Jonas Salk licensed the first polio vaccine in 1955, to the relief of a nation. A nation that had been through two world wars, a great depression, a president stricken with Polio and thousands of deaths from the disease. Beginning with the first outbreak of polio in 1916 the public’s, and scientist’s ideas on polio were limited. From 1916 until the creation of a working vaccine in the 1950s the stigma that went along with the polio disease grew and changed a number of times. This public perception made polio the major disease in the U.S. for almost 40 years while many other diseases were killing more people. The limited knowledge surrounding polio in the beginning, that fact that polio struck while the U.S. was at the height of a near obsession with sanitation, while at the same time associating disease with being unclean, and the nature of the disease to effect only young children at the beginning created and only helped to add to the mystery and panic that surrounded the disease. The public and scientific perception that created the lasting image of polio changed dramatically from the first major U.S. epidemic in 1916 to the ten years from 1945 to 1955 and finally in the period directly following the creation of the polio vaccine in 1955.
The polio virus, also known as poliomyelitis is an intestinal infection that spreads “from person to person through contact with… unwashed hands, shared objects, contaminated food and water.” Symptoms are often mild including headaches and nausea however about 1 in 100 cases can result in the virus invading “the brain stem and the central nervous system” and “destroying the nerve cells” . In other words the disease causes paralysis in 1 in 100 victims.
Polio first hit epidemic proportions ...
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...m the U.S. In 1988 the Pan American Health Organization “announced a campaign to achieve polio eradication in the Americas by 1990… polio would be eradicated from the region four years later.” the magnificent and fear inducing polio virus was finally gone.
The polio virus in the United States was largely a creation of public perception. The first outbreak in 1916 and the circumstances surrounding it caused for the disease to grow in the publics mind and create fear and panic. The subsequent years the fear over the disease would only grow due in part to the creation of grand philanthropic quests as well as the failure of science and the great American government to create a vaccine. When a vaccine was finally created the public relief was something that was never felt before.
“The conquest of polio in the mid 1950s was raised to genuinely iconic status in the West”
Salk’s research led him to create a vaccine different from any other by using 3 different kind of killed polio virus. In an article it says,”Using formaldehyde, Salk killed the poliovirus, but kept it intact enough to trigger the necessary immune response”(Salk’s institute 1). Salk 's decision to create a vaccine out of inactivated virus was not the strongest protector, but was made strong enough to cure and lower the risk of infection within patients. It was one of the first times someone attempted to take a completely opposite approach than what scientist thought was best. As he said in an interview, “ ‘The principle I was trying to establish was that it was not necessary to run the risk of infection, which would have been the case if one were to try to develop an attenuated or weekend polio virus vaccine’ ”( Salk 2). By taking the risk of creating a vaccine that contradicted what a normal vaccine, was it helped give the United States another weapon to fight back polio without exposing americans to the risk of contracting the disease. His different approach to find a remedy may have been looked down on, but it provided the first protection ever for polio which created hope and has contributed to less fatalities today. Scientists in the medical world began to criticize Salk’s vaccine and gave preference to a polio vaccine that was later created by Sabin out of a live polio virus. Medical professionals saw Salk’s vaccine as useless and thought Sabin’ s vaccine was the best alternative. "the oral polio vaccine also came under attack in the united states for causing eight in ten cases of polio every year”( poliomyelitis 4). Sabin’s vaccine may have been stronger but at least Salk’s never provided a risk of the patients being injected run a risk of being infected again. Salk’s vaccine has provided less risk of a patient to relapse into polio again.
At first polio was a troubling prospect when it first reared its ugly head in the United States of America. In a noble effort to be rid of polio, America as a whole was to adopt stringent sanitation measures. Everywhere, especially the home was to be spotless and clean in order to try and prevent the contraction of polio. This coupled with the view that America as a western nation seemed impervious to such a lowly disease tried to assuage American fear of the disease. Despite the measures commonly adopted throughout the myriad of cities and towns, polio still managed to spread around the country and wreak havoc taking thousands of lives. An outbreak that ravaged America claimed nearly 27,000 lives in a terrible reckoning before it finally subsided. This and several other troubling outbreaks
The death rate was on the decline and life expectancy rose during this period. New medical developments were made with the federal funding of medical research in which penicillin and streptomycin were developed. These advancements in medicine have cured many bacterial infections and severe illnesses. Later, in 1952, Jonas Salk introduced a polio vaccine. There was a vast migratory pattern among many Americans during this time period.
One of the other notable important advances was the “Conquest of Polio” this disease usually caused paralysis in the people who contracted the virus. Back then there...
Poliomyelitis is a virus that infects the nerves of the spinal cord, and brain which leads to paralysis and or death (Piddock, 2004). Poliomyelitis is best known today as Polio, and Infantile Paralysis. Tonsillectomy polio would take over the lymph nodes in order to spread the infection throughout the body, leading to muscle paralysis in the limbs, and in some cases respiratory failure. Bulbar polio was a much more severe form, it affected the top of the spinal cord which caused paralysis and inability to swallow fluids (Rifkind, 2005). Polio was transmitted through ingesting materials contaminated by the virus found in feces. Children would play in public swimming pools, and ingest the contaminated water which lead to infection (Piddock, 2004). After the person ingested the virus, it would travel their intestinal tract, and eventually compromise their lymph nodes, making them unable to fight off the virus. Symptoms were like those of the flu, such as fever, headache, and upset stomach. The minority of people were able to let the virus run its course and it would be passed through their feces like any other virus. Others weren’t so lucky, those with compromised immune systems were unable to fight off the virus, the lymph nodes would fail to protect the nervous system causing paralysis once it reached the spinal cord (Piddock, 2004). Poliomyelitis has since then been eliminated in the United States because of the polio vaccine that is giv...
Fifty-nine years after the vaccine was introduced to the world, the number of cases of outbreaks has dropped 99% and only three countries still remain in an epidemic state with the virus, Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan. In 1994, the WHO Region of the Americas was certified polio-free and in in 2013 only406 reported cases were existent in the world, compared to the 350 000+ cases in 1988. (Who, 2014).
Vaccines have been used to prevent diseases for centuries, and have saved countless lives of children and adults. The smallpox vaccine was invented as early as 1796, and since then the use of vaccines has continued to protect us from countless life threatening diseases such as polio, measles, and pertussis. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (2010) assures that vaccines are extensively tested by scientist to make sure they are effective and safe, and must receive the approval of the Food and Drug Administration before being used. “Perhaps the greatest success story in public health is the reduction of infectious diseases due to the use of vaccines” (CDC, 2010). Routine immunization has eliminated smallpox from the globe and led to the near removal of wild polio virus. Vaccines have reduced some preventable infectious diseases to an all-time low, and now few people experience the devastating effects of measles, pertussis, and other illnesses.
Polios epidemiology can be broken down into its basic definition, causation, and origin. According to the Healthline website “Polio…is a highly contagious disease caused by a virus that attacks the nervous system”. Polio is most commonly found in children younger than five but can also be found in adults as well.This viral disease is caused by the poliovirus that may come in one of three different forms; all of which are part of the enterovirus genus. This virus is spread through direct person-to-person contact, contact with infected mucus or phlegm from the nose or mouth, and contact with infected feces. There are three types of the polio disease which are subclinical infections, non-paralytic, and paralytic. Subclinical is the most common form and accounts for “approximately 95% of polio cases” (Healthline). Patience with this form of Polio may n...
The first discovery was made in 1952, in the developing field of virology. Virology is the study of viruses and how they behave. To develop the vaccines for the viruses, researchers infected the HeLa cells with many types of infections, such as measles, mumps, and the infamous poliomyelitis virus, also known as Polio. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), whose mission is to save lives and protect people’s health security, Polio is a "crippling and potentially deadly infectious disease caused by a virus that spreads from person to person invading the brain and spinal cord and causing paralysis" (Freeman). Jonas Salk, who was a virologist at the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (NFIP), used inactivated viruses (virus particles grown in culture and then killed by a form of heat) to create a polio vaccine. Salk drew blood from about two million children, which the NFIP checked for immunization.Through the collection of many HeLa cells and trial and error, the polio vaccine wa...
Researchers were unable to identify what caused Polio to spread. It seemed to be more common in cleaner environments, unlike other diseases. Polio was found more often in the middle class rather than the poor. One reason that the polio virus was so difficult to discover, was because it wasn’t a bacteria and because most microscopes couldn’t detect the microbial agent. Another problem that created difficulties for scientists, was that the researchers couldn’t discover how the virus got
Moreover polio is a deadly disease that is caused by a highly contagious virus entering the nervous system in the brain or spinal cord causing temporary or permanent paralysis. There are three
Dawson, Liza. "The Salk Polio Vaccine Trial of 1954: Risks, Randomization and Public Involvement in
Hargrove, Jim. The Story of Jonas Salk and the Discovery of the Polio Vaccine. Childrens Press: Chicago, 1990
For innumerable centuries, unrelenting strains of disease have ravaged society. From the polio epidemic in the twentieth century to the measles cases in the latter half of the century, such an adverse component of nature has taken the lives of many. In 1796, Edward Jenner discovered that exposure to cowpox could foster immunity against smallpox; through injecting the cowpox into another person’s arm, he founded the revolutionary concept known as a vaccination. While many attribute the eradication of various diseases to vaccines, many United States citizens are progressively beginning to oppose them. Many deludedly thought that Measles had been completely terminated throughout the United States; however, many children have been patronized by