October 28 - Spider Awards & Jonas Salk
October 28, 2024
Today has two topics!
First, I am very honored to have won an Honorable Mention at the 19th Annual Black And White Spider Awards with my photograph “Mobius Arch and Moon”!!! I’m also excited because my name is next to one of my photography heroes: Jeff Schewe! If you don’t know his work, please look him up! He has many great photography books to learn from as well!
Now, on to Jonas Salk:
“Hope lies in dreams, in imagination, and in the courage of those who dare to make dreams into reality.” — Jonas Salk.
The wonderful virologist and medical researcher Jonas Salk was born on October 28, 1914, in NYC and passed on June 23, 1995, in La Jolla, CA. Salk is most well known for developing a successful polio vaccine, which he chose not to patent nor seek any profit from so that it could be accessible to everyone. After attending the City College of New York and the New York University School of Medicine, he became a professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in 1947.
His first big project in 1948 was to determine how many poliovirus strains there were. He then made it his life’s mission to create a vaccine against polio (for those who don’t know, polio is a very contagious virus that can paralyze (1 in 200 will be paralyzed for life and can happen within hours of getting the virus) and about 5-10% de when their muscles surrounding their lungs are immobilized). There is no cure - just prevention. Since 1988 (when widespread vaccine usage happened worldwide), cases have decreased by 99%! And now, there are only 2 endemic countries (Afghanistan and Pakistan). Even though we have reduced the numbers tremendously, it is so contagious that it can be easily imported into a polio-free country and transmitted to unvaccinated children/people again. I understand if one is against vaccines, but the polio vaccine is one I will be a staunch advocate for - even if you do not vaccinate against anything else.
Salk finally made the first successful vaccine and made it available to the public in April 1955, and he was named a “miracle worker.” He didn’t patent the vaccine (nor did he want to), the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis and the University of Pittsburgh looked into obtaining the patent and found out they couldn’t since Salk used widely known techniques. So, the vaccine went far and wide and saved many lives. It reached 90 countries in just 4 years! Albert Sabin did make an oral vaccine for polio as well, and between the two vaccines, >25 years after Salk’s vaccine was made, polio was eradicated in the USA. He started the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla in 1963, still working on scientific research. In his last years working, he searched for a vaccine against HIV.
You can find his papers in the Geisel Library at UC San Diego.
Awards & Honors: 1955: City University of NY created the Salk Scholarship Fund; 1956: Lasker Award; 1958: James D. Bruce Memorial Award; 1975: Congressional Gold Medal; 1976: Humanist of the Year by the American Humanist Association; 1977: Presidential Medal of Freedom from Pres. Jimmy Carter, and many more.
Photo: “Mobius Arch and Moon” - The beautiful moon setting between the Eastern Sierra and Mobius Arch while at the Alabama Hills last February 2024. One can also see Lone Pine Peak & Tumanguya (Mt. Whitney) through the arch. Nüümü Witü, Newe Sogobia, & Nüümü Ancestral Homeland.
Sources: https://photoshow.thespiderawards.com/winners.php?x=p&cid=623, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonas_Salk, https://www.salk.edu/about/history-of-salk/jonas-salk/, https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/poliomyelitis#:~:text=Polio (poliomyelitis) mainly affects children,their breathing muscles become immobilized, & https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/does-polio-still-exist-is-it-curable.