Spring Break
Author discusses American fight against Polio
by Rachel Marder and Daniel D. Snyder
News | 5/22/07
Posted online at 5:07 AM EST on 5/22/07
A large crowd gathered in the Shapiro Campus Center Atrium May 11 to hear author David M. Oshinsky Ph.D. '71 discuss his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Polio: An American Story, last Friday.
Oshinsky, a history professor at the University of Texas at Austin, published the book in 2006 and won the Pulitzer Prize in history for his detailed account of the polio epidemic of the 1950s and the frantic search for a cure.
After a brief summary of the disease and its effect, Oshinsky took the audience behind the scenes of the challenges and rivalries that led to the creation of the two polio vaccines. He told the stories of Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin, pioneering Jewish scientists who created the vaccines and overcame rampant discrimination in the field to procure the necessary funding for their research via the March of Dimes charity organization.
Oshinsky emphasized the brilliance behind the March of Dimes, the first campaign to employ the concept of the "poster child" and to use celebrities to encourage millions of Americans to donate to the cause.
"[The March of Dimes] revolutionized medical research," he said, by being the first organization to give researchers long-term grants. The organization funded "aggressive, ambitious, bright researchers" to answer questions such as how polio travels through the body. Since at the time the federal government gave no money for medical research, Oshinsky said, the March put tremendous effort toward fundraising among private citizens.
He went on to describe his theories behind the success of America's efforts to eliminate the disease, describing it as a "white middle-class disease" that rallied the wealthy and influential to the cause of a cure.
"The March of Dimes had the perfect disease," Oshinsky said of the predominantly child victims who easily engendered sympathy.
In 1954, millions of parents stepped forward to have their children test out Salk's vaccine in what Oshinsky called the "largest public health experiment in history."
Oshinsky, a history professor at the University of Texas at Austin, published the book in 2006 and won the Pulitzer Prize in history for his detailed account of the polio epidemic of the 1950s and the frantic search for a cure.
After a brief summary of the disease and its effect, Oshinsky took the audience behind the scenes of the challenges and rivalries that led to the creation of the two polio vaccines. He told the stories of Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin, pioneering Jewish scientists who created the vaccines and overcame rampant discrimination in the field to procure the necessary funding for their research via the March of Dimes charity organization.
Oshinsky emphasized the brilliance behind the March of Dimes, the first campaign to employ the concept of the "poster child" and to use celebrities to encourage millions of Americans to donate to the cause.
"[The March of Dimes] revolutionized medical research," he said, by being the first organization to give researchers long-term grants. The organization funded "aggressive, ambitious, bright researchers" to answer questions such as how polio travels through the body. Since at the time the federal government gave no money for medical research, Oshinsky said, the March put tremendous effort toward fundraising among private citizens.
He went on to describe his theories behind the success of America's efforts to eliminate the disease, describing it as a "white middle-class disease" that rallied the wealthy and influential to the cause of a cure.
"The March of Dimes had the perfect disease," Oshinsky said of the predominantly child victims who easily engendered sympathy.
In 1954, millions of parents stepped forward to have their children test out Salk's vaccine in what Oshinsky called the "largest public health experiment in history."
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