Resources
- What is Polio?: CDCPolio, or poliomyelitis, is a disabling and life-threatening disease caused by the poliovirus.
- Polio Vaccination in the U.S.For best protection, children should get four doses of polio vaccine.
Research & Reference
- Polio Vaccine: Credo ReferenceA Credo Reference landing page on the polio vaccine. This page includes links to reference works, journal articles, and a mind map.
- What is your opinion on the vaccination against polio, which is recommended for children during the first 24 months?This statistic shows the results of a survey conducted in the United States in 2017 on parents' opinions on vaccination against polio for children. Some 4 percent of respondents stated that in their opinion a vaccination against polio is not necessary.
Streaming Media
- Paralyzing FearSeldom has society come full circle in the cycle of a disease - from illness, to epidemic, to cure. Polio is the 20th century's most notable exception.
- The Shot Felt 'Round the WorldThis documentary tells the story of Dr. Jonas Salk, who developed the vaccine that conquered polio, the most feared disease of the 20th century. A horror movie could not be more dramatic; polio is a mysterious disease that preys on children, killing them or leaving them crippled. As President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a victim of polio, inspires the public to send in their dimes to fund research, some of the money goes to an ambitious young scientist, who changes the course of history. Featuring interviews with world renowned experts, as well as people affected by the disease, this documentary charts the story of the methods and people involved in developing this critical vaccine.
- WHO: The Two Polio VaccinesPolio can’t be cured, but it can be prevented. Two important tools help to prevent polio – two safe, effective vaccines. Find out about the oral polio vaccine and the inactivated poliovirus vaccine and their roles in the polio eradication effort.
Perspectives
Jonas Salk
The biography series, aimed at young adults, profiles important modern-era scientists. The volumes focus on the lives of those men and women who, in the 19th and 20th centuries, made the greatest contributions to scientific knowledge. Each book looks at a scientist - or group of scientists - whose work had a major impact on a particular field. In simple prose, free of technical jargon, each scientist's achievements are discussed, including the scientific principles underlying his or her work. The human drama of scientific work, conveying the excitement and frustration of research, as well as the exhilaration and rewards of discovery, are also depicted.
Polio
All who lived in the early 1950s remember the fear of polio and the elation felt when a successful vaccine was found. Now David Oshinsky tells the gripping story of the polio terror and of the intense effort to find a cure, from the March of Dimes to the discovery of the Salk and Sabinvaccines--and beyond.Here is a remarkable portrait of America in the early 1950s, using the widespread panic over polio to shed light on our national obsessions and fears. Drawing on newly available papers of Jonas Salk, Albert Sabin and other key players, Oshinsky paints a suspenseful portrait of the race forthe cure, weaving a dramatic tale centered on the furious rivalry between Salk and Sabin. Indeed, the competition was marked by a deep-seated ill will among the researchers that remained with them until their deaths. The author also tells the story of Isabel Morgan, perhaps the most talented of allpolio researchers, who might have beaten Salk to the prize if she had not retired to raise a family. As backdrop to this feverish research, Oshinsky offers an insightful look at the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, which was founded in the 1930s by FDR and Basil O'Connor. The NationalFoundation revolutionized fundraising and the perception of disease in America, using "poster children" and the famous March of Dimes to raise hundreds of millions of dollars from a vast army of contributors (instead of a few well-heeled benefactors), creating the largest research and rehabilitationnetwork in the history of medicine. The polio experience also revolutionized the way in which the government licensed and tested new drugs before allowing them on the market, and the way in which the legal system dealt with manufacturers' liability for unsafe products. Finally, and perhaps mosttellingly, Oshinsky reveals that polio was never the raging epidemic portrayed by the media, but in truth a relatively uncommon disease. But in baby-booming America--increasingly suburban, family-oriented, and hygiene-obsessed--the specter of polio, like the specter of the atomic bomb, soon became acloud of terror over daily life.Both a gripping scientific suspense story and a provocative social and cultural history, Polio opens a fresh window onto postwar America.
Jonas Salk and the Polio Vaccine
Tells the story of Jonas Salk's involvement in the development of a polio vaccine. Written in graphic-novel format.