Jonas Salk: why he was disliked by the medical community

In the first complete biography of Jonas Salk, Charlotte DeCroes Jacobs unravels Salk's story to reveal an unconventional scientist and a misunderstood and vulnerable man. Despite his incredible success in developing the polio vaccine, Salk was ostracized by his fellow scientists, who accused him of failing to give proper credit to other researchers and scorned his taste for media attention. Even before success catapulted him into the limelight, Salk was an inscrutable man disliked by many of his peers. Driven by an intense desire to aid mankind, he was initially oblivious and eventually resigned to the personal cost--as well as the costs suffered by his family and friends. And yet Salk remained, in the eyes of the public, an adored hero. Based on hundreds of personal interviews and unprecedented access to Salk's sealed archives, Jacobs' biography offers the most complete picture of this complicated figure.

Charlotte D. Jacobs, M.D. is the Ben and A. Jess Shenson Professor of Medicine (Emerita) at Stanford University. She has served as Senior Associate Dean and as Director of the Clinical Cancer Center, and is the author of Henry Kaplan and the Story of Hodgkin's Disease.

© Oxford University Press

[drzero]

So wait, he NEVER got the noble prize for medicine and/or science because the scientist community were JEALOUS?! That is stupid wow....

[mikeythearchangel]

there are not enough people currently bowing down to this man as an idol of exemplary human behaviour.

*ahem*
thank you, Jonas Salk.
I, Michael,
was born over thirty years ago,
and i have absolutely no worldly clue
what polio is.

...thank you sir.

<3

[JordanBeagle]

*Invents polio vaccine saving millions of lives*

Other scientists "He didn't really accomplish anything for the scientific community"

[JordanBeagle]

2:10 Wait, involving the public was considered bad back then? I guess it is true that communities including can get corrupt and snobby, amazing he didn't patent it, if some PharmaCorp had made it, millions more people would've died

[lisafarler]

I love her expressions when describing the history!Great teacher, it reminds me if certain educators I had 😊

[saborfrancias]

Because he published a book promoting eugenics

[tommyli]

People died, got crippled or cancer from this junk. Polio was blamed for human mistakes.

[wandaeaston]

Jonas Salk did not discover polio vaccine. It was a team of scientists who made the discovery. A member of my family was one of those scientists.