The Polio Vaccine Essay - 1082 Words

The Polio Vaccine The discovery of the polio vaccine was an important medical and scientific breakthrough because it saved many lives since the 1950s. In the summer of 1916 the great polio epidemic struck the United states. By the 1950s hundreds of thousands of people had been struck by the poliomyelitis. The highest number of cases occurred in 1953 with over 50,000 people infected with the virus. When hygienic conditions were poor polio attacked infants. The disease was spread by contaminated water and contact with fecal contamination. Many infants died when the conditions were poor. But as conditions improved the virus spread differently. It was spread more through playmates and family members, the contamination came from the†¦show more content†¦Dean William McEllroy talked Salk into joining the university full-time. Though the schools research budget was a grant from the American Society for the Study of High Blood Pressure in the amount of $1,800, he saw the opportunity to do two things. One was to continue the work he was doing on influenza, second was to begin working with the polio virus. A few months after arriving in Pittsburgh, Salk was visited by the director of research at the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. The director asked Salk if he would be willing to participate in a polio typing program. I had no experience working with polio, but it provided me with an opportunity. . . Salk said in an interview. This gave Salk a chance to get funding, equipment, a laboratory facility, and to hire a staff to work for and with him. Salks previous work gave him the idea that a killed virus could in fact work when others thought it couldnt. To type the polio virus Salk infected monkeys with polio by injecting it into them or feeding it to them. If a monkey survived it built up antibodies to protect against the virus. The monkeys that survived were then given another type of virus to see if the same antibodies protected against the second type. If it did, i t told Salk and his assistants that the two types were related. If it did not, that told Salk that they were not related. EventuallyShow MoreRelatedPolio Vaccine in America1048 Words   |  5 PagesThe Polio Vaccine in America When my daughter was a baby, and we decided to delay vaccination, a friend of my mother-in-law seemed thrilled with our decision. However, she advised to look into the polio vaccine because there wasn t much they could do if someone did contract polio. During my research, I have found that the polio vaccine is all but completely  unnecessary for anyone in the United States. Let s take a look at some of the most interesting information I have found. Taken directlyRead MoreThe Discovery Of The Polio Vaccine1963 Words   |  8 Pagesdiscovery of the Polio vaccine will be discussed and broken down into deeper thought on why and how it was discovered. Poliomyelitis is an infectious disease that reached epidemic levels in the mid twentieth century. People that were unfortunate to receive this disease faced hardships including fevers, sore throat and vomiting(Allaby). These are just symptoms but Polio can be a vicious disease leaving their patients paralyzed. The majority of people who are diagnosed with Polio don’t get paralyzedRead MoreThe Discovery Of Polio Vaccine Essay2213 Words   |  9 Pagespoliomyelitis, otherwise known as polio. However, a breakthrough was reached when Jonas Salk managed to developed the first vaccine, which he brought to the public in 1955 after testing the drug on himself, family, and others. Salk developed a killed-virus vaccine through tissue-culture methods discovered by the scientist John Ende rs. Unfortunately, Salk’s vaccine was not the cure that the scientific community, and the world, had hoped for, as the results of the vaccine took a critical turn for the worseRead MoreEssay on Polio Vaccine633 Words   |  3 PagesPoliomyelitis (shortened to polio) has been around for thousands of years, and there is still no cure, but at the peak of its devastation in the United States, Dr. Jonas Salk introduced a way to prevent it. Polio attacks the nerve cells and sometimes the central nervous system, causing muscle wasting, paralysis, and even death. The disease, whose symptoms are flu like, stuck mostly children, and in the first half of the 20th century the epidemics of polio were becoming more devastating. SalkRead MorePolio Vaccine : An Infectious Disease1028 Words   |  5 Pagesâ€Å"A 1916 Polio epidemic in the United States killed 6,000 people and paralyzed 27,000 more† (â€Å"Polio Vaccine†). This lead to the creation of the polio vaccine that has helped to prevent polio for a very long time. The IPV and OPV vaccines played a huge role in all of this. Jonas Salk, who created the IPV vaccine and Albert Sabin, who created the OPV vaccine saved millions of people all around the world from polio (Petersen, Jennifer B). The IPV and OPV polio vaccine helped eliminate polio from theRead MoreThe Polio Vaccine Through The Eyes Of Its Creator1218 Words   |  5 Pagescreation of the polio vaccine through the eyes of its creator. Salk also describes his childhood and the events that lead up to his medical breakthrough. Latour, Bruno , Steve Woolgar, and Jonas Salk. Introduction. Laboratory Life. 1986.Reprint. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986. 11. Print. It showed the way that Jonas Salk studied polio and how he came to the conclusion that the vaccine was correct. He also taught that it is a life taking job and that polio vaccine was a difficultRead MoreThe Erradication of Poliomyelitis: Inactivated Polio Vaccine (IPV), and Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV)1076 Words   |  5 PagesIntroduction Poliomyelitis, commonly known as â€Å"Polio†, is an acute motor disease caused by the poliovirus that targets the anterior horn cells of the human spinal cord, and in severe cases results in acute flaccid paralysis (Alberta Health and Wellness, 2011), which can progress to permanent paralysis. It mainly affects children under the age of five, although individuals of any age may contract it (World Health Organization, 2013 [C]). Historical outbreaks, most prominently the 1916 and 1952 epidemicsRead MoreThe Relationship between the Polio Vaccine and AIDS in Africa550 Words   |  2 PagesIn the late 1950s, several groups of researches and scientists were developing some vaccines against polio. At that time, polio was still an epidemic worldwide disease. One of these vaccines, made by Dr. Hilary Koprowski MD (1916-2013) was used to test it on millions of people in Africa, after first being trailed in the USA. The vaccine virus was grown in tissue cultures taken from macaque mon keys before being introduced to millions of people , who were largely living in Burundi, Rwanda, and CongoRead MoreJonas Salk and the Polio Vaccine Essay example554 Words   |  3 Pagesand virologist who developed the first safe and effective polio vaccine. Before this vaccine was created, polio vaccines usually contained live, weakened forms of the virus, but Salk developed a vaccine that contained an inactivated, dead form of polio, the first of its kind. Until the Salk vaccine was introduced on April 12, 1955, polio was considered the most frightening health problem in the United Sates. Just 3 years before the vaccine was released, almost 58,000 cases were reported, with 3,145Read MorePrevention Of The Polio Vaccine880 Words   |  4 Pagesimmunizations, such as: Dtap, Polio, Hep A, and Varicella. Dtap and Polio is part of Maxe’s primary immunization. First, I would ask mom if she would like her son to receive 4 mentioned above vaccines (consent needed). If mom agreed to vaccination, I would verify if her son didn’t have any of the following symptoms after receiving last Dtap: a brain or nervous system disease within 7 days, non-stop crying for 3h or more, a seizure or collapse, and fever over 105F. For the Polio vaccine I would verify if Max