Polio: An American Story
by David M. Oshinsky
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Book Summary Information
Author: David M. OshinskyEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2006-09-01
ISBN: 0195307143
Number of pages: 368
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Book Reviews of Polio: An American Story
Book Review: A Tale of Men and Microbes
Summary: 5 Stars
Microbes shaped our destiny since the precambrian era or earlier. Our DNA is the historical evidence.
We have not changed much genetically in the last couple of millennia, but we have had a rapid cultural evolution that enabled us to come up with virology as a medical science.
The book is a snapshot of American social and medical history around the middle of the last century. "There were no shopping malls or motel chains or felt-tip pens. Tobacco companies placed cigarette ads in medical journals."
A prominent victim, President Roosevelt, played a major role in the fight against Polio.
Prejudices surface up when plagues hit home. Some ethnic groups were targeted.
We learn about the biographies of Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin , the two heroes whose feud over killed-virus versus live-virus vaccines continues even after their death.
There are plenty of factoids on philanthropy, fund raising, grant policy and McCarthyism.
For example, Harry Weaver introduced the percentage payment of the indirect costs involved in grants as an incentive for research grants.
There were also the ethical questions of testing vaccines on crippled children. When Koprowski ( another hero in the search for vaccine )
" published his results in 1952, his use of the word "volunteer", which included two children so helpless they had to be fed the vaccine through stomach tubes, prompted the British medical journal The Lancet to note:
One of the reasons for the richness of the English language is that the meaning of some words is continually changing. Such a word is "volunteer". We may yet read in a scientific journal that an experiment was carried out with twenty volunteer mice, and that twenty other mice volunteered as controls."
The world is not yet free from polio. Cultural barriers and prejudices in certain Third World regions
prevent the total eradication. The WHO set a goal for 2008.
This is a recommended reading for every concerned global citizen. The next viral pandemic will certainly come, probably a more eminent threat than global warming, terrorism or nuclear war.
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