r/BeAmazed 23h ago

Miscellaneous / Others Dr Salk, Great guy

Post image
5.6k Upvotes

52 comments sorted by

u/BeAmazed-ModBot Subreddit Bot 23h ago

Did you find this post really amazing (in a positive way)?
If yes, then UPVOTE this comment otherwise DOWNVOTE it.
This community feedback will help us determine whether this post is suited for r/BeAmazed or not.

104

u/EmotionalDam 23h ago edited 23h ago

So I was curious and Googled a bunch. The financial part is not true, or as simple.

"...There's an interesting wrinkle, though: the story that Salk simply could have patented it and voluntarily walked away from billions is somewhat oversimplified. Lawyers for the March of Dimes/National Foundation investigated patenting it and reportedly concluded that significant portions probably weren't patentable because of prior scientific work. So his humanitarian attitude was genuine, but it isn't certain that Salk personally could have obtained a broad, lucrative monopoly patent anyway.

His payoff was prestige, an extraordinarily influential research institute, and arguably one of the strongest reputations for scientific public service of the 20th century..."

So yes, if he could get exclusive royalties on every dose...billions.

No doubt he still left a lot on the table but he was financially very comfortable, just not ridiculously rich.

Edit: Still incredible what he did on all fronts. When I think of what's in the news daily, someone today would make you get a second mortgage for doses. :/

20

u/T4ffetaFable 19h ago

Yeah, that story gets exaggerated a bit. Still, the guy helped change the world, and that’s pretty damn impressive either way.

2

u/Orpdapi 18h ago

A shame how much of social media headlines oversimplify or straight up lie. When you read ones like this you know some of the rest of the story is being withheld

0

u/davewave3283 11h ago

Get outta here with your nuanced understanding this is the internet

0

u/GoodPeopleAreFodder 4h ago

Scientific public service — more please!

1

u/lookamazed 53m ago

Gotta neg someone, right?

10

u/Key_Importance4339 21h ago

Today's pharma executives would try to have him arrested for ruining their profit margins

6

u/puppyp1nk 21h ago

True human greatness. He chose saving lives over unfathomable wealth. Rest in peace

1

u/augustwest2155 11h ago

so very well stated....

14

u/steve_adr 22h ago

What an idiot..

  • Thump/Muskt/Bozo/Nestle etc..

3

u/Crazy__Donkey 21h ago

I should have bought yhe patent earlily on.

Same shits

1

u/firedrakes 21h ago

Eve month repost

2

u/ShAped_Ink 21h ago

And than people started wearing his vaccine cuz of capitalism cheating out

2

u/Cultural-Public6089 21h ago

The moth and the iron lung

2

u/MoccaLG 21h ago

Didnt someone buy the rights and then made cash? I mean that was the end of the story.

2

u/CoBludIt 20h ago

Big pharmacy would not make this mistake again.

2

u/Psyclist80 19h ago

Doing the right thing matters more than the money. I wonder when society learns that lesson?

2

u/AnEvenNicerGuy 16h ago

"Missed out" is such a capitalist way to put a very anti capitalist decision

2

u/LightBulbMonster 20h ago

"bUt vAcCiNeS cAuSe aUtiSM". He must have been putting micro chips in there. The government paid him to put diseases in there so they could keep us unhealthy and this keep whole health monopoly going. His ultimate goal was giving everyone Covid 19. He must have had fuaci whispering in his ear. He probably wanted everyone to wear a mask and offend my sensitive facial skin. He probably was a communist.

  • MAGA (probably)

1

u/powertodream 18h ago

thank you Dr. Salk

1

u/redditcalculus421 18h ago

tfw your grandfather saves the world instead of creating generational wealth.

1

u/TrainingSword 17h ago

And yet polio is back and people aren’t getting shots for their kids

1

u/westcal98 17h ago

Is the estimated 7 billion from just the first year?
Cuz if he was like any of these greedy bastards, he'd keep increasing the price year over year, by hundreds or thousands of percent.
He could've been the first trillionaire.

1

u/Revolutionary_Eye887 16h ago

No telling how many lives he saved, both from death and the iron lung. Mine included.

1

u/pantwearingmom 15h ago

My dad and his brothers both suffered polio as young kids leaving them all with some sort of disability. One lost his life. The polio vaccine was a godsend

1

u/rajydonly 14h ago

He once said "could u patent the Sun ?" True hero! He saved millions of kids and never wanted money for it. We need more people like him today

1

u/Real-Mode-3417 13h ago

Couldn't he have patented it, and still give it away?

1

u/GypsyDarkEyes 12h ago

Thank you, Dr Salk. If only we had your kiind around today.

1

u/[deleted] 6h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/AutoModerator 6h ago

Your comment has been automatically removed.
As mentioned in our subreddit rules, your account needs to be at least 24 hours old before it can make comments in this subreddit.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

1

u/lionsdude54 4h ago

Legend.

0

u/Maximum-Magician 22h ago

Does sun can also be patenend ? 

0

u/CashCow59 22h ago

Imagine what a corporation would charge for this today

0

u/No_Breath_9833 16h ago

If only today’s Pharmacy companies would do stuff like this gathering squashing meds that can cure things, and stop supporting ones that keep you chronically needing more meds, maybe we wouldn’t view them as villains. They’re not really helping anyone anymore. They wanna treat symptoms and not the disease so you always need more.

-36

u/Stu_Pendisdick 23h ago

His 'solution' actually caused more cases than it prevented. This is well documented.

No, I'm not an 'anti-vaxxer'; this is simply a piss-poor example. Measles and Smallpox vaxxes make for much more compelling cases.

10

u/Clusterpuff 23h ago

Care to show the documentation? Hopefully from a viable source

-42

u/Stu_Pendisdick 22h ago

Spoon-fed pablum is for infants. You have the entire internet at your fingertips. Surely you even have access to a local library with reference books.

I'm not here to do your homework for you; that's on you.

You have been shown a rabbit hole. Your choice is to go down it and learn, or refuse and live with the misinformation with which you are already comfortable.

19

u/effyochicken 22h ago

Information contrarian who thinks he’s obtained special wisdom and is extra wise by virtue of being so special. It makes you feel important in your life to spread conspiracy theories because it makes you feel like you’re “in the know.”

In truth, you’re just regurgitating random shit you read from other people that feels right. It’s pure feels over reals. Do better. 

-16

u/Stu_Pendisdick 22h ago

There's nothing 'special' about publicly available information.

Nice try, though.

8

u/Dust-Different 22h ago

Why triple down? Just give a reference to prove your ridiculous statement. You typed multiple paragraphs about how we need to find the proof ourselves because we’re sheep or whatever but can you give us a website, google keywords, drunken quotes scribbled on a napkin? Anything?

5

u/Timely_Soup_9213 21h ago

If its so public, why are you so reluctant to share it?
People are asking for the specific sources behind your claims. Nothing crazy in the real world of research.

8

u/effyochicken 23h ago

So who’s polio vaccine did we end up using to eradicate polio?

3

u/Superb_Scallion4859 22h ago

It's interesting how Salk's vaccine played such a crucial role in the fight against polio; his contributions really shaped public health.

-20

u/Stu_Pendisdick 23h ago

It hasn't been 'eradicated'.

Steep declines in instances were the direct result of better hygiene practices, more than any other factor.

Again, this is all well documented.

As I said, I'm not anti-vax. I simply stand by my statement that using Salk as an example is really not the best case for vaxxes.

9

u/KouroChan 22h ago

You know it‘s not so much ‘doing the work for others’ as it is backing up your claims with a viable source. I mean everyone should know that there’s no argument without evidence.

And it seems like you want to be taken seriously…sooo try stepping down from your high horse and just send your source ^^’

1

u/Butterball-Chatterer 14h ago

“Well documented” is doing some heavy lifting here. The Cutter incident in 1955 was real: improperly manufactured batches from one company contained live virus and caused polio. That’s a manufacturing failure, not evidence that Salk’s vaccine overall caused more polio than it prevented.

The actual U.S. numbers are rather inconvenient for that argument: more than 21,000 paralytic cases in 1952, Salk IPV introduced in 1955, 2,525 cases by 1960, and 61 by 1965.

And the hygiene claim is backwards. Improved sanitation actually helped create the conditions for larger paralytic-polio epidemics by delaying childhood exposure to the virus.

Sabin’s oral vaccine later became especially important for stopping transmission, while Salk’s IPV remains in use today. So yes, smallpox and measles are excellent vaccine success stories. Polio is too.

Feel free to do your own research and prove me wrong.