Talk:Jonas Salk

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no need for FDR photo

it's misleading to suggest there was a connection with FDR so we can drop it. Rjensen (talk) 15:36, 9 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is Jonas Salk given enough credit and recognition for his innovative idea on "polio vaccine" which he decided not to patent it since he thought it as a noble gesture and humanitarian obligation to distribute to everyone free of charge? World Polio Day 2025

24 October 2025, marks the World Polio Day and it is time to remember the inventor behind the brilliant thought provoking idea of introducing polio vaccine. Jonas Salk came with a paradigm shift mindset to introduce a vaccine that can make people immune from the fatal polio disease. Yet, I feel that the polio vaccine inventor Jonas Salk is quite an unknown name in history because I don't recall studying about him at school level as well. The strange irony is to be honest that I only heard about him in Morgan Housel's bestseller book "Psychology of Money". It goes to show how criminally underrated Jonas Salk was. I don't know whether it is only me to have not heard about him at all.

Credit to Morgan Housel, because I decided to search about Jonas Salk and I was blown away by the humanitarian, philanthropy of Salk as he never patented his polio vaccine in exchange for money saying that everyone deserves to get polio vaccine. Such a selfless act and great to have learnt such a feel good humanity side of an inventor. Imagine an inventor not getting patent for an invention for which he worked hard for years, days and months and yet decide to prioritize humanity and philanthropy over making profits. Jonas Salk could have easily become a multi millionaire by patenting his intellectual property of polio vaccine, but he was so selfless to make sure that every human on this earth could get this vaccine for free of charge so that human lives can be saved from the disease. On this World Polio Day, I would like to remember him for this extraordinary humanitarian noble gesture that has shaped the lives of many and yet he has been largely ignored in the contemporary discussions regarding game changing inventions and innovations. Abishe (talk) 14:36, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Assuming there could have been any proprietary rights to the vaccine, they would not have belonged to Dr Salk, but to the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, a charity who funded the work.

As a person in a position of governance and trust, Dr Salk very properly had lawyers investigate if the vaccine could be patented. He owed it to his employers.

Under the then law, however, it could not be. "Lawyers had carefully established [that] no part of his vaccine procedure was new and could be patented".^[1]

Jonas Salk was a great man. He does not need bolstering by urban myths. That he "gave away" the polio vaccine is exactly that. Ttocserp 15:29, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

^ Rogers, Naomi (1991). "Review: Patenting the Sun: Polio and the Salk Vaccine by Jane S. Smith". The Journal of American History. 78 (1): 389–390. JSTOR 2078237.

[1] Rogers, Naomi (1991). "Review: Patenting the Sun: Polio and the Salk Vaccine by Jane S. Smith". The Journal of American History. 78 (1): 389–390. JSTOR 2078237.

[1]