ipl-logo

Jonas Edward Salk's Polio Epidemic

378 Words2 Pages

A long time ago there was a sickness called polio. It killed millions of people until Salk made a cure. Salk was a rescuer/hero in many ways like being brave, thoughtful, making a difference. Salk was a very productive man “Salk received his M.D. in 1939 from New York University College of Medicine” (“Salk, Jonas Edward” 1). “He was renowned for his work in developing the first effective vaccine against poliomyelitis.”(“Jonas Edward Salk” 1). When Salk was 25, he graduated college and by the age of 39, he made the vaccine for the polio disease. This makes him a rescuer because he wanted to fix something and he worked towards it and was successful in helping a lot of people.
Second, Salk helped a lot of people with his vaccine.“In 1954 he developed the original vaccine that led to virtual eradication of paralytic polio in industrialized countries.”(“Jonas Edward Salk”1). Salk helped people in other countries and even around the world. He helped countless children. “The first large polio epidemic in the United States occurred in 1916, when 6,000 people died and 27,000 were paralyzed”(Petersen 1). Salk was only two years old when the first large polio epidemic broke out so the world was living with the polio disease …show more content…

This means Salk was trying to find a way to make an antibody that would prevent the disease and not give it to the person. Here Salk was making a risky jump from helping anyone with it to first helping prevent people from getting it.
In conclusion, Jonas Salk was a strong, thoughtful, brave, risk-taking hero/rescuer. Salk made a cure that saved millions of people's lives. He is productive, helpful, and he will try anything. He was like a superman to people with

Show More
Related
573 Words | 3 Pages

Jonas Salk was able to develop a polio vaccine through his work with the cells. HeLa cells also led to the discovery of an influenza vaccine. The research on these immortal cells did see quite a bit of turbulence in the scientific community, though. When Stanley Gartler announced that HeLa cells had contaminated many other cell lines thought to be unique in 1966, many scientists became outraged and questioned the preposterous accusations. Even more controversial was the exposure of malpractice within the realm of cell research.

Read More
1249 Words | 5 Pages

Polio is an infectious viral disease that affects the central nervous system. The year 1950, a year before Henrietta Lacks died, was the peak of the polio

Read More
585 Words | 3 Pages

Immortal Henrietta Informed consent is an ethically important aspect of medical care; patients must be fully informed of any and all possible risks and benefits from receiving medical treatment, participating in medical research as a subject, or donating live tissues to be studied. Only after receiving and understanding all of the necessary information can a patient give consent; if the patient does not consent, for whatever reason, then it is both illegal and unethical to follow through with treatment, research, or taking samples (O’Neill, 2003). However, particularly in regard to taking tissue samples, some doctors seem to think that what the patient doesn’t know won’t hurt them. One example of this is Henrietta Lacks and HeLa cells.

Read More
215 Words | 1 Pages

Polio: An American Story written by David Oshinsky highlights the journey to the discovery of a vaccine which would finally put an end to the once mysterious disease, Poliomyelitis. The journey begins in Otter Valley, Vermont, as it was the first Polio epidemic to be documented in the United States. Unknowingly, it would take years after the first epidemic in 1894 to find a solution for this frightening illness. The disease dates back to ancient time, with cases describing the victims to be left with disfigured limbs and some eventually to be paralyzed. Oshinsky identifies that the disease appeared in three phases: endemic, which occurs in a sporadically within a group of people, epidemic, in which it affected many people and spread rapidly,

Read More
807 Words | 4 Pages

The spread of polio could not seem to be stopped until a vaccine was found. Polio: An American Story by David M. Oshinsky describes the stories of how polio was triumphed. Polio impacted the United States by affecting the lifestyle of people, attracting the attention of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and by influencing scientists to investigate and experiment to find the cure for the deadly disease. Poliomyelitis is an infectious disease caused by poliovirus, which can cause chronic paralysis and weakness in the nerves.

Read More
1123 Words | 5 Pages

Millions of people have benefitted from the vaccines, such as the Salk polio vaccine, through the help public health system as well. Unfortunately positive benefits of the HeLa cells were not received by everyone involved. Although Henrietta passed away, there was no consent or compensation offered to her family when the testing and discovery of the cells effects occurred. It took over twenty years for her family to even discover that Henrietta’s cells were being produced, sold, and tested. This left Henrietta’s family in great shock, especially her daughter Deborah.

Read More
946 Words | 4 Pages

He is a very generous human being and always gives back to where he came from. This is another reason why he is my hero. And I want to be like him. He cares for his family and community that he grew up with. He hosts camps and teaches little kids that want to be as good as him or better.

Read More
1201 Words | 5 Pages

Debate outline I. Introduction A. Did you know that president Roosevelt was not only a president but also created that national foundation for infantile paralysis when polio was on the rise as he too struggled with polio. This is now known as the March of Dimes. B. A fighting chance for every baby.

Read More
583 Words | 3 Pages

Jonas Salk was an American physician who created the first safe and effective vaccine for polio. Jonas Salk was a scientist and doctor who studied the virus of polio for most of his life. When Salk’s vaccine for polio was approved in 1955 he was considered a national hero. I believe that Jonas Salk belongs in America’s Hall of Fame because without the creation of this vaccine thousands of people would have died from polio. Jonas Salk was born on October 28, 1914 in New York, New York.

Read More
1140 Words | 5 Pages

He was born in New York City in 1914 and studied medicine at New York University before becoming a researcher at the University of Pittsburgh. In 1952, Salk and his team created a vaccine that was effective in preventing polio, a highly contagious and sometimes deadly disease that had caused epidemics in the United States for decades. The vaccine was widely distributed and led to a significant decrease in the number of polio cases in the US and around the world. During the Cold War, Jonas Salk was involved in several efforts to promote international cooperation and reduce tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. In 1958, he helped organize a conference in Geneva, Switzerland, that brought together scientists from around the world to discuss the potential benefits of using scientific research to promote peace.

Read More
302 Words | 2 Pages

Polio Polio is a disease that mainly would affect children who were under the age of five and would usually leave them paralyzed or even take their lives. The infectious disease had a great impact on America in 1950’s because nobody really understood where or how these children were getting Polio. Out of fear and concern, the American people came together to try to find the cause and the cure of the illness. The Polio epidemic was affecting the people in large numbers, a sum of 57,000 victims in the year of 1952. Parents were afraid to let their children go to public pools.

Read More
717 Words | 3 Pages

India was later certified polio-free by the world Health Organization. His latest donation has been donating $1 billion to a clean energy

Read More
936 Words | 4 Pages

Vaccinations have been used since Edward Jenner’s discovery. (“This History of Vaccines”) Vaccinations are important. Vaccinations are critical in not only one’s health, but the health of the people around

Read More
1995 Words | 8 Pages

Nevertheless, people argue that there have been severe reactions to the polio vaccine. Upon investigation, the reaction of paralysis after receiving the Sabin polio vaccine was found to occur in only one in every 2.7 million people (Hinman). Unfortunately, the unlikely prospect of having a medical reaction to a vaccine is enough to scare them out of receiving the vaccine— a vaccine that would be protecting them from even worse

Read More
933 Words | 4 Pages

The year of 1853 deemed obligatory for all children born after the first of August to receive routine immunizations. By 1898, one hundred years after Edward Jenner’s unveiling of the vaccine, smallpox in London had fallen dramatically – to one in every 100,000 (less than 50 people per

Read More

More about Jonas Edward Salk's Polio Epidemic

Related Topics

Open Document