Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 24, 1995 TAG: 9506260063
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: From The Associated Press and The Dallas Morning News
DATELINE: LA JOLLA, CALIF. LENGTH: Medium
Salk died of heart failure at Green Hospital of Scripps Clinic in La Jolla, said Anita Weld, a spokeswoman for the Salk Institute. He had been hospitalized earlier in the day complaining of shortness of breath.
Salk spent a lifetime stubbornly pursuing his ideas - first for a polio vaccine and later for a vaccine-like AIDS treatment - even when they drew skepticism from other researchers.
``There have to be people who are ahead of their time,'' Salk once said. ``And that is my fate.''
Working at the University of Pittsburgh in the 1950s, Salk became a hero to millions of Americans when he ignored scientific doubters and used killed virus to develop the first polio vaccine.
``The world has lost a man who was the symbol of great hope for mankind, whether polio victims or AIDS victims,'' said Bill Otterson, director of San Diego CONNECT, a research group at the University of California, San Diego.
During the first half of the 20th century, epidemics of paralytic poliomyelitis swept the United States repeatedly. Polio viruses infected thousands of Americans annually, causing widespread fear, killing many young victims and condemning others to iron lungs, leg braces and years of rehabilitation.
Salk's injectable vaccine was declared effective in 1955, and polio's toll plunged. ``What had the most profound effect was the freedom from fear,'' Salk said in 1995, as he prepared to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the April 12 announcement.
Dr. Albert Sabin's live-virus vaccine - swallowed on a sugar cube - was approved in 1961. Many experts believe it is more effective, and it ultimately gained favor, although Salk's vaccine is still used.
Because of Salk's vaccine, ``a generation learned to view health as a birthright, assuming that doctors could provide a cure for any ailment if it were attacked with enough boldness and enough money,'' Jane S. Smith wrote in a magazine adaptation of her book, ``Patenting the Sun: Polio, the Salk Vaccine and the Children of the Baby Boom.''
Polio ``was the AIDS of the '50s. And then ... one man delivered us,'' Life magazine said of Salk in 1990.
Salk moved to California, where in 1960 he established the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, a San Diego suburb. The institute became a leading biomedical research center.
Salk conducted research on multiple sclerosis and cancer before retiring from his own laboratory in 1984. In 1987, he co-founded Immune Response Corp. to search for an AIDS vaccine.
The vaccine was a treatment to prevent or delay development of AIDS symptoms in infected people. Salk also hoped to develop a true vaccine to prevent uninfected people from contracting the deadly virus.
Again, there were doubters. Salk modeled his AIDS vaccine after his polio vaccine, using killed AIDS virus. Skeptics argued the approach wouldn't work or carried a risk of making patients develop AIDS symptoms. Early tests seemed to support Salk's approach, although years of research are expected before its effectiveness can be established or disproved.
``My own view is we will overcome,'' he said this year. ``I am a perennial optimist. We certainly have the knowledge. The question is whether we have the wisdom.''
In recent decades, Salk often awoke at night and wrote thousands of pages of philosophical musings. Published accounts said he believed the voice of evolution was speaking through him. He published three books of his philosophy: ``Man Unfolding'' in 1972, ``The Survival of the Wisest'' with his son Jonathon in 1973 and ``Anatomy of Reality'' in 1983.
by CNB