i weep each time I read about the time Jonas Salk was asked if he planned to patent the Polio vaccine and asked "would you patent the sun?!" - ThreadSky

iwriteok.bsky.social • 27 days ago

i weep each time I read about the time Jonas Salk was asked if he planned to patent the Polio vaccine and asked

"would you patent the sun?!"

Comments

shoshiroll.bsky.social•27 days ago

The extermination of small pox remains the greatest accomplishment of humanity

baddielynn.bsky.social•27 days ago

I still get chills thinking about the story I read from someone who was told by their advisor to call another lab when they were a grad student and the call was answered by Jonas Salk himself. Permanently changed the course of human history for the better and then just went to work on the next thing

shamsa.bsky.social•27 days ago

They would patent the sun if they could

profexistential.bsky.social•27 days ago

A while back, read a book on the Polio vaccine as part of a book group. Many members remembered polio outbreaks before the vaccine. One liken way it’d kill randomly to a bomb going off. Did not have kind words about anti-vaxers

sofi64.bsky.social•27 days ago

The republican answer would be "yeah I have a great patent lawyer"

russ41.bsky.social•27 days ago

"On 23 January 1923, Banting, Collip and Best were awarded U.S. patents on insulin and the method used to make it. They all sold these patents to the University of Toronto for $1 each. Banting famously said, “Insulin does not belong to me, it belongs to the world.”"

chucklebot314.bsky.social•27 days ago

Haven't corporations (and some depraved nations) already literally established ownership of air and rainwater in several places?

chucklebot314.bsky.social•27 days ago

chucklebot314.bsky.social•27 days ago

Well, the answer is that the entire US oligarchy absolutely would, and would use the patented sun as a weapon to force every other nation (and most of their own) into abject slavery until the end of time.

tczell.bsky.social•27 days ago

There was a time where business bros called the free polio vaccine the dumbest business move in history.

rev1701.bsky.social•27 days ago

Jonas Salk is quite literally one of the people I cited as my inspiration while applying to a Master's in Public Health program. The man was a hero

danhidro.bsky.social•27 days ago

Every billionaire: "It's that possible?"

onedimental.bsky.social•26 days ago

A stream of "I DECLARE BANKRUPTCY!" memes but instead of Michael Scott's head on his body, it's Zuck, Musk, Thiel, Bezos, Andreessen, (...) and the text has been changed to "I DECLARE SUN PATENT!"

teeth077.bsky.social•27 days ago

YES! The greatest tech mankind ever created; after fire (and really we never "created" it, maybe "harnessed it") vaccines are the bees knees. Modern life is IMPOSSIBLE without it.

ipaige.bsky.social•27 days ago

Robert @iwriteok.bsky.social have you ever heard of Nobel Prize winner Frederick Banting. He didn't think he should profit from the discovery of insulin. He sold the patent for $1 so it could be available to everyone who needed it.
https://banting.fellowships-bourses.gc.ca/en/about-a_propos_banting.html

iwriteok.bsky.social•27 days ago

also worth noting Salk spent the end of his life working feverishly to try to find a vaccine for AIDS. no greater man ever walked among us.

bmcsherry.bsky.social•27 days ago

Sounds like a Christmas Episode

rigor-motorist.bsky.social•27 days ago

Salk, Norman Borlaug, and James Harrison are all having an eternal wonderful night at a bar where the beer is always perfectly poured, the little baskets of nuts and popcorn refill, Christ himself is the Bartender and all the karaoke singers are actually the original artists singing their own works

russ41.bsky.social•27 days ago

Dude understood the assignment, for sure.

magicswordk.ing•27 days ago

People like Salk are the reason why I still believe in humanity. Yes, the forces of reaction and hate are uncomfortably powerful at the moment, but there are still so many good people.

jasnah.bsky.social•27 days ago

Maurice Hilleman, too, was as much of a great man! but otherwise yes, very much agreed.

ranakel.bsky.social•27 days ago

I'd be down for a christmas episode on him

hahtse.bsky.social•27 days ago

Except for Norman Borlaug, but it's close.

iwriteok.bsky.social•27 days ago

I'd call them equals

ld-cd.bsky.social•26 days ago

The only man to receive a Nobel Peace prize, a Congressional Medal of Honor, a Presidential Medal of Freedom, and be inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame

ageofmoss.bsky.social•27 days ago

Salk should be your Christmas good guy episode!

jorjalark.bsky.social•26 days ago

Maurice Hilleman enters the chat. Developed over 40 vaccines. Isolated a weaker and effective mumps strain from his own daughter’s illness! (Still in use!) Insisted all his scientists and himself get new vaccines first! Anyone could schedule lunch w him when I was at Merck, even junior scientists.

jorjalark.bsky.social•26 days ago

Getting to meet him and Tony Fauci (worked on HIV) at Merck were the highlights of my time there. Thoughtful, inspirational men!

toomuchcoffeeman.bsky.social•27 days ago

As I was told, my grandpa once helped Jonas Salk pick up some papers he spilled in the hall and couldn't bring himself to reply when thanked because "how do you tell the man who probably saved your whole family's lives 'you're welcome' without crying and embracing him"

realcinematik.bsky.social•27 days ago

Dang I had no idea he lived until 95

moodskippurr.bsky.social•26 days ago

Iirc Salk got public funding & it was a major factor in the decision not to seek profit.

Also, I think if we as a society acknowledged & gave material support to the small minority who are harmed by vaccines, antivax rhetoric wouldn't get much traction.

Public healthcare is the answer, who knew?

bryceharding.bsky.social•26 days ago

In modern discourse "vaccine injury" is euphemistic language for autism and has eugenic undertones. Taking the bait enables pseudoscientific cranks like RFK the space required to spread their bullshit. Real vaccine injury is what happens to immunocomprimised people when the jab is not recommended.

bryceharding.bsky.social•26 days ago

vaccine injury is a thing but thats not why they keep bringing it up. They do it because the cranks want to eliminate any societal accomodation or support for autistic ppl.

Real vaccine injury is the why everyone who can be should be vaxed to protect vulnerable people who can't.

moodskippurr.bsky.social•26 days ago

I'm aware that eugenecists try to weaponize vax injury by lying about stats/ outcome. However, acting like it doesn't happen at all is counterproductive. I say this as someone rfk would want to send to a "wellness camp" ifyouknowwhatimean

bryceharding.bsky.social•26 days ago

I don't mean to say not to talk about it. Of course people who have reactions should be acknowleged & supported. Just want to say you cant premptively apease the cranks. They aren't arguing in good faith & using it as a pretext to attack autistic people.

moodskippurr.bsky.social•26 days ago

Also, pls be aware that vaccine injury can happen to people with no known vulnerabilities. A 1:million risk is still a risk that deserves acknowledging if only to disarm those who wish to misrepresent the risk for nefarious reasons.
Public healthcare and anti-ablist advocacy would make a difference

nightrose.bsky.social•26 days ago

We do give material support to the small minority harmed! In the US, there's a vaccine compensation fund funded by a small tax on the cost of every jab.
https://www.hrsa.gov/vaccine-compensation

moodskippurr.bsky.social•26 days ago

Yep! It's a good & important program, but it's not enough. It's gatekept only for certain vaccines/ injury, & it doesn't address the overwhelming lack of social infrastructure needed for various forms of disability that can result. Universal healthcare could do a lot more.

mikedilullo.bsky.social•27 days ago

RFK Jr. would’ve tried to cure polio with roadkill kielbasa

rurirkid.bsky.social•27 days ago

He'd make a great non-basterd subject on your holiday series if your still doing that. Absolutely loved the one about Nestor Makhno

varric-fan69.bsky.social•27 days ago

Aka daddy

rafuse.dev•27 days ago

If only someone cool and smart like @margaret.bsky.social did a show about cool people who did cool things (or stuff, idk)

dnsoccercow.bsky.social•26 days ago

Yup I was immediately thinking Salk is a great subject for @margaret.bsky.social to cover on her podcast.

whatusername.bsky.social•27 days ago

Between him and Albert Sabin doing the same thing with his own polio vaccine, it really was among America’s greatest moments (even if the Sabin vaccine was first mass produced by the USSR).