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Thursday March 8, 2007

The egos and politics behind the eradication of polio

by morton i. teicher
correspondent

Combining historical expertise with considerable writing skills, University of Texas professor David M. Oshinsky has produced an exciting, easy-to-read account of how polio was conquered in “Polio: An American Story.”

Oshinsky’s task was facilitated by the presence of many colorful characters in the struggle to understand the crippling disease, to learn how to treat it and to find a vaccine to prevent it. Among them were two Jews, Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin, who won the gratitude of the nation for eradicating polio in the United States.

The medical competition between Salk and Sabin was fierce and bitter. They and their supporters battled vigorously, often using tactics and vitriol that appeared to be unseemly and confusing to the general public.

A prominent actor in the battle against polio was Basil O’Connor, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Wall Street law partner, and head of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. The fascinating story of how Roosevelt dealt with his polio and how he persuaded O’Connor to direct the Warm Springs Foundation is laid out in exciting detail. Eventually, the Warm Springs Foundation gave way to the National Foundation, sparked in part by its enormous fundraising success.

Using the March of Dimes, “poster children” and thousands of volunteers, the National Foundation became the largest research and treatment organization in the history of medicine. It raised far more money than the other disease associations even though polio, horrible as it was, affected far fewer people than mental illness, cancer, arthritis, tuberculosis and heart ailments.

Oshinsky presents a telling chart that shows the facts and figures for eight health charities. Of the $140 million raised by them in 1954, the National Foundation accounted for almost half, even though it had the smallest number of cases. Indeed, when polio was finally eradicated, the National Foundation did not go out of business; it simply changed its focus to other children’s diseases.

Through its generous research grants, the National Foundation sponsored the work of Salk, Sabin and other scientists. Oshinsky lays out the story of their acrimonious rivalry, using simple language to explain the harsh arguments among them. He also gives full portraits of these individuals, bringing them to life as interesting people subject to many mortal frailties. Salk’s egocentricity, for example, blocked him from giving appropriate credit to his colleagues and led him eventually to abandon the University of Pittsburgh where his research took place.

Sabin, born in Poland, came to the United States at the age of 15. As a medical student, also at NYU, he achieved recognition for developing a method to type pneumococci rapidly. Early in his career, he entered the polio crusade, eventually settling at the University of Cincinnati, which gave him free reign as a research scientist. He was known, even to his best friends, as “arrogant, egotistical and occasionally cruel.” Although Salk’s vaccine was first used, it was replaced by the vaccine that Sabin developed. But, more recently, the Salk vaccine has been reinstated.

All the while, Oshinsky unfolds a vital segment of our social history while his gripping story captures and holds the reader’s interest.

“Polio: An American Story” by David M. Oshinsky (342 pages Oxford University Press, $30).