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Jonas Salk Accomplishments

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“Hope lies in dreams, in imagination and in the courage of those who dare to make dreams into reality” (Jonas Salk). This was Jonas Salk’s life philosophy: what can I dream and turn into reality. Jonas Salk was one of the leading scientists on the study of diseases in the human body. He is credited with many vaccinations for illnesses, some life threatening, including polio. In this paper I will be discussing the life and work of Jonas Salk, and what he did for the field of Science. Jonas Salk was born on October 28, 1914 in New York City. He was born to Daniel and Dora Salk, Russian-Jewish immigrants. He was the eldest of three sons, and he was the first in his family to attend college. He grew up very poor, but his parents stressed the …show more content…

In the 1950s America was struck with the poliovirus epidemic with thousands of children being infected with the crippling disease. He made a virus that made him world renown overnight, but this was the end result of many years of research (Achievement). Salk went against the grain in his development of the Polio vaccine. He developed a killed-virus and then deactivated them by adding formaldehyde, which made the virus unable to reproduce. When benign strains were injected into the bloodstream the vaccine tricked the immune system into making protective antibodies to kill off the virus (Klein). Other scientists were skeptical of Salk’s approach in the creation of this …show more content…

People knew that the virus had the ability to paralyze humans and possibly lead to death. What the people did not take into account was the fact that the virus was not the leading cause of deaths in Americans during the 1940s and 1950s, yet it was portrayed so horribly because of the possibility of the crippling effects it had on the human body. In polls taken by the American public following World War II, the only thing that Americans feared more than the poliovirus was Nuclear War (Klein). Knowledge of this disease has changed minimally from the time of Salk’s discovery. One notable change in the poliovirus vaccine since its inception is when the live-virus vaccine came out, it was used more than the killed-virus vaccine because it was cheaper and easier to distribute. The results were the same, but Jonas Salk solved the majority of cases of polio with his vaccine in the 1950s. As a result of the poliovirus vaccines, the disease was nearly eradicated from the world. In 2014, the spread of the poliovirus started to come back in small quantities. The reason being that parents are not vaccinating their children. These were soon eradicated, but with this small sample size you can see how deadly the virus can be (NY

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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.

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One of the biggest contribution was the polio vaccine.

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This allowed for more experiments to be done which lead to the development of the polio vaccine. As stated by Neil Bhavsar, “the vaccine developed… was only possible because HeLa cells were able to survive in Vitro. The HeLa cells were easy to infect and study, and therefore provided the perfect subject” (Bhavsar). The vaccine itself was developed by a scientists of the name of Jonas Salk. The ability for the cells to be easily infected allowed for the continued development of the polio vaccine.

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In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot presents study cases, such as the study of vaccines and the polio vaccine to prove that HeLa cells have benefitted science for the greater good. The benefits of HeLa cells are shown when the Polio and HPV vaccine is talked about. The polio vaccine benefitted the human race by saving lives and impacted science by progressing further studies. Further studies included the HPV vaccine which gave scientists a vast knowledge on how cancer forms and how it is inserts insert into DNA. It is later proven that the study of Virology is the cause of scientists advanced experimentation with cancer and expanded their boarders with the topic.

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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,

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Polio was always an issue in the early 20th century in the United States, with cases numbering the ten

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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.

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Disease has always plagued humans since the beginning of their existence. It has also changed the course of history, whether it helped win wars, destroy civilizations from the inside, or help move technology ahead. There have been many deadly diseases in the world, and in the United States alone despite its young age compared to the other countries. However, one of the most devastating and important diseases in the United States’ history is Poliomyelitis or Polio for short. The polio epidemic affected lives of people starting in the early twentieth century, but it reached its peak in the 1950’s.

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On May 14, 1746, Edward Jenner, administered the world’s first vaccination. He created a preventive treatment for smallpox, a disease that had killed millions of people over the centuries. Every since the first vaccination was introduced there has been controversy about children being obligated to be vaccinated. In the 19th and 20th centuries, scientists following Jenner’s model developed new vaccines to fight numerous deadly diseases, including polio, whooping cough, measles, tetanus, yellow fever, typhus, and hepatitis B, and many others (History, A&E 2016). Vaccinations as brought many moral, ethical, and safety concerns to the parents of children.

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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.

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Scientist knew that it was a viral disease but, were not sure of how it was transmitted or how to treat it. Polio was traumatizing for parents and children alike.

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There has always been resistance against vaccination, even when it was first developed by Edward Jenner. Despite the millions of deaths that been avoided through the use of vaccines, people have always found ways to criticize this medical breakthrough. However, it was not until recently that the fear of vaccinations began to re-emerge and confuse the minds of the general population. With the growing concerns about vaccinations, parents are becoming more reluctant in vaccinating themselves and their children. Consequently, infectious diseases that were once contained (such as measles) are now resurfacing as outbreaks.

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Disease can overthrow a culture and spread like wildfire when not taken precaution against. However, there exists a fierce opposition against the mandate of vaccination by some groups of interest with the existence of adverse effects by vaccination to the human body as a reason. Although vaccination carries some health risks,

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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

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Once the child recovered from the cowpox disease, Jenner then tried to infect the child with smallpox, but the young man proved to be immune. “It seemed that this attempt at vaccination had worked. But Jenner had to work on for two more years before his discovery was considered sufficiently tested by the medical profession to permit widespread introduction.” (Alexander, 2003). Beginning in 1831 and ending in 1835, due to increasing vaccination, smallpox deaths were down to one in a thousand.

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