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The 1950s, a shocking epidemic sweeps through America, crippling and killing young children.

Thousands die, many more are left helpless.

The search for a cure will lead scientists to frantic trial, fatal error, and acts of scientific desperation.

It will also transform an unknown young physician into an international hero.

Now, the quest for the polio vaccine on Modern Marvels.

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As America entered the 1950s, a disease unheard of just 50 years earlier had grown into an annual event of terror and

apprehension.

Polio targeted anyone at any age, but mostly it targeted young, healthy children, making it seem more destructive and cruel than
other diseases.

Polio, also called infantile paralysis, was a mystery.

Did they get it from the water?

Did they get it from insects?

Did they get it from animals?

We were petrified, and many parents-- many of us kept our kids home.

We were frightened.

We were frightened. The lives of millions of children were changed by the fear polio caused.

It was really frightening for parents during the polio years.

There were terms such as polio weather, don't send the children to the beach, they can't go to the community pool.

No one knew where polio came from.

They didn't know how to protect their children.

One day, scientists would learn that polio was a fecal-oral disease.

Children or adults coming in close contact could infect each other through water or food contaminated by feces.

But for the first half of the century, only the fearsome symptoms were understood.

It began with a sniffle, then a fever, then suddenly the cries of a child screaming in fear, unable to move.

Sometimes, unable to get a breath of air.

Polio patients spent weeks in the hospital, trying to battle the odds and recover.
The diagnosis of polio was just the beginning of a long, painful journey.

The virus, itself, lasted anywhere from two to four weeks.

But the damage to the spine could shut down healthy muscles in arms, legs, even lungs. Therapy began immediately after the

fever subsided.

Rehabilitation was long, tedious, and painful.

One of the things that is not in a lot of the literature also is that polio has a lot of pain associated with it on a daily basis.

Not a severe pain, but constant pain.

And the pain is associated not so much with the handicap, but with the wearing of a brace.

With the help of a brace, the fortunate might walk again.

The less fortunate were placed in iron lungs to help them breathe, forever trapped in the humming metal tubes. Polio survivors

could look forward to a life in a world ill-equipped for their special needs, a life of dependency and continual care.

And my own family, they were kind of locked in to taking care of me.

I was like the dishes.

No.

I felt as though I was treated like the dishes. "It's your turn to give her, her exercises today.

I gave her exercises yesterday." You know, let's switch.

I'll do it today if you'll do it for me tomorrow.

That kind of thing.

Families were ill-equipped as well, and so were important public institutions.

In my school, there were many times when I was just forgotten.

And I'll never forget the time I was left in the classroom, because the teacher hadn't made any arrangements for me.

And, I sat in the room, this little child just crying silently because I didn't want to bother anybody and I was just going to sit there.

But no provision had been made for me.

Often, polio meant a series of long, painful surgeries to free paralyzed limbs.

Most polio patients have gone through several operations.

And the thing with the operations was, that they rehabilitated you to your optimum at one point, then they did the operation and

you lost all that ground, and you had to restart all over again.

And that was hard, that was really hard. Even the Egyptians battled the dreaded disease polio, but an epidemic striking thousands

was a phenomenon of the 20th century.

It was in 1916 that the horror had begun.

America, preparing for World War I, had little idea that a devastating and destructive virus was about to attack at home. It was in

the muggy heat of Manhattan in June that the first cases were reported.

By July, a few cases had grown to 100.

By September, over 1,000 new cases had appeared.

Health officials and doctors were baffled.

Why polio?

Why now? When the contagion subsided, over 27,000 children had been infected, all in just under five months.

Many would recover.

Polio wasn't always fatal, but 2,000 were paralyzed and over 2,000 had died.

Astounding numbers for a disease that was considered rare. From the beginning, the questions mounted faster than the answers.

The little that was known wasn't very encouraging.

The major challenge in medicine and in trying to prevent disease and control disease, is to find the causes of the disease and how

it evolves.

We did not know what caused poliomyelitis, so we could not prevent the disease. Even if the cause of polio wasn't known, early

medical pioneers had worked to discover the secrets of other deadly viruses.

In 1796, Edward Jenner experimented with the killer virus and gave the world it's first vaccine.

Smallpox was considered a major scourge that had destroyed civilizations, so Edward Jenner observed that milk maids that used to

milk the cows would not get smallpox.

That observation led him to believe that individuals infected with cowpox would become immune against smallpox.

So, Jenner used the cowpox to protect individuals against smallpox.

The Latin word for cow is vacca, so Jenner called his method a vaccination. Louis Pasteur, almost 100 years later, would provide

the next vital link in understanding immunization.

Working with rabies, Pasteur believed, like Jenner, that the disease itself could be used to fight the infection it caused.

But rather than inject the blood directly, this time Pasteur would dilute, or attenuate, the rabies virus.

He reasoned correctly that a weakened virus would still cause the body to fight the infection without causing the illness.

Pasteur diluted rabies in the spinal cord tissue of animals, then ground the tissue and injected it into humans.

It was a risky, sometimes deadly procedure.

Sometimes it worked, but it was very controversial.

Pasteur, like many creative scientists, went against many of the traditions of the day, and so he endured criticism as many

creative scientists and people in other fields would.

In the 19th century, scientists worked to solve the polio puzzle, but progress was slow.

Many times, those diseases were supposed to be coming from fumes from the environment, and from the positions of the stars,

and so on, and so forth.

One of the major challenges in the prevention of a disease is to find out what provokes that disease.

In 1908, scientist Karl Landsteiner proved what many scientists had suspected, polio was caused by a virus.

It was the first breakthrough.

OK, now, we can see if true manipulation of this virus in a way or another, eventually we can have a vaccine.

But knowing that a virus caused polio was one thing.

Finding a way to vaccinate against it was another.

By the early 1920s, outbreaks of polio were becoming more frequent.

Polio dominated the headlines during summer months, and America was about to learn that even the mighty weren't immune. In

1796, Edward Jenner tested his theory of immunization by scratching the arm of a young boy with a knife, then rubbing cowpox-

infected material into the wound.

The boy got sick, but recovered, and was then immune to smallpox. As America danced its way into the 1920s, the nation's

optimism and sense of youthful fun was tempered by a creeping illness that could strike at any moment.

Polio was taking more lives and crippling more children every year.

Although it preferred children, adults were not immune. Franklin Roosevelt was a young and ambitious star in New York politics.

Cousin Teddy had paved the way, and Franklin, patrician, wealthy, was poised to carry on the Roosevelt legacy.

But polio would create a detour in his political life, a fortunate accident for the fight against the disease.

In 1920, Franklin had just finished a grueling campaign for vice president.

He lost, but was considered a contender for the presidency.

At 38, he was poised for greatness, all he had to do was step up to accept the mantle. Tired by his vice presidential campaign,

Roosevelt retired to Campobello, his family retreat.

On the first day, he swam and went fishing with his children.

On the second day, he felt a little feverish.

On the morning of the third day, he fell to the floor unable to get up.

Fortunately, a doctor was vacationing nearby, but the diagnosis was devastating.

It was polio. Roosevelt easily could have retired into a life of luxury.
Instead, he chose to fight the disease.

Roosevelt was desperately trying to regain the ability to walk.

And in 1924, he went down to Warm Springs, Georgia, because he heard that there were warm waters in a pool at the spa there.

He thought that swimming in the warm water and moving in the warm water would relieve his muscles and he could develop them

and learn to walk.

The warm water soothed his weary muscles, and he found comfort in the company of others who shared his affliction.

So enamored was Roosevelt with Warm Springs that in 1927, he decided to buy it.

But a polio resort would never draw healthy patrons to waters used by polio patients.

Warm Springs was a therapeutic success, but as a resort, it was a financial disaster. The next few years, Roosevelt worked in his

law office part-time, but spent most of his time searching for a cure, working futilely to recover the strength of his paralyzed limbs.

Roosevelt's convalescence was long, but his return to public life was triumphant.

A familiar figure, now on crutches, slowly mounted the rostrum.

He was clearly an heroic figure to the delegates.

Easily elected Governor of New York, he had emerged from his trial with conviction and strength, prepared to lead a country

headed for its own dark trials of confidence. Had Warm Springs been even a modest success, the story of polio might have been

different.

But by 1928, Roosevelt had spent almost $200,000, nearly 2/3 of his family fortune, trying to keep the resort afloat. The unlikely

man who would find the solution was Roosevelt's friend and law partner, Basil O'Connor.

The son of Irish immigrants, O'Connor had worked his way up from the ghettos of New York.

He was a no-nonsense leader, gruff but compassionate.

Basil O'Connor was a bulldog once he got onto an idea.

He was tough.

He was soft-hearted, too.

He didn't like to fire people.

He remembered that his father had once been fired and saw his father come home crying.

So, he had a lot of compassion, but he was also a hard-boiled kind of guy.

As Roosevelt built his political base, it was O'Connor he turned to, to get things done.

He liked O'Connor and trusted him.

O'Connor was the logical person to turn to when Warm Springs was on the brink of financial ruin.
Basil O'Connor reluctantly went on to Warm Springs was Roosevelt, then Roosevelt said, come on, and he wasn't too enthusiastic

about the whole idea, didn't give a darn about polio or polio victims, but he agreed to do it and gradually got more interested.

And, eventually, he gave up his law practice and made it a crusade.

As O'Connor thought about what might be done with Warm Springs, Roosevelt's political skills were propelling him forward.

By 1932, Roosevelt had reached the highest office in the land.

Gripped by the Great Depression, America had a president that had experience with hardship.

Roosevelt understood fear and uncertainty, and he understood the power of the presidency.

Roosevelt was quick to get on the radio in what he called Fireside Chats and reassure the country-- there was his famous phrase,

"We have nothing to fear but fear itself." He sold the country on that.

Conditions didn't improve terribly much until World War II, and with huge government spending on war production and so on.

That really end of the depression, but Roosevelt ended it in people's minds.

Roosevelt's manipulation of the media would help him wage a great battle against the disease he felt compelled to hide.

Mainly, it was just a general gentleman's agreement among the media and so on that you didn't photograph the president in this

way, so the country, as a whole, did not realize that he was crippled.

Newspapers, radio and film were helping America shape it's opinions, and Roosevelt was about to use his political clout to launch a

great crusade against polio.

Roosevelt and O'Connor had an idea.

Warm Springs could be saved by turning it into a nonprofit organization called the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis.

The foundation would provide money to help the afflicted and fund the search for a vaccine.

To raise money, Roosevelt sponsored a Presidential Ball and invited political appointees from around the country to attend.

The birthday balls were a big success all over the country.

They started to raise about $1 million a year, and they didn't quite know what to do with all that money.

So, they begin to establish local chapters all over the country.

But the foundations coffers would stay filled only so long as Roosevelt was President, a longer-term solution to the fund-raising

dilemma was needed. Advertising jingles were beginning to help sell toothpaste.

Roosevelt and O'Connor had an idea.

Maybe they could find a way to convince America to fund the drive for a polio cure.

Hollywood was anxious to help.

All that was needed was a slogan.

So, in 1937, The National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis was formed, and they had a meeting.

And Eddie Cantor was there and he said, "Why not have people send dimes to the White House and maybe we can call it The

March of Dimes." Oh, I know.

That's the March of Dimes, the infantile paralysis fund.

That's right, and Judy, when I spend a dime on myself or some little luxury like this, I always think about those unfortunate kids

and how far just a dime will go towards helping.

At first, Roosevelt and O'Connor thought their campaign had failed.

Only a few dimes trickled in.

But soon, the trickle became a torrent.

So overwhelmed was the Mail Room at the White House, that important correspondence couldn't get through.

The money poured in quickly, but the scientific tragedy not linked to the foundation showed the need to proceed slowly.

A couple of scientists developed an inactivated virus polio vaccine, and tried it, and it caused some deaths.

The vaccine, it was a weakened polio virus that wasn't weakened enough.

But this made O'Connor and others see the need for a major research program that would, hopefully, lead to a successful vaccine.

Two children had died and three had become paralyzed.

O'Connor acted quickly, establishing a vaccination committee.

Scientists would be screened and chosen carefully before receiving the endorsement of the Foundation.

Information would be shared amongst the scientists.

Watching anxiously, was a young, virtually unknown doctor name Jonas Salk.

He was about to embark on a journey that would change the course of scientific history.

When New York newspapers announced the 1916 polio epidemic, people began to flee from New York City.

Outlying towns set up road blocks to keep the strangers out. As the 1940s came to a close, America had weathered the

devastating trial of World War II. The enemy overseas had been vanquished.

But the enemy at home, polio, was still just as destructive as ever.

Almost 300,000 cases had been reported since 1916.

Of those, almost 50,000 had died. Desperate measures were taken to prevent polio's spread.

Literally tons of DDT are used on this dread disease that attacks our young.

Parents wanted freedom from the fear that their babies would suddenly be stricken, but progress on a vaccine was slow. Scientist

Albert Sabin had been working to find the solution since the mid '30s.
Like Jenner and Pasteur, Sabin believed that weakening the live virus was the key.

Sabin would one day help eradicate polio, but his early work led to the mistaken belief that polio virus grew only in spinal tissue.

It meant that large quantities of the virus could never be harvested, since spinal tissue was unstable.

This was the greatest barrier to a vaccine.

But within a few years, one man, Jonas Salk, would hatch a brilliant plan.

One based on solid science, but born of inspiration and hard work.

The son of Russian Jewish immigrants, Salk had graduated top in his class at college.

With a loan and $1,000 that his parents had scrapped together, he entered medical school at NYU.

Ambitious and talented, Salk could look forward to a promising and lucrative career as a physician. Young doctors in training

witnessed firsthand the suffering of polio patients, but Salk could also hear the hopeful prediction that a new field, Virology, might

soon solve the polio puzzle.

Inspired, Salk opted to enter the research field.

When a professor asked him why he turned down a lucrative career, Salk replied, "There's more to life than money." Upon

graduation, he began looking for a research home to start his exploration.

He found it at the University of Michigan with Thomas Francis, who was experimenting with the flu virus.

Francis was experimenting with a new approach for vaccines.

Instead of weakening the virus as Pasteur and Sabin had done, he killed the inside of the virus, the part that allowed it to replicate.

The outer shell could still fool the body into believing it was infected, and thus, fight the disease.

Francis' work was made possible in part because by 1935, the electron microscope provided the first look at a virus.

A virus is basically a package of genetic information.

You could compare it to an audiotape or a videotape.

It carries information for making sound or making pictures, but without a machine to play it, the tape itself is inert.

Healthy cells in the human body are the machine that play the polio tape.

The proteins on the outer shell of the virus bind to healthy cells.

The inside of the virus, the RNA or DNA, allows the virus to mutate or grow inside the healthy cell, taking over the healthy cell.

The human body provides natural protection called antibodies, whose purpose is to attack the virus and virus-infected cells and kill

them.

But sometimes the virus is too strong, and the immune system is overwhelmed.

As Salk quietly worked in the lab, Basil O'Connor was busy building the Foundation into a powerful organization.
As a fashion show sparks the polio drive at the Waldorf, the models lead the parade of dying donors, and that iron lung really rings

with the silver shower, which will go far to help infantile paralysis sufferers.

The war years has been tough, but donations continued to pour in.

And the public wanted to know how their money was being spent.

Unfortunately, O'Connor and the Foundation had little to report. In 1946, the discovery that poor children were less likely to

contracted polio explained polio's sudden destructiveness in the 20th century.

When you clean up a country and have modern sanitation, then the infants and children don't develop immunity.

And, bango, at some point the virus strikes. By 1947, Salk was anxious for his own lab.

He decided on the University of Pittsburgh, choosing a place where he could explore his own scientific passions.

Salk went to the University of Pittsburgh because he said there was nothing there in the way of virology.

He said going to Pittsburgh was like going west to the frontier days, Pittsburgh was the frontier.

And, he established his own virus laboratory where he could be in charge.

At Pittsburgh, Salk lost no time getting to work.

Once he had put together his lab, virtually from scratch, he set about the difficult task of raising money for his new project.

It was the Foundation to which he turned.

It was known that there was a polio virus, but nobody knew how many types there were or what they did.

And, the National Foundation commissioned Salk to work on typing the virus.

It's important to identify the different strains of the virus, because the immune response of the body can be different against

different strains.

In the late '40s, scientists working at Harvard changed the face of polio research.

The highly respected virologist John Enders brought down the one great barrier to a vaccine.

Enders and his team were cultivating mumps virus in tissue cultures.

They decided to add a strain of polio to some leftover cultures.

The results were astonishing.

Not only did the virus grow, it thrived.

In one experiment, it was proven that polio could in fact be grown in non-nervous cell tissue.

This was the plow that broke the plains.

When Salk heard of Enders 1949 work, he immediately saw that a vaccine would be possible and he got ready to work on one.
The question asked was which was better.

A weakened vaccine as Sabin favored, or a killed vaccine as Salk advocated.

Salk would need to convince O'Connor and the Foundation to support him.

And in 1951, he got his chance, an invitation to address other working scientists at a conference in Copenhagen.

But it was the trip home that proved almost as valuable as the conference.

Salk returned to America aboard the Queen Mary.

Also aboard, were Basil O'Connor and his wife.

O'Connor invited them to sit at his table.

And, Salk was somewhat entranced by this smooth, sophisticated guy O'Connor, and O'Connor was taken with this young,

enthusiastic, serious kid who believed that a vaccine was possible.

It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

But what Salk was proposing was not free from risk.

O'Connor still remembered 1935, the last time a killed virus had been used with devastating results.

Salk relied on formalin to kill the inner core of the virus.

It was the exact same method that have been used during the ill-fated experiment in 1935.

This time, however, Salk believed he knew how to kill the virus completely.

Despite the risk, O'Connor trust Salk.

The two men, as different as they seemed, had much in common.

Both were sons of immigrants, self made, hard-working, determined, and they shared a common passion-- to rid the world of polio.

While O'Connor was interested in Salk and his work, there were other scientists competing for the Foundation's funds.

The enormous expense of testing a vaccine meant the Foundation would have to be careful about backing one scientist or

approach prematurely.

A recent scandal had proven the point.

Noted scientist Hilary Koprowski shocked the scientific community in 1951, announcing that he had, on his own, injected live virus

into volunteers.

Doubly shocking was the revelation that the volunteers had been patients at a New York mental institution.

No one was infected, but the Foundation was outraged.

Salk was certain his killed vaccine was the key, but important work remained in the lab to prove the vaccine was ready for the

public.

Salk focused on the strongest, most virulent strain of polio, the Mahoney strain.

He reasoned that since the virus was dead, strength wouldn't matter.

Besides, the strong strain grew well in the laboratory.

The antibody response would be the same in weaker strains.

Salk was making excellent progress.

And, it was a good thing.

Because in 1952, the US was experiencing its worst epidemic yet, 56,000 cases of poliomyelitis.

One severe case for every 3,000 people.

The public cried desperately for a solution.

Jonas Salk believed that he could provide it.

In Brooklyn, authorities rounded up to 215 cats because it was suspected that they might carry polio.

By the 1950s, polio's grip over America was the strongest it had ever been.

Polio had become a summer ritual of fear.

But, Jonas Salk was about to change that.

For five years, Salk had been working feverishly in the lab conducting tests to prove that his vaccine could work.

For those beyond a cure, the March of Dimes did what could be done to ease the pain.

Polio was an expensive disease, and many turned to the March of Dimes for help.

Back in the '50s, my shoes cost between $75 and $100.

My mother didn't have to purchase the brace for me, because she petitioned the March of Dimes and the March of Dimes provided

the money for the brace.

But, she had to pay for the shoes.

Rehabilitation required money and patience.

The children and I were told how to walk, and it was the right arm, left foot, left arm, right foot.

You had to have this rhythm going when you walked.

You couldn't just walk any kind of way.

With each epidemic, the number of polio patients requiring expensive medical treatment increased.
It seemed that there was no end in sight to the tragedy.

After five long years working in the lab, Salk was ready for the next momentous step.

Trying the vaccine on a human being.

In a bold move, he injected not only himself, but his entire family with his killed polio virus.

I think he was confident about the safety of the vaccine and he was willing to inoculate himself, and his children, as an indication

of his confidence in the safety of it.

The injections worked.

Salk and his family showed evidence of antibodies that could fight polio.

But it was far from the proof needed to convince the scientific community.

For that, a large trial was necessary.

First, Salk decided to conduct a top secret test on a small number of polio patients at the Watson Home for Crippled Children.

Despite his confidence in the vaccine, Salk had to take every precaution possible.

Doctor Salk felt that it would be more acceptable to have a vaccine used in people who had already been exposed to the virus than

it would be to use that vaccine in people who had not been exposed.

When the results were in, antibodies had increased.

The experiment had worked.

But would the vaccine work on healthy children?

Would it provide significant protection?

Could healthy kids become infected?

These were all possibilities.

Some scientists didn't think the larger trial should proceed.

There's a lot of debate about when vaccines would be tried and who would take them.

There is a consideration of cost and who should pay for the vaccine, who should be given the vaccine, how broadly it should be

used, and so on.

But Salk, with O'Connor's support, called for an immediate trial.

There was no time to waste.

Any vaccine that is available should be used.

And, whatever vaccine is available should be used now and should be used before this coming summer.
The idea of-- For a large trial, hundreds of thousands of people would need to be convinced to participate.

Parents would be volunteering their children.

Salk found himself playing a new role now, public spokesperson for his vaccine.

And the press loved him.

Jonas Salk was direct, sincere, and intelligent.

He inspired confidence and trust.

The perfect hero to soothe an anxious, expectant public.

But Salk embraced his growing fame with great reluctance.

Some scientists were outraged at the increased attention paid to Salk.

His willingness to mention the contribution of others did little to mollify the scientific community.

Salk later said that, "Enders threw a forward pass and I caught it." And other scientists never forgave Salk for taking that much

credit.

Despite the heavy and growing responsibilities in public, Salk work privately in the lab to ensure all details were in place.

The last, most important hurdle was to ensure mass production of his vaccine was done properly.

Big commercial labs would manufacture large quantities of the vaccine in assembly line fashion.

But the slightest mistake could be devastating.

A bad vaccine going out would be disastrous.

Production had to be perfect. Basil O'Connor was also taking steps to ensure the trial came off perfectly.

There could be no questions about methodology or results.

The Foundation would provide the logistical support and coordinate personnel.

Through the early spring of '53, the Foundation struggled with numerous decisions.

Over 500,000 people would be participating, boxes of supplies and vial after vial of vaccine would have to be distributed.

Then there was the task of tracking and carefully tabulating the results.

Thomas Francis, Salk's friend and mentor from Ann Arbor, was asked to oversee the trial.

It was a fitting reunion with the man who had helped inspire the Salk vaccine.

By early 1954, two years after Salk had injected himself with the vaccine, the vaccine was ready to be given to the public.

Salk and O'Connor were convinced the vaccinations would proceed safely, but Sabin still doubted the wisdom of the trial.

There had never been a trial of the size of the 1954 field trial of the Salk vaccine.
And, before that trial was approved by the Public Health Service, many bitterly opposed it.

Among them, Enders, Sabin.

They thought A, it wouldn't work, and B, it was dangerous.

Enders told Salk that he was unethical.

Salk and the Foundation believed they had to try.

On April 26, 1954, the trials began.

Children were inoculated by thousands of volunteer nurses and doctors.

They were called Polio Pioneers, and told by teachers that pioneers are special people who go first.

Chalkboards across America were filled with the same message. Over 200,000 vials of the vaccine would be needed, 1 million

needles, as many cotton swabs, not to mention the public space required for such an undertaking.

First, blood was taken from each child, then the inoculation given.

Two weeks later, another blood sample was taken to compare the difference in antibody levels.

All the samples had to be checked carefully.

With over 500,000 participants, the logistics were enormous.

At first, everything went well.

Then, the unimaginable happened.

A child inoculated by the Salk vaccine had come down with polio.

It was a tragedy that could end the trials.

Even worse, the media got hold of the news releasing it to a startled, worried public.

Salk was crushed.

O'Connor told friends later Salk was heartbroken.

It was his vaccine and he knew there wasn't a damn thing wrong with it when it was made properly.

Fortunately, the disaster was soon explained.

One of the labs had failed to kill the virus completely.

Salk reassured the public that it would never happen again.

Our contention and the thing that we discuss today has been that it should be possible to prevent paralytic poliomyelitis by the

proper use of a properly constituted vaccine.

Despite their fears, most parents were desperate for a cure and they agreed to continue the trial.
Most believed that the benefits outweighed the risk.

In the scientific community, and particularly in medicine, people like to move slowly.

There's a saying, first do no harm.

That isn't really possible.

You can't do anything without doing some harm.

By March of 1955, all the lab work had been completed and the results tabulated.

An anxious and expectant nation waited for the results.

A conference was called on April 12, 1955, coincidentally, the 10th anniversary of Franklin Roosevelt's death.

I was a reporter on the Minneapolis Tribune in 1955.

We had, had several bad polio epidemics.

We were frantic for this news.

And, the PR people and the guards brought the stacks of press releases into the press room, and we all surged forward to get

them, like a bunch of shoppers at Macy's during a sale.

Every man for himself.

Soon, the word was out.

The Salk vaccine worked.

A nation gripped by fear summer after summer was able to breathe a heavy, happy sigh of relief as Salk shared the news.

Asked by the media who owned the patent to the vaccine, Salk replied, "The people do.

There is no patent.

Could you patent the sun?" Salk's vaccine proved that polio could be beaten, but the task to end the scourge in America was far

from accomplished.

As news of the Salk vaccine was reaching a hungry, anxious public, Albert Sabin was working on his own vaccine.

Sabin remained convinced that a live virus approach was better than the Salk vaccine.

His work was about to profoundly influence the challenge to eradicate polio from the world.

In the 10 years from 1952 to 1962, the yearly number of reported polio cases went from 56,000 to 910.

By 1957, millions of children had been vaccinated with Salk's vaccine for polio.

It was clear that although Salk's vaccine dealt polio a lethal blow, it couldn't finish the job.

His vaccine required multiple shots to maintain its effectiveness.

Unbelievably, some had to be convinced to take the follow up shots that were required.

Albert Sabin believed he had found the solution to the problem.

He had successfully weakened the virus, and he was convinced his live virus method was better than Salks.

It could be taken orally, and was therefore much more convenient.

Although it required refrigeration, it was much easier to administer on a mass basis.

No matter where people lived, they could easily take the vaccine.

Those giving the Sabin vaccine needed no special medical training.

Best of all, children were grateful to be spared the nasty needle.

In the late 1950s, in an unusual example of detente, the Sabin vaccine was sent to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and given

to hundreds of thousands of children.

Ostensibly used to test the effectiveness of Sabin's vaccine, the Eastern European trials were so successful the Sabin approach

became the vaccine of choice the world over.

In fact, it was Sabin's vaccine that would ultimately eradicate polio in the Western hemisphere, although it would take decades to

do so. The last reported case was in Peru as recently as 1992.

Today, polio continues to cripple children in developing nations.

But with the help of Rotary International, the Pan American Health Organization plans to eradicate polio from the world.

Despite the tremendous success of those who work to battle the disease, the fight continues to this day.

Those stricken with polio as children find that, as adults, the disease often returns to cripple again.

Scientists are still trying to discover why those who suffered as children suffer again in later years as adults.

Jonas Salk had helped eradicate a cruel disease.

He was still a young man with many years of work and research ahead of him.

With the help of the March of Dimes and the city of San Diego, Salk established a research institute with a profound and unique

mission.

A mission inspired by the work he had done to fight polio.

Dr. Salk had a broad view of his place in human history and human culture.

He felt that as human beings, we should be conscious of the many dimensions of our existence, so he founded an institute that

would be devoted to understanding the physical, the mental, and the spiritual aspects of human beings.

To the very end, Salk approached his work with humility.

He spent his last years struggling to uncover the secrets of another virus that causes terror, the AIDS virus.
Albert Sabin had worked for over four decades to beat polio, and could also claim credit for victory over the disease.

He and Salk, scientific adversaries, had both succeeded in their common goal.

The fear today is of killer viruses that threaten to wipe out entire populations.

The pioneers who worked to unlock the secrets of one of the 20th century's most destructive viruses, polio, have helped to pave

the way for future exploration.

Hopefully, the painful lessons of yesterday will help answer the difficult questions of tomorrow.

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