Why did Mozart compose music?

Edward R. Murrow: Who owns the patent?
Jonas Salk: Well, the people, I would say. There is no patent. Can you patent the sun?

One of my most favorite people in history is Jonas Salk. He is credited with being the creator of the polio vaccine.

In 1952 the United States saw the worst outbreak of polio in our nations history. Almost 58,000 cases of polio left over 3,000 dead and close to 22,000 permanently disabled surviving with the use of crutches or the iron lung.

The nation was in a panic. There was a national push to create a vaccine to stem the spread of polio. Many contemporaries at the time were working on live virus based vaccines. Salk killed the polio virus using formaldehyde and then created a vaccine using the dead virus. Many assumed Salk's vaccine would fail. Salk first tested the vaccine on himself, his wife and children, and friends. They were guinea pigs and ran the risk of contracting full blown polio rather than building up the antibodies. The vaccine worked.

In 1955 the vaccine was declared safe and effective. In schools, the vaccine was given in shot form or, later, in oral form with sugar cubes.

Now, to my wonderings. I wonder if modern day parents would allow such widespread vaccinations to be done in schools to their children since we have become such a "me" and not "we" society. Laws now make having medication in schools the exception, not the rule. Case in point: the sunburned girls who are all under 10 years of age. They were forced to spend over 5 hours in the sun at school and were not allowed to wear hats, sunblock, or permitted to go indoors. The teacher even slathered on sunblock in front of the children but remarked that it was only for herself. To make matters worse, one child suffers from albinism and suffered burns. One blistering sunburn in childhood or adolescence more than doubles a person's chances of developing melanoma later in life. There's so doubt to the link between sunburns and cancer. Each burn increases the likelihood. There is something so incredibly wrong with our country when we have reached a point where a teacher can apply sunblock to herself but students are barred from doing it and need a medical note.


"Our greatest responsibility is to be good ancestors." - Jonas Salk