The outbreak of Poliomyelitis in the United States during
the early-mid 1900s led to one of the most desperate pursuits for a vaccination
and/or cure of the disease. The polio virus causes a slow, widespread contraction of
muscles throughout the body causing paralysis and respiratory distress. The prognosis for patients who contract the
virus is not good: usually permanent paralysis or death. Therefore, during the outbreak, researches
and health care providers were rushing to develop a cure for the disease, or at
least a vaccine to prevent it.
Jonas Salk
was a medical researcher out of the University of Pittsburgh during the
1940s-1950s. He had received a grant to develop a vaccine for the polio virus
and created an early version of it by 1950. The vaccine in and of itself was
groundbreaking and lifesaving at the time, but it was also extremely innovative.
Salk developed an inactive vaccine for polio, which is one that contains no
live strains of the virus. The inactive form of polio is injected into the
patient and the body’s immune system will develop antibodies for the specific virus
so that when it encounters the virus again, it will already have those defense
mechanisms. This vaccine was one of the first largely successful inactivated vaccines.
There are
two details about Salk’s development of the vaccine that make his story
interesting. First, he tested the vaccines on himself and his family, wife and
3 children, along with conducting the research on unknown human trials. Second,
there was no hesitation after his findings concluded the vaccine was successful
and safe before announcing its existence on public radio. Both these details
explain that Salk’s motivation for creating the vaccine was both intrinsic and
extrinsic. He was extrinsically motivated by the fact that he had 3 children at
the time who were especially susceptible to the disease, so the need for a
vaccine to prevent them from contracting it was at an all-time high. His intrinsic
motivation was shown when he immediately announced the vaccine was safe and
successful and began mass producing it instead of what is commonly done today:
waiting for the highest buyer. He wasn’t motivated by the money and fame,
although he did name the vaccine after himself, but was motivated by his moral
duty to help save the lives of others.
Pharmaceutical
companies in modern day are not as morally aligned as Jonas Salk was when it
comes to putting the health of patients over the health of their bank accounts.
Even though Salk knew how desperate the country was for a vaccine for this
disease, his motivation stayed true to his moral values and the health of the patients.
Sources:
This was a very interesting read. I think that Salk's intrinsic motivation is something to be admired and what makes him a true innovator. As you mentioned, he was not motivated by money; something that cannot be said of modern day pharmaceutical companies.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely an interesting read. It’s both a bit scary and amazing that Salk conducted human trials on such a destructive disease. That being said, I think it was his drive and ability to take those risks that ushered in a new era of fighting disease. Truly innovative!
ReplyDeleteIt is a shame that such intrinsically motivated creatives who innovate for the sake of human well-being are leaving the medical field and being replaced by people who are motivated only by economic gain at such an alarming rate. It’s innovators like Salk that kept life saving drugs like insulin and Epi-pens accessible to everyone for a long time. Recently skyrocketing prices due to people unlike Salk have driven some people to resort to using expired medication to survive which is dangerous and frankly unacceptable.
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ReplyDeleteThis was a really informative post! I think it is very interesting that Salk first tested on his family and other human trials. That is probably not something that would fly today. Also odd is that he released the information about the drug as soon as his test results came in. I wonder how long after the announcement the drug was released. I know today there is oftentimes big debate about the length of time drugs have to undergo FDA testing and waiting before they are available to the public.
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