The Creation of the Polio Vaccine In 1952 The United States reported thousands of Polio cases- the worst U.S. epidemic on record. The Poliovirus attacked mostly children and left them with lifelong paralysis and eventually death. The viral disease attacks the nervous system in the body, mostly the arms and legs, but also in the muscles that support breathing. The Poliovirus was most often spread person-to-person with simple contact, causing most americans to be scared. Jonas Salk and Franklin D. Roosevelt were involved in the creation of the Polio Vaccine, which decreased the number of deaths, created the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, and provided future research. Jonas Salk was an extremely intelligent scientist who is still …show more content…
Franklin D. Roosevelt was born in Hyde Park, New York on January 30, 1882, the son of James Roosevelt and Sara Delano Roosevelt. Both were scions of wealthy families.In 1905, he had married a distant cousin, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, who was the niece of President Theodore Roosevelt. The couple had six children, five of whom survived infancy. Franklin excelled in academics and attended Harvard University and Columbia Law School. His career began when he won the election to the New York Senate in 1910. He was elected President in November 1932 to the first of four terms, being the 32nd president. In his first “Hundred Days,” he proposed, and congress enacted a sweeping program to bring recovery to business and agriculture, relief to the unemployed and to those in danger of losing farms and homes, and reform, especially through the establishment of the Tennessee Valley Authority (Franklin). He was also the President that led the United States through the Great Depression and World War II. When the japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Roosevelt directed organization of the Nation’s manpower and resources for global war (Franklin). Coming from a wealthy family, FDR was privileged to enjoy his summers at the Campobello Island family cottage that was purchased by his parents in New Brunswick, Canada. One day Franklin was helping to fight a