John Franklin Enders,
Thomas Huckle Weller,
Frederick Chapman Robbins,
Jonas Salk,
Albert Sabin
immunology
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Polio vaccine
- Polio, poliomyelitis,
- causes paralysis and death.
- A half million people worldwide
- were affected in the 1940s and 1950s.
- In 1949, 2,720 people in the United States
- died of polio.
- In 1952, 3,145 died and 21,269 suffered
- mild to disabling paralysis.
- In 1953, 35,000 people caught polio.
- In 1949, Enders, Weller, and Robbins
- managed to grow poliovirus in a test tube
- and they got a Nobel Prize for this in 1954.
- Salk used the Enders-Weller-Robbins technique
- and immortal HeLa cells
- to grow poliovirus for testing
- and created a polio vaccine in 1952.
- Human trials followed, starting
- with a small test in 1953,
- then in 1954 in the largest medical trial
- in history
- innoculating 440 thousand children
- in 44 states.
- In 1955, The March of Dimes
- launched a national campaign
- to administer the Salk vaccine.
Dead or alive
- Meanwhile, other scientists
- thought that Salk was wrong and
- resented that he got all the attention
- although he relied on the work of others.
- Salk insist on an inactivated “dead” virus
- that was administered by injection.
- Although it was not 100% effective
- it was totally safe and lasted longer.
- Albert Sabin created an attenuated “live” virus
- that was administered orally.
- It was easier to administer and more effective;
- however, it caused polio in some cases.
- Today, both vaccines are used,
- the Salk vaccine in the U.S.
- and the Sabine vaccine
- in other parts of the world.
Polio limp
- Tom Howard had a limp from
- nerve damage after a polio infection
- before the vaccine improved our chances
- of avoiding polio. People panicked
- when someone in town caught it.
- Some lost their ability to breathe
- and survived only on iron lungs.
- Some lost their ability to walk,
- or could walk only with awkward leg braces.
- But Tom Howard survived with his limp.
- I often wonder what it means
- to suffer a tragedy and survive.
- Does it mean you were lucky? Lucky?
- Today, in the U.S. we have no polio cases;
- our luck overflows and hardly anyone notices.
Disregarding the base probability is called the base-rate fallacy. Given that one is forced to suffer, one is lucky to survive; however, everyone isn’t forced to suffer.
See also in The book of science:
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