March 26, 1953:Dr. Jonas Salk announced he had successfully tested a polio vaccine.
Salk, a research director at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, said the vaccine had given 90 people protective antibodies against the three types of polio without making them sick. The next year saw close to 2 million children participating in clinical trials of Salk’s vaccine, and in 1955 it was declared safe and effective. After a national inoculation campaign, the number of polio cases fell from 35,000 in 1953 to 161 by 1961, according to the National Library of Medicine. Salk declined to patent the vaccine, and when asked who owned it, he famously answered, “Well, the people, I would say. There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?”
rfenst wrote: