vaccine, became a revered name. After graduating from the City College of New York, he earned a medical degree from New York University in 1939 and went to work for noted virologist Thomas Francis Jr. at the University of Michigan.
Kimberly M., K. (n.d). Giants in the field of microbiology series: Dr. Jonas Salk. Primary Care Update For Ob/Gyns, 10127-128.
Jonas Salk began his career in microbiology working with the inactivated influenza vaccine. He would later use the formalin inactivation process to create the poliomyelitis vaccine. Using a newly created modern cell culture technique, Salk was able to mass produce vaccines for the large-scale polio vaccine field trial. Under the direction of Thomas Francis, Jr., the field trial utilized both a double-blinded placebo-controlled trial and an observational study, and included almost 2 million American schoolchildren as subjects. The vaccine proved to be both safe and effective. Although later replaced by the Sabin oral vaccine, the Salk inactivated vaccine played a large part in the eventual eradication of polio from the Western Hemisphere.
Mitka, M. (2005). Happy 50th Birthday, Salk Vaccine. JAMA: Journal Of The American Medical Association, 293(13), 1581-1583.
Focuses on the 50th anniversary of the Salk vaccine that was developed to eradicate poliomyelitis. The celebrations to honor Jonas Salk, his research team, and Thomas Francis, Jr. at universities in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Ann Arbor, Michigan; Comments of Robert A. Keegan of the Global Immunization Division at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Details on the rise of virulent polio in the early 1900s; Background on Salk and how he became interested in the polio epidemic; The celebrity status of Salk; Problems with the Salk vaccine.
Sheed, W. (1999). Jonas Salk. (cover story). Time, 153(12), 168.
Examines the efforts of Jonas Salk in creating a polio vaccine. Salk’s competition with Albert Sabin to develop the vaccine; Salk’s lack of recognition for the accomplishment; His background; Work on a flu vaccine for the United States Army in World War II; Salk hired by the Infantile Paralysis Foundation; Salk’s work based on the polio research of John Enders; Salk as a spokesman for vaccination. INSETS: Death of Smallpox;Alfred Sabin.