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| Polio: An American Story | 
 enlarge | Author: David M. Oshinsky
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
Buy New: $7.25
You Save: $9.70 (57%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (34 reviews)
Sales Rank: 10475
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 368
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1
ISBN: 0195307143
Dewey Decimal Number: 614.5490973
EAN: 9780195307146
ASIN: 0195307143
Publication Date: September 1, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Here 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 Sabin vaccines--and beyond. Drawing on newly available papers of Jonas Salk, Albert Sabin and other key players, Oshinsky paints a suspenseful portrait of the race for the cure, weaving a dramatic tale centered on the furious rivalry between Salk and Sabin. He also tells the story of Isabel Morgan, perhaps the most talented of all polio researchers, who might have beaten Salk to the prize if she had not retired to raise a family.
Oshinsky offers an insightful look at the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, which was founded in the 1930s by FDR and Basil O'Connor, it revolutionized fundraising and the perception of disease in America. Oshinsky also shows how the polio experience 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 most tellingly, 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 a cloud 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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 29 more reviews...
 Historical view December 31, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I heard the author on the radio today. I have not read the book but probably will because of the historical and political coverage.
However I have researched this before in regards to the polio vaccine and I am not trying to down play the importance of it or the race to try and help those in the early stages. I have a relative who said he received a blood transfusion from someone who already had it to help him fight it off (before the vaccine). That's how Dr. Denmark started her cure for whooping cough.
I would highly recommend to anyone to futher study the information out here and in other places:
http://www.newswithviews.com/Tocco/mary1.htm
Mary Tocco has been investigating vaccines for over 27 years. There were congressional hearings about this and the conclusion was that the vaccine was not responsible for eradicating the polio epidemic but rather the cleaning up of the drinking waters around the world, better hygiene, nutriion and education. Polio was already in great decline around the world before the vaccines were released.
Polio is spread by fecal to mouth thus contaminated water supplies or swimming pools were highly suspect of spreading the disease. There were even documeted cases of live virus vacinated toddlers spreading it in nurseries to other children via poopy diapers.
She has the information on her website about the congressional hearings in regards to the SV40 virus that was in the original 1950's vaccine and is a cancer causing virus (bone, tumor, etc)
Review all sides and then come to your own conclusion. Don't just buy in to the book because of all of the hype and media coverage.
Same story with Small Pox. The CDC takes credit for eradicating it however the facts from the Advisory Commitee on immunization stated "Small pox would have died out on its own due to improved sanitation, improved water supply and improved nutrition."
 GRIPPING ACCOUNT OF POLIO IN AMERICA December 29, 2008
Oshinsky does a magnificent job of spinning together the events that led to the conquest of Polio in America. Anyone interested in the development of vaccines should read this book; not just as an informative source but also as a guide to understanding the doggedness required to succeed in science.This book is unputdownable!
Only in America November 28, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is one of the best books on the history of science I have ever read. I thought that the book was going to be a glowing tribute to an American technological advance but I was very wrong. The author, David Oshinsky, created a very evenly balanced story. Along with the successes, he points out the scare tactics used by the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis and its then-novel method of fund-raising. He is also critical of the method of vaccine distribution and attributes vaccine shortages to industry and physicians' desire to keep government out of medicine. He even contrasts this to Canada's more successful policy of centralized distribution. And he is clear when there is a non-American connection, that is when studies of the live-weakened vaccine take place in the Soviet Union.
Oshinsky, clearly illustrates that it is a uniquely American story. This story could not have taken place anywhere else, although the vaccine could have been discovered elsewhere. Making it an American story are the three parallel threads: an American fund-raising campaign, an American president (Franklin Delano Roosevelt) afflicted with the disease, and the American scientists striving to develop the first vaccine. He delves extensively into the competition between those who favored a killed vaccine, represented by Jonas Salk and those who favored a live but weakened vaccine represented by Albert Sabin.
This book isn't just about the science. Oshinsky probes the biographies of the major players so that the reader can understand why the personalities acted the way that they did. The book is not scientifically complex and Oshinsky explains whatever science the reader will need in order to appreciate the story. Overall this is a must read for anyone interested inn the history of science and medicine.
Haunting for those of us who remember... November 2, 2008
This is a very interesting work on a topic my generation remembers with dread. If you were one of tens of millions of schoolchildren who were lined up in a cafeteria to await a sugarcube with a little dot on it--you'll want to read this.
A Tale of Men and Microbes August 11, 2008
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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