The Salk & Sabin story
Who
Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin, both American scientists from Jewish immigrant families
When
1955 (Salk vaccine) and 1961 (Sabin vaccine)
Where
Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, United States
Polio once paralyzed hundreds of thousands of children a year until two vaccines nearly eradicated it. Jonas Salk, from a New York Russian-Jewish immigrant family, developed the first effective (injected, inactivated) polio vaccine in 1955, and Albert Sabin, a Jewish immigrant from Białystok, developed the oral live vaccine that followed. Both scientists declined to patent their vaccines so they could reach the world as cheaply as possible.
Sources
Part of “The Gifts of the Jews” — verified Jewish contributions to the world, with sources.