Jonas Salk was an American physician and virologist who developed the first successful vaccine against poliomyelitis, using inactivated (killed) poliovirus injected into the bloodstream. Announced in 1955 after a nationwide field trial involving more than a million children, the vaccine sharply reduced polio cases in the United States within a few years. Salk chose not to patent the vaccine so it could be produced and distributed as widely and cheaply as possible; asked who owned the patent, he is widely quoted as replying, Could you patent the sun?
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Jonas Salk
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Albert Sabin, Healers Developed a competing, later polio vaccine strategy (live oral vs. Salk's injected inactivated vaccine); this atlas already records the eradication-strategy tradeoff as an open question.
Source Albert Sabin (Wikipedia)
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Inactivated, injected vaccine, announced 1955.
Source Wikipedia: Poliomyelitis Vaccine
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Source Jonas Salk (Wikipedia)
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1. Wikidata: Jonas Salk
- Wikidata Q200101, class allow-list match (w-wdresolver-0926)
- Wikidata P569 (w-bbfill-medicine3-0926)
View the Source2. Jonas Salk (Wikipedia)
WikipediaDevelopment; 1955 field trial and announcement; Decision not to patent
Could you patent the sun?
Infobox, birth_date
1914-10-28
Infobox, death_date
1995-06-23
- Specialist In: Virology
View the Source Wikipedia: Poliomyelitis Vaccine
Albert Sabin (Wikipedia)
Frequently Asked Questions
Did Jonas Salk patent the polio vaccine?
No. Salk chose not to patent his polio vaccine so it could be made as widely and cheaply available as possible.
Jonas Salk, the American physician and virologist who developed the first successful polio vaccine using inactivated poliovirus, chose not to patent it so it could be produced and distributed as widely and cheaply as possible. Asked who owned the patent, he is widely quoted as replying, Could you patent the sun? The vaccine was announced in 1955 after a nationwide field trial involving more than a million children and sharply reduced polio cases in the United States within a few years.
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