Every summer, parents once feared a single word: polio.

On October 28, 1914, Jonas Salk was born in New York City. Working at the University of Pittsburgh, he developed an inactivated polio vaccine that was tested in a massive 1954 field trial involving more than a million children. In April 1955 it was announced safe and effective.

Salk chose not to patent the vaccine, and mass vaccination campaigns followed. Cases in the United States dropped dramatically within a few years, and the global fight against polio continues today.

Who is a scientist you think deserves more recognition?

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