The Messenger

9

Warp Speed

BY THE EARLY 1950S, THE POLIOMYELITIS VIRUS, WHICH had been around for many years, was causing frightening outbreaks in the United States that left thousands of people—usually children—paralyzed or dead. One of polio’s most famous victims, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, had spearheaded the launch of what would become the March of Dimes Foundation in the 1930s to raise money for research that was largely conducted in academic labs and funded with private donations over many years.¹

The March of Dimes funded Jonas Salk’s work at the University of Pittsburgh, finally leading in the early 1950s to a polio vaccine. Parents rushed to volunteer their children for field trials of the vaccine, and the results showed that it was highly effective ...