David Oshinsky Framing Of Polio

Eric Varenhorst
Sue Zschoche
History 534
4/15/14
Framing of Polio
Polio: An American Story is a scholarly book written by David Oshinsky, a historian from the University of Texas, examines American medical research in the 20th century where there was a Polio epidemic. Poliomyelitis is a dreadful disease that has claimed a lot of lives before the discovery of a vaccine. Though children are considered to be more prone to getting the disease, adults could also be infected with polio. This means that no one was excluded from attaining an infection despite their age, gender, or class. Oshinsky writes, “Polio hit tidy and stable neighborhoods harder than the areas marked with poverty (Oshinsky 4). This illustrates that polio had become a social problem because anyone was prone and vulnerable to the disease. Oshinsky also points out that one of the common mantras adopted by Americans is that ‘We will conquer Polio’ to signify that everyone in the society was ready to find a way to terminate the disease in the society (Oshinsky 4). This paper will examine the many ways the polio epidemic influenced society in terms of medical, socio-political and economic during the 20th century till midcentury when the vaccine for polio was created by scientists.
Given that polio was an epidemic disease globally during the 20th century, President Roosevelt among other philanthropists established the National Foundation for the Infantile Paralysis that took part in championing war against this deadly disease that had befallen the human race. The Foundation used different methods for fundraising, advertising, journaling among other social techniques to give people hope in finding a vaccine for this disease. President Roosev...

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...ccine for polio. Salk was one of the scientists that finally found the vaccine against the endemic disease, polio. Though Salk was praised for getting Polio’s vaccines, he was condemned for his failures in the scientific research where he prematurely administered experimental vaccines to children (Oshinsky 171). This paralyzed more children by doing more harm than good. Two hundred children had been paralyzed by the inactivated experimental vaccine. This was sad. Though Salk finally discovered polio’s vaccine, he did not win any Nobel Prize for his works. Polio had shaped the scientific committee in the early twentieth century because most medical researchers were looking for the cure of the disease.

Works Cited
Oshinsky, David M.. Polio: An American Story.. Prince Frederick, MD: Recorded Books LLC, 2007. Print.