Transcripts For CSPAN3 Lectures In History Polio Epidemic In The United States 20240711

Looks at responses to disasters in history with an emphasis on research and writing. Over the semester, we have examined various disasters from different perspectives. First of all, the psychological and physical problems from jamestown. Disasters, responses to fires, hurricanes, and epidemics in colonial america, famine suffered by the donner party en route to california, irish immigrants fleeing the potato famine and the ability to create new lives in this country, disaster tourism, the johnstown flood of 1889, the impact of the fire in new york city, and disaster art that emerged from the 1930s dust bowl. So, today, we are discussing david oceanfys Pulitzer Prize winning book polio an american story. You all received questions that i posted and im really interested in the topic because i also teach a seminar on the 1950s and of course thats when this takes place and i think just looking at polio, really, so many different issues that affected that decade. Before starting, though, i just want to mention one thing in light of what we were talking about in terms of dust bowl art. I was reading the new york review of books and there is a review of a novel that Woody Guthrie wrote, a novel called house of earth. Doesnt get a very good review. But obviously, he gets some attention. And youll be pleased to know that the introduction was by a historian names Douglas Brinkley and johnny depp, so i think theyre trying to sell copies by having a superstar on the cover. Okay, i divided the discussion today into four sort of major themes. We cant cover all of the book but i thought the most interesting were looking at philanthropy, medical research, scientists and their various personalities, which are interesting, and also the ethical issues. So, with that, lets start with the way we always do when looking at anything we have to read, and that is, first of all, who is David Oshinsky . Yeah, katie . A professor at the university of texas at austin and a distinguished scholar in residence at nyu. Okay. So fairly reputable, we would say. Yeah. Probably knows what hes talking about. Yeah, david. I saw that he won the cartwright award, cartwright prize from Columbia University Medical Center in 2010. And that was for his research into the history of polio. So that definitely adds some credibility. He also won the Pulitzer Prize award in 2006. Yes, winning a pulitzer is substantial. Thats for sure. Overall what did you theyve his writing, his scholarship, his research . Were you impressed . Yeah, elizabeth. I was impressed by the thoroughness of his research. I think he went above and beyond researching the relationships between the scientists and ten, you know, the politicians and the scientists and the foundation. I think there was a lot. He sort of like went pretty much as far as he could. A lot of when we talked to robert caro, how it took him seven years to write his book instead of like two. It kind of felt like the same way. Yeah. Right. Very much in depth. And really a nice variety in terms of people he interviewed. Caroline . I thought it was a good balance between information and kind of story in the book. I found it very readable. I thought originally when we had to read the whole book it was going to take me a really, really long time but i found myself getting really into it and i thought it was really easy to read and really interesting. I think he did a good job of making it accessible and not so academic. I think this is one of the great examples of how history is really stories. And this is a very, very well told story on multiple levels. Carly . I think also he did a good job describing the historical point of it as well as the scientific point but also the kind of politics of each point. Like not only a political aspect but the politics of science. Which was an interesting review for us to read. Something really different. We havent done that before. What do you think . Did he deserve the Pulitzer Prize . Should we vote . I think thumbs up, right . Obviously a man some of repute and certainly did a good job on this book. The first wellrecorded outbreak of polio took place in rutland, vermont in 1894. 123 people there caught polio. There was another outbreak, substantial outbreak in 1907 and then a major outbreak in 1916 that began in pigsty or pigtown, excuse me, pigtown in brooklyn, new york. And that spread across the northeast. And some 6,000 people died from that outbreak. Oshinsky has an interesting comment or thoughts to make about why these epidemics suddenly broke outy it is in the late 19th and early 20th century suddenly we see so many more people affected by this disease. And what does he say . How does he tie in the germ theory of disease with his comments about the outbreak of those polio epidemics . He describes it as the age of cleanliness. So america became so preoccupied with hygiene, sanitation, cleaning up the cities, and with that as the youth werent as exposed to microorganisms that carried disease and bacteria. So they were more likely to be infected and not have an immune system to certain diseases. Okay. And carry that forward. Or somebody else. What does that mean in terms of children not being exposed to the germs and bacteria . What happens . He said when you got polio as a young child it was a lesser dose or it wasnt as effective, you didnt have as many side effects from. So when you get it as older its stronger. So chicken pox its better to get it as a young kid, its a much milder case. And particularly when youre really young, you have your mothers antibodies too. Sort of withstand the impact of those diseases. That was all something that traditionally happened in america but suddenly everybodys washing hands, cleaning clothes. Better sanitation. I dont know if its an argument for not washing hands these days. I dont think so. But still, something had happened in this country to make people more susceptible to polio. So by the early 20th century americans were in a panic about polio. And what was so frightening about that disease . What was different about polio that hadnt been true of diseases before this . Megan. I think what made it so frightening is that primarily children who got it and it wasnt they saw no reason for why certain children got it wasnt like children in poor communities. It was children all across the board, maybe even more so in like rich and clean areas. And there was no cause or no cure i mean no known cause. So for a disease like cholera this would be traditionally among the poor. Those who were drinking bad water, those who were living in filthy conditions. Polio hit everybody. Okay . There was no class issue when it came to polio. And also initially it hit very, very Young Children. It was called infantile paralysis because it hit children typically sort of between the ages of 1 and 3. Thats going to change. But nevertheless, here it is affecting innocent children. What else was different about this dead . Yeah, elizabeth. It just like accelerated very quickly. It was as if all of a sudden one morning a child would wake up with a stiff neck and a fever. And a couple hours or a day later they could be losing feeling in their limbs. And that was terrible for a lot of parents. It was just like that. And no idea how the child had gotten the disease. Were you going to add Something Else . I was going to say along the same lines, but i was also going to say they recently came out with like the antibiotic of penicillin. That had no effect on polio because it was a viral infection. Right. And so a viral infection was kind of like new to that age. With like influenza db. Yeah. This is viral infection, not bacterial. So penicillin did absolutely no good. Anything else that was sort of unique and different about this disease . In some of the later cases they say it could wipe out the entire family. I think theres one family that had five kids that died one day after each other. And there were cases after other. And there were cases like that. Terrifying. Totally terrifying. This was something you can just imagine imagine being a parent and having a very, very young child suddenly succumb to this horrible, horrible disease. So nobody knew what caused it. Nobody knew how to cure it. And initially what was the response if a child got polio or if you feared polio in your community . How did people react . What did they do initially . They were quarantined and they shut down public spaces where children would gather like swimming pools and movie theaters. Rightly understood. It was contagious. It spread from person to person. They understood this was a contagious disease. I can tell you stories of friends of mine at least who remember in childhood when they couldnt go to the local public swimming pool, movie theaters were closed, where literally you were forced to stay out of any situation that involved a whole lot of people, particularly areas were children gathered. Oshinsky also shows the very sorry state of medical research in the late 19th century. This was people almost distrusted medical research. And of course no one could conceive of the federal government supporting medical research. We didnt have the National Institute of health, we didnt have the centers for disease control. This was something medical research, if it happened, was something that had to be funded by individuals or by foundations. But it really wasnt generating that kind of response. And for many doctors certainly this was true in the mid to late 19th century. If you really wanted a good medical education, you went abroad. If you really wanted to engage in any kind of research, you went to europe. But all that changed in 1902 when what happened . What major donor changed all of that . Yeah, reagan . Rockefeller. John d. Rockefeller. Right. He had millions. What is he going to do with his money . And indeed he was convinced to give this money to found a research institute, not a hospital, not a medical school, but an Actual Research institute. And this of course is the Rockefeller Institute which is in new york city. In fact, if you go to new york city, you can see this beautiful, beautiful these beautiful grounds and this building. Its right on the east river i think in the high 50s or low 60s. This was something new. This was very exciting. And the director of the man who was appointed director of this institute was a man named simon flexner, who held this position for 40 years. And what did you get . Did you get any sense of his personality, the man who headed this institute . Yeah, peggy. He seemed rather headstrong, like how about removing the rather. Yes. Okay. Headstrong. Polio was kind of like his domain. If you were going to research polio, you had to do it his way or do another area. He seemed to be rather controlling, there was like one way for Polio Research and that was his yes. And he was an incredible autocrat. But he ran this institute with an iron fist in a way. This was his thing. This institute took on many, many diseases. Polio is merely one of the many diseases studied at the Rockefeller Institute. Now, of course the major event that really put polio in sort of on the map, when it gained a lot more attention was of course a personal tragedy and that was Franklin Delano roosevelt coming down with polio in 1921. Here is a 39yearold, hes not an infant, from a very welltodo family, a very robust man, and suddenly he succumbed to polio at his family summer home on campa bello island. How does oshinsky explain how someone like roosevelt got polio . What had happened in his past or recently to him to explain this . He says that he was extremely vulnerable because as a child he didnt have many illnesses and as he was growing up he became very active. He was traveling the world. And he also became exhausted and stressed with the amount of work that he had. And that led to, like, being his immune system going down and being, of course, around a bunch of other people who he could have contracted the disease from. Okay. Anybody know anything about roosevelts childhood . He was very wealthy so he was separated from the mainstream American Population which meant that he wasnt he didnt contract common childhood diseases which would have raised his immune system. So once he went out in the real world, he was much more susceptible. Yes, his mother, sarah, was an extremely controlling individual and she basically oversaw his childhood. She made sure he was totally protected from everything and everybody. She was quite something. But anyway, of course that was just exactly what was not good for a child. Not having the normal exposure to diseases that most children did. As you said, very this was, you know, a sort of unique childhood in this very, very privileged, privileged upbringing. Anything else about roosevelt that would help explain he was exhausted, okay, where had he been right before he went to campa bello island . The boy scouts convention. Yeah. He was at a boy scout meeting just days before. Met a whole bunch of young boys. And thats probably where he contracted polio. What else . Wasnt he battling some sex scandal he had been in washington, d. C. , and he had been for three days under tremendous pressure going through these congressional investigations and questioning. So, again, getting absolutely exhausted. Were you going to add Something Else, josh . Yeah, i was going to say its called the lynn navy scandal. And it was regarding homosexual, scandal. Pressure, tension, et cetera. And i dont know if he fell off the boat, sailboat or if he actually went swimming. But he went into this really cold water. I dont know if any of you have tried to swim up in northern maine its absolutely frigid. He fell into the water and he stayed in his bathing suit. So obviously he got chilled. And this, again, interfered with his immune system and basically lowering his resistance. So suddenly we have this energetic robust 39yearold man, woke up and was paralyzed. And from that point forward, of course, Franklin Roosevelt never walked alone. He always wore metal braces. He usually was he was assisted by somebody, if he ever managed to walk to a podium to give a speech. Typically, though, he was sitting. That was usually whenever you see a picture of him, typically he was sitting down. And he was often in pain. And his mother felt the best path for roosevelt to follow would be to come home to hyde park, she would take care of him, and he could lead this lovely quiet life. But his wife, eleanor, convinced him otherwise. She thought the best thing was for roosevelt to reenter public life, to really try to get back to some kind of normal life if at all possible. And fortunately of course, that is what he did. Its amazing how many people in this country never realized that roosevelt was handicapped, that he had had polio and that he could not walk. Ive had students do oral histories of people who lived in the 1930s and 40s. And theyre like no, he wasnt paralyzed, he wasnt. They really did not know. And so roosevelt was determined not to make a big deal of this, not to become this sympathetic character and also there was a stigma about being handicapped. Youre not robust, youre not in a sense a whole person. He really didnt want people to know and he did a great job of really hiding this fact. Well, he returned to a normal life. He partnered with a young man named Basil Oconnor. They started a new york law firm. And then shortly thereafter roosevelt heard about this kind of decrepit sort of seedy spa called warm springs, georgia. So this is where the waters bubble up and there are all these minerals in the water and its all warm and wonderful. By the way, did any of you ever see the movie called warm springs . With Kenneth Branagh and cynthia nixon. Anyway. I saw it. It was a good movie. Roosevelt traveled there and he got in the waters and this was just wonderful. Really soothing. It was exactly what he needed. So much to his mothers dismay, he spent like 2 3 of his inheritance buying this property. Because what he realized is that this is exactly what he needed and also realized that other Polio Victims needed the same. And so out of this he formed the Warm Springs Foundation and its base of course was in warm springs, georgia. He built his own cottage and every summer he would spend weeks there just enjoying these wonderful warm mineral waters. In 1928, life changed again for roosevelt. Al smith, the governor of new york, the catholic who ran for president in 1928 against Herbert Hoover asked roosevelt to be his Vice President ial candidate. And so after much soul searching, roosevelt agreed. They didnt win that. In fact it was a pretty cataclysmic outcome. Herbert hoover won, as we know. But roosevelt became governor of new york and he served two twoyear terms as governor of new york. Well, in 1932, of course, the Democratic Party decided roosevelt would be the perfect candidate to run against Herbert Hoover. The heart of the depression, americans were really suffering, roosevelt ran an incredible campaign. His Campaign Song was happy days are here again. Even though nobody was too happy at that point. And of course he won the presidency and took office in 1933. Now, many a number of scholars have looked at roosevelt and his character and feel that polio had an incredible impact on who he was as a person. What did you get out of oshinsky in terms of how what polio did for roosevelt as a man, as a person . Did it have a positive impact, a negative impact . I think so much there was a stigma against polio he realized if he could go in and be such a fundamental change in the government that other people who were down and out with a depression could do the same thing, the stigma didnt need to be there. Didnt really agree with the fact he hid it from everyone but it proved that just because you have a physical handicap doesnt mean you cant go on and do impressive things. And there were people who knew about it. All the more. That they would admire this man and see what he was able to accomplish with a man who was basically handicapped by polio was quite incredible. Roosevelt before he had polio was pretty much called a lightweight. I wouldnt say he was a playboy, but he was not regarded as a man of great substance. Just this wealthy man who had had every privilege in life. But historians feel that polio had a huge impact on him. Here we are in the heart of the depression. Here is a man who has gone through this incredibly, you know, horrible situation of having to, you know, live through he did live through, fortunately, this horrible disease. And he emerged what would you imagine he would emerge with if youve gone through that kind of experience. And here millions of americans are suffering economically. How might that affect roosevelt and who he was as a person . I think it made him more empathetic to people suffering in the depression. Because obviously coming from a life of privilege hes not able to empathize with peoples economic situations but hes able to empathize with feeling less than and feeling inferior to people around you. I think it also kind of gave him this inner drive to succeed and to prove to people that polio was not going define him and that just because he was physically handicapped it didnt mean he was incapable of being a good president and an effective leader. I think both of those are really important. The idea that he could overcome this and be it wasnt in a sense going to cause him to not do his best in any respect. He was going to become a great president , despite the disease and empathy. That was a huge issue. When he ran against Herbert Hoover, Herbert Hoover seemed like a man who had no connection with what people were suffering and here is a man who suffered physically and could identify with whatever problem somebody was suffering. All right. Obviously, roosevelt being in albany as governor of new york, occupying the white house, suddenly hes extremely busy and he has no time to Pay Attention to his foundation down in warm springs. So he appoints Basil Oconnor to take charge of it and they hire a Public Relations man. They hire someone to take charge of fundraising and create this incredible foundation. And the first fundraising events were what . That basically used roosevelt effectively. What were the first events . The Birthday Balls. Birthday balls. Right. And what was the Birthday Ball . Werent they just like big parties or fundraisers basically on his birthday, drive in like a bunch of dimes, like money. Not dimes yet. Were still into the balls. Still into the fancy balls. Just driving a lot of money for the foundation. Yeah. Celebrate roosevelt, celebrate his birthday, and you have these fancy balls at fancy hotels. And they were all across the country, which is quite amazing to think about. It wasnt just like in new york and washington but all across the country. But theres a problem. Actually there, were a couple problems with those balls that became readily apparent within a few years and why might people begin to think maybe these Birthday Balls arent a very good idea. Josh . I think people took issue as using him as a figurehead since he was the president and it seemed like he should remain neutral because he was in an important political office. Okay. Hes the president and hes what . What is his Political Party . Democrat. Hes a democrat. This no republican wants to go to a Birthday Ball for Franklin Roosevelt, right . So you have the political issue and what message does this deliver, these Birthday Balls . What if youre in the heart of the depression, whats how might you react . Well, the way i look at it, its kind of not very inviting toward the lower class. To say the least. Definitely some class differences there. Very, very strong issues, exactly. These Birthday Balls are for the elite, people who can afford them. Theyre celebrating, people are getting dressed up and yet theres the depression and there of course is this democratic president. Well, eventually, within a short period of time they created the foundation for the the National Foundation for infantile paralysis. And again, it was Basil Oconnor who again took charge of this new foundation. And this is when celebrities began to be drawn to this cause including a man named eddie canter. You probably never heard of this guy until you read oshinskys book. But he was a major radio personality and he was the one who coined the phrase march of dimes. They used to have newsreels before movies were shown, and they were called march of times. So he took that phrase and made it march of dimes. So out of that what emerged was a totally new approach to fundraising. Forget the fancy balls. Now what happened . How did this foundation really transform charitable giving, philanthropy in this country . Reagan. It made it so that it wasnt just the wealthy who could contribute to fundraising. It made it so everyone could contribute, like a little baby and if youre poor you could send in a couple of dimes. It involved like the whole country. Yeah, everybody. This is the march of dimes. Literally march of dimes. And thats exactly what happened. Send in your dimes. Send in your contributions. We dont need a thousand dollar check. They were inundated. Literally, piles and piles of dimes came in from people who found this really, really appealing. They could do their part and there were radio announcements about the importance of the march of dimes, there were collections taken in movie theaters. People were now going to the movies. I cant figure that one out. Apparently they said that a foundation raised 40 of its contributions in movie theaters. People attending the movies would there would be a collection and they would put their dimes or their quarters or whatever in these buckets. I dont know if any of you go if you go to a broadway show in november in new york city they always have this plea. Its not for the march of dimes now. Its for aids research. So the actors on stage at the end they stand in the lobby and hold these little pails and ask you to contribute. Same kind of thing that was going on back then still goes on today but for a different purpose. So what did this do, this type of fundraising, what did it do for people in america . How would you feel about this kind of fundraising . I think it brought together the nation. It wasnt just a few people contributing to a cause, it was a whole nation kind of coming together and fighting against polio. And also got out the idea of polio. To bheem people who probably didnt know, didnt have televisions. Right. Didnt have the ability to see newscasts and stuff like that. It got out the whole notion that polio was there and it was killing a lot killing a lot of people in the United States. Yeah, this is so new. Draw everybody together. Everybody is invested in this fundraising event. This is your disease. This is what you contribute to. Megan . Im sorry. Yeah. Reached a class of people that had never been asked to participate in fundraising before. It made them feel like they were part of something bigger than for american like nationalism which led to like prize going into like world war ii. Incredible pride in doing your part and helping. And actually this is going to give away you already know how old i am. I remember in Elementary School we all got a little it was like a little piece of cardboard with little round slots in it where you put your dimes. So we were all we all had to fill in this cardboard this little piece of cardboard with our dimes. So id use my announllowance an did all these extra chores. Because you wanted to be the first in your class to fill this in. And then handed it in to the foundation in some way. So this was a huge deal. And this was certainly a very different way to raise money. And then of course there were the annual Fashion Shows. Again, while theres this you know, this outreach to the people of america, there were still some events that certainly had a class issue about them. And these Fashion Shows apparently were absolutely amazing. They would draw all of the hollywood starlets, grace kelly, they got Salvador Dali to do some of the background murals for these Fashion Shows. Harry winston, who had all these really fancy jewels would donate his jewelry for them. So this was incredibly effective. And then finally theres one more aspect of the fundraising that was so important which had to do with the mothers of america. What was that . What was that fundraising . You leave your lights on campaign where everyone for one night left their porch lights on and the mothers would go around and collect change from them and it allowed you to focus all of your efforts on one time. It wasnt this monthlong process. Everyone knew one night were all going to go out and collect money. Right. This was all across america. This was mothers volunteering. This is a great volunteer army of mothers. You would volunteer. All you had this didnt take much time. It was a onenight deal. Particular hour. Lots of publicity, posters, radio announcements, et cetera. And at this one time you would canvass your assigned neighborhood or your assigned Apartment Building and you would collect money. And people would turn on a light if they wanted to give. If you lived in an Apartment Building you put out a pair of shoes which meant please knock, please ring the doorbell, come in, were happy to give money. Again, vesting more people into this single cause. Nothing like this has happened before. This is a totally new approach to charitable giving. Okay, i just wanted to mention briefly, since this happened close to davidson, the outbreak in hickory, North Carolina which is only an hour up the road, in 1944. And i think one of the things that deserves mentioning about that outbreak was that the foundation reacted so quickly. There was an outbreak of polio. The foundation moved in with nurses, with doctors, they took over a summer camp. They built a temporary hospital which i think showed the incredible resources, the effectiveness that this foundation had certainly in the 1940s and early 50s. And there were very few people who died. This response really was effective. Okay. Major change in 1945. Roosevelt died in april of 1945. So that caused a huge change. Movie theaters stopped collecting for polio. Now they decided that the money they collected would go to the united way which is a community allencompassing umbrella Philanthropic Organization and yet people polio cases were on the rise. They were not decreasing. Because as yet there was no effective polio vaccine to offset this. So on to the scientists and to the medical research. Wondering if you found some of the behavior of these scientists as shocking as i did. Are we dealing with Young Children or grown men . I know. Oshinsky does quite a job really getting into the heart of this. Okay. Theres this effort by many researchers to find an effective virus excuse me, an effective vaccine virus to offset this horrible disease. And yet three things had to be discovered about polio before any researcher could engage in an effective effective research. What were those three things . Carly. They were how many strains or types of the virus there were, how it entered the body and got to the Central Nervous system, and how to develop a safe and steady supply of the virus type for each vaccine. The first thing being how many strains there were. And so they had to start typing all the polio strains they found. And what did they discover, fortunately . There were only three strains. Rather than hundreds. Today we have trouble with influenza because the strains change every year. But they really were able to determine there were only three polio strains. All right. The point of origin, what had people long believed about how polio entered the body . Do you remember what elizabeth. Some people thought it entered through the nose. Right. Simon flexner was the one who knew, absolutely knew this was correct. And because he was just this larger than life personality and such an autocrat, its like nobody dared challenge him. But researchers began to study this and discovered what . Yeah. It comes through the mouth. The point of entry is through the mouth, through the digestive tract, briefly in the blood and then of course can attack the muscles. So that was a huge breakthrough. And the third one being how to replicate the virus in a test tube. The man who discovered this was a man named john enders who ultimately went on to win the well, he, excuse me, two assistants ultimately went on to win the nobel prize for medicine in 1954. All right. So we have the foundation beginning to feel a real sense of urgency. Theyre raising all this money. People are really vested in this disease. Its been declared the number one menace in america even though the death rate was not nearly as high for polio as it was for other things. When you start getting people so involved in this disease, pretty soon and giving their money, youre going to expect results. So the two major scientists involved in this research, and of course theyre not the only ones. But theyre really the two on whom oshinsky concentrates his book. The first one being jonas salk. Who was jonas salk . What do you remember reading about him . Anything . Anything . Josh . He was an immigrant and he came from humble backgrounds and he well, his parents were immigrants. His parents i think were russian immigrants, right . Right. Second generation. And he, like, had meager beginnings and eventually through a series of kind of apprenticeships managed to become a star in the field of medical research. And what was his education . Being a poor immigrant. Jewish. City college of new york. He went to a special high school and city college of new york which is practically free and then to nyu, which actually admitted jews, which in this period was often not true of other medical schools. So he graduated. He married. He worked at mt. Sinai hospital and then went to the university of michigan. And while at the university of michigan he was working on trying to find a vaccine to deal with polio. The School Received a lot of grants but salk began he had a falling out with his mentor because salk actually became while he was doing this research at this school he became a consultant to a drug company. And of course theres a direct conflict of interest in doing that. And his mentor was really astonished that he did this. And also even at this young age salk wanted recognition. He really wanted to be sure everybody knew that how important he was and how important the research he was going. So in 1947 he left the university of michigan and went to the university of pittsburgh. Now, nobody had really thought much of the university of pittsburgh and its involvement in research or its medical school. But the school was trying to change and it really saw salk as somebody who could put this medical school on the map. So off he went to this sort of place that certainly didnt have the prestige, say, as the Rockefeller Institute. Well, thats one side of the race. The other side, of course, is albert saban. Who is albert saban . Similar story, different story . Hes also a russian immigrant and he was jewish. They had a similar background. And he was more established as a scientist in his later years. Okay. Yeah. He was actually born in poland. But eastern europe, right. And he was indeed an immigrant and came to this country when he was about 15 years old. Got a decent education, began to really be interested in polio when he was fairly young and was at the Rockefeller Institute. He was indeed one of the privileged scientists to be there. And then after being there only six years, again, he sort of did the unthinkable, just the way salk had done. He left and went where . University of cincinnati. Its like, what . But again, he saw opportunities there. And, you know, where he could really do the kind of work he wanted. So in looking at these two scientists, what did you what sense did you get what role do you think the foundation played in funding these men and in creating a situation that sort of exacerbated the tension between the two men . What did you think of the foundation and the role it played . Yes . The foundation was giving money to both of them to research. Throughout the book i kind of felt like salk, he was kind of always determined to get some fame from finding this vaccine. So he was determined to he was going while saban, on the other hand, he was more trying to work with other researchers more than salk was. So you would call saban more of a peer researcher . Yeah. But both men got money. But who got more money . Salk definitely got more money. And i think it was because of his personal relationship with Basil Oconnor. They became close friends. And the foundation was able to influence the direction the research took by emphasizing the versus the live virus. It was interesting in the role of this foundation, early on, you had basil first of all, salk was chosen to attend this meeting in denmark where all of those who were studying polio gathered. Sulk was chosen by the saban was there too but salk was chosen in a way by the foundation, hand chosen to attend this meeting. And on the return trip as he was traveling by ship he met oconnor and they became fast friends. They developed a very positive relationship. So they hit it off. And so you know, many scientists would have said at this point salk was becoming the celebrity scienti scientist, that he seemed to be sort of the handpicked not heir apparent but certainly the man who the foundation felt would be the best to develop the vaccine. He began to get publicity. Time magazine did stories on him. He becomes not just a scientist, but in a sense someone the public certainly seemed to know about him. Now, salk called him the kitchen chemist, i think. Talk about a putdown. So how did you feel about these two men . Did you get a sense of either one you liked better than the other . Or did you sense oshinsky showed any kind of favoritism in looking at these two incredible scientists . Or is it a tossup, get rid of both of them . I kind of felt like at first salk was portrayed as the underdog because he wasnt as established in the Research Community and he hadnt received as much recognition but then when he gained celebrity with the American Public he it kind of switched. Oshinsky portrays salk as more of the peoples scientist and then saban as like the scientist the scientists scientist. Right. Which man would you rather have dinner with . Thats a hard one, isnt it . What were the most negative characteristics of each man . What did you sense of salk . Josh. I feel like the worst part was neither of them was willing to recognize the success of the other. For instance, salk was really successful earlier when he first had the vaccine and saban was constantly attacking him saying his vaccine wasnt going to work. That was pretty deplorable. But as soon as saban was successful and had like the more widely spread, like the vaccines using across the world, salk was still attacking him saying his was better. So neither of them was willing to and they made this public. This was not a private dispute. All of this seemed to be quite public. Not just hid nen letters or Something Like that. What else . Do you remember anything about yeah, kate. Salks drive to be known. He would take names off of papers. There was one paper he said he lost it and got it back and put his name at the beginning wasnt that incredible . His assistants wrote that paper. And then, yeah, he supposedly lost it, i found it, and his name was at the top. That is totally unacceptable. Elizabe elizabeth . And save b saban started doing a similar thing, i think with cox. Theyre like, lets share samples and when they were both working on the live vaccine. And so i think it was cox sent over samples of what he had and never received anything back from sabin. I think they had that quality where they were just doing everything for themselves because they both of them thought that they could dot the best . They were both pretty impossible, i think. Its interesting. At the conclusion of the book, oshinsky said both of these men should have won a nobel prize for medicine considering what each one of them developed. But no, never happened. And they i think oshinsky hints part of the reason was they were so awful to one another. Sabin always had the support of the Scientific Community. Salk had the support of the public. He got all this public adulation. And the Scientific Community made sure that salk never became a member of the National Foundation of science. They kept him out of that organization. Lets move on to an interesting issue, and that is the whole ethical issue surrounding the testing of the polio vaccine. What do you think about the testing of the vaccine on orphans, mentally challenged children, prisoners . How does that strike you . Is that ethical . Is that right to do . Do you think this was acceptable . I think its really inhumane. If youre talking about children, especially, theyre not they dont have the mental capacity to speak for themselves and to say, no, i dont want this to be tested on me. If youre using prisoners, you know, theyre obviously considered to be, like, secondclass citizens because theyre in a prison. So if something should happen to them, theyre not going to get an adequate level of care. They were basically considering these people to be disposable and saying, if something happens to them, well find more. Many of these children didnt have parents around. Nobody to really say yes or no. Theyre in institutions. Theyre already suffering huge problems. And yet they were chosen to be the first recipients of the salk vaccine. Because jonah salk was moving in a positive direction, his killed virus vaccine seemed to be succeeding, but he had to try it on human beings. That was a big issue. Its one thing to try it on monkeys, but you have to try it on human beings. This would never happen today. The care we take, fearing a lawsuit. Everybody fears a lawsuit, this would never happen today in terms of using what, in a sense, was a population of people who had no say about what was happening to them. So did those tests, they proved positive and in 1954, salk knew he had to try his vaccine on Elementary School children and here indeed parents are involved with this decision. He had Something Like 1. 3 million children in Elementary School who got his vaccine. Now, before we get into some of the problems that happened, why would parents why would parents okay this when this vaccine had only been tested on a very, very select, small group of people . Well, they said that they said that the killed virus couldnt cause polio and so i think for a lot of people, they were like, oh, well, if its not a live virus and they inject it into my kid, if it doesnt work, its not going to hurt them. And i think thats the point they played up. They said, it cant really hurt, but it can only help. And so i think that was incentive for a lot of people to participate. Oshinsky emphasized that parents felt like a personal guilt if their children were to contract polio. There was kind of a desperation, like what can we do to possibly avoid our children getting sick. It was a personal thing for them. Everybody knew what polio did. Theyve seen the pictures of children in iron lungs. They had seen children with braces on their legs. So there was real this continued fear was enormous in this country. So here is a possible prevention of your child ever getting polio. And the foundation did what . The foundation for infantile paralysis. What was its stance on testing this virus . Did it caution people . Oconnor said its a privilege. Your children are among the privileged. To be able to have this virus. There were some cautionary remarks. There was a man named Walter Winchell who again was a huge radio personality. And he had been fed again this shows you the nasty stuff going on among scientists. But he had actually been fed some information by another scientist who said this is this vaccine has not been properly tested. They should not be using it. Et cetera. So Walter Winchell went on the radio and said parents, watch out, this is probably not a good thing. And to that salk said hes just looking for publicity. He didnt know what hes talking about. And it was interesting too, this wasnt in response so much to the testing on children, but dr. Spock who was the child care expert of this time was also telling parents to calm down. That perhaps the foundation was exaggerating the threat of this disease and overselling the problem. But in any case they moved ahead and they tested the salk vaccine on these children. And they had some placebos. They did this very, very carefully, supposedly. And it took a year for them to finally get the results after they gave these children the vaccine. And the results were of course positive. Great, a great moment in american medical history, the vaccine worked. And so the foundation knew that it had to make a huge deal of this. Finally they had the answer. And so they held this event at the university of michigan in ann arbor on october 12th, 1955. People gathered, the press was there, edward r. Murrow was there, this was a huge, huge event with this incredible news. And a man named Thomas Francis stood up. He was representing the foundation and he gave this rambling 98minute talk on the glories of this discovery and salk spoke. The today show revealed the news the next morning, but some things went wrong. Shortly thereafter within a day or two and also within a few days. What were the negatives after that great this is really salks moment of glory. He was thrilled. The foundation was thrilled. And then poof, things happened. What went wrong . What went wrong with this . There were a couple outbreaks of polio brought about from the cutter laboratories. Well get into that in a minute. We have some negative results like oh, my gosh, this vaccine caused polio. This is supposed to be a dead virus, okay . This is not supposed to not cause polio. You have the outbreak of a few cases. What else happened that was upsetting to salk . Well, salk never thanked his research team. Right. Salk got up there and gave this talk. And it was this if he alone had been the only one who had done anything on this research. And yet he had had several assistants who played a huge role in this discovery and they were sitting there. You dont do this in the science world. Youve seen articles and they always have like ten authors of all the people who had engaged in this research. There was salk taking total credit for this discovery and his assistants were just like they just couldnt even believe it. And so that was an incredibly disappointing moment. And then what else do you remember what salk said that elizabeth . He totally undercut the effectiveness of the results where they had said that the vaccine was 70 or 80 effective and he was saying how he had still been working on his next vaccine that was going to be 100 effective. So i think he managed to sort of anger the Science Community saying undermining his own results and then also sort of angering the American People who kind of felt betrayed by him not having you know, why hadnt he just waited to send out another vaccine instead of trying this less effective one and waiting a year to do the more effective. Yes, exactly. Its like wait, this vaccine was supposed to be absolutely foolproof. It was supposed to work. And then you have salk almost immediately saying, well, actually, the vaccine i just developed is far better than the one we used. Hes like, wait a minute, my child just had this vaccine. That certainly was a disconcerting moment. All right. One of the first big problems that happened, though, afterwards. Its been a success. Youve had hundreds of thousands of children vaccinated in this country and now you have millions more waiting to get the vaccine. What happened . What was the problem that affected the distribution of the vaccine . Was there a distribution . The government and the foundation really hadnt explored how theyre going to produce so much of the vaccine to supply the enough for the American Population who needed it. There was a public outcry because they were worried they werent going to be able to have their children vaccinated and it was turned on the government and the Foundation Like you should have handled this already. Nobody had a plan. Nobody thought about, you got the vaccine, how are you going to make sure everybody gets it, assuming its successful. People were upset. They invested their money and emotions into this foundation and what its trying to achieve and suddenly theyre confronted with the fact that theres not any kind of distribution plan. And the head of h. E. W. , a woman named olvera colt hobby, just fumbled around. She didnt know what to do. And what was the problem with the government distributing the vaccine . Doesnt that seem like a natural way to go, for the government to take charge and step in . What would be the problem with that . Why not the government . Josh . Is that reminiscent of socialism, which was such a hot topic in the 1950s . Socialized medicine oh, my gosh, were going to be like canada, this is not the role of the federal government. In fact the Drug Companies were dead set against this. It was like, this is something for private companies to take charge of, the government should not step in. So this created enormous problems but it also made the American Public really angry. And then of course physicians stepped in and said, actually, you shouldnt be giving these vaccines in Elementary School. These should be done in a Doctors Office so the doctors could make money. It created a horribly complicated situation in which there obviously had been no plan for distribution. And ultimately hobby resigned. It was just such a bad situation. And then of course there was the cutter lab disaster, which was what . What was the cutter lab disaster . Go ahead. Manufactured the vaccine improperly and it caused a lot of people to get sick. We had several Companies Developing the vaccine, all right . And this one lab in berkeley, california, cutter lab, had developed the vaccine but what went wrong . They discovered that 400,000 vaccines done by cutter lab . Somehow a live virus got into the bottles that they were using. And supposedly Cutter Laboratory was the only one who used these bottles to give out the vaccines. Somehow or some way, a live virus got in there and infected a bunch of people. This was a part of the problem was with testing. And how much testing had been done on the these vaccines . Next to none. One day. One day, at this point. Again, the rush to get this out, the rush to have this done, they tested these vaccines only one day. They sort of ignored the ones that didnt pass muster. Thats okay. Well use them anyway. But before this they had taken four weeks to test this vaccine. But again, this was a rush and had to be done right away. Now, oconnor was furious. Basil oconnor was furious. And what he did interestingly, he blamed those who were working for the live virus vaccine. He thought there was some kind of plot that somebody had come into this lab or something and tried to undermine the situation. It was really, really quite incredible. All right. Well, now that salk salks vaccine was under question, americans began to turn toward sabin and his live virus vaccine. Again, using a different approach to solving this problem of polio. But again, sabin needed to test his vaccine, and where did he do it . Where was sabin able to test his vaccine . Yeah. In the soviet union. Okay . Polio was becoming a huge problem in the soviet union. Cases were rising. And the soviets invited both salk and sabin to come to their country. Well, salk didnt accept the invitation. Sabin did. And so the soviet government decided that they would use sabins live virus vaccine to test on or not to test but to use on 10 million soviet children. And thats exactly what they did. Using the power of the soviet government. They tested it on 10 million children. And it was basically a success. So this was, again, a huge breakthrough. So weve only got a few more minutes. So let me just quickly sort of summarize and end this discussion. By 1956 the number of polio cases were really declining in this country. The vaccines were working. There was still some real debate about salk versus sabin. Nobody had quite made a decision. That would happen in a couple of years. But salk decided now that he needed a new project. Okay . He had done his research on polio and what was his new project . Anybody get that far in the book . Yeah. What did he want . What did he need to he did start studying aids. He wanted to open up a new lab yeah. He wanted his own research institute. He wanted the university of pittsburgh where he had been, and he tried to convince them this would be a good thing. They demanded they would have some kind of control over this. Salk wanted total control. So he left the university of pittsburgh and he went to la jolla, california. I dont know if youve ever been to la jolla, but its this absolute jewel of a city. You know, small city. Right on the pacific ocean. He got the city to contribute land, i mean, on this xwluf overlooking the ocean. You couldnt ask for a nicer location. He got the foundation to provide some seed money, like 15 million. He hired the most preeminent architect in this country, lois kahn, to do the design for this institute. And so he now has his in a sense he has exactly what he wanted. Obviously, expenses were high. The foundation began to withdraw its support from salk. It moved on to other things. And oconnor died. But salk himself had divorced his first wife. He then married the former picassos former mistress. From oconnor died. But he had divorced his first wife. He then married buses former mistress. Began dressing in the elegant clothes and he had a good life and california. He did start eight research but by then he was a very, very different person. Some of the rivalry continued and of course there are all kinds of other issues that we dont have time to discuss just want to mention briefly. The polio remains a problem in this world. But one that has been substantially reduced. First of all, in this country there are some 404 survivors of polio. I actually know people who have had polio. And he says that some people are really starting to suffer from what is called polio syndrome, which is the result of their muscles gradually leaving. So even though they have survived polio, they are now having some kind of impact that has remained. He also says the polio survivors tend to be type a overachievers. Perhaps like roosevelt. That of course was a good thing. Interesting louis, polio was still in the news. There was actually News Coverage of this last week on npr, because a reporter was talking about how polio is on the verge of being wiped off this earth. Sort of the way that smallpox was years ago. Polio will probably no longer be with us in a few years. Last year there were only 323 cases worldwide there into cases, afghanistan, pakistan, and nigeria. The World Health Organization and the bill and Melinda Gates organization are working on this and a major way. Providing huge amounts of money to eradicate this forever. Their goal is to thousand 18 there will be no polio in the world. The only bad thing is that if you remember a few weeks ago, there were polio workers, women who were working in pakistan who were gunned down and killed. Just a horrible, horrible, horrible situation. But the other thing that i want to say is that can happen from a history book, beside all you learn, but i did read that bill gates read this book in the first chronology and he loved and he was so inspired, and his organization would indeed take on polio as a major, major focus, vast amounts of money. So that prompted him to try to move towards eradicating polio worldwide. So were almost there today. So people ask me about the march of dimes today. I still get mail from the march of dimes. But its on, now obviously not polio, but particularly premature babies. So theyre still doing things and raising money. Its a different from polio. So thats it for our disease of the day. And on thursday, you all should have read the essays for peer editing and mark them up significantly. And we will have Group Interaction with here at doing on thursday. Okay . Okay, thank you. Weeknights this month, were featuring American History tv programs as a preview of whats available every weekend on cspan 3. In the 2000 president ial election, Texas Governor george w. Bush defeated president al gore in one of the highest contested races and then it states. The outcome wasnt decided until five weeks after what voters want to the polls. This ultimately awarded the state electoral votes and presidency to governor bush. Tonight we begin with allegories concessions speech from december 13th, 2000, followed by george w. Bushs victory remarks. Watch beginning at 8 pm eastern and enjoy American History tv every weekend on cspan 3. The 1918 flu killed an estimated 50 Million People worldwide including 16,000 americans. Its the deadliest pandemic in recent history. Up next on real america we heard the bells. The influence of 1918. Commissioned by the human health and this documentary includes a 1918 flu survivors telling their stories. Look at the signs of the flu and master of the pandemic in the genetic sequencing at the 1918 strain based on remnants of the virus extracted from frozen bodies under alaskan permafrost. Released in 2010 this is just under an hour. In 1918 i lived in a 1918 my family was living in south philadelphia. In 1918, we were living in el paso, texas. In bustling cities and remote villages, in the United States and around the world,