8 - The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, June 1, 1999 STAMPING OUT POLIO 4 I Postage stamp honoring olio vaccibze developer unveiled 0 * Jonas Salk's colleagues speak about accomplishment of vaccine discovery By Phil Bansal Daily Staff Reporter Fourty-four years ago, Thomas Francis, chair of the Department of Epidemiology in the University's School of Public Health, announced to the world from Rackham Auditorium that University alumnus Jonas Salk developed a vaccine which would com- bat polio. Francis, who was Salk's professor, mentor and longtime supporter during his time at the University, said the vaccine had proven to be "safe, effective" and "potent." Last Wednesday, a small group gathered at Rackham to witness John Talick, the Detroit District Manager of the United States Postal Service, unveil a stamp commemorating Salk's achievement. The stamp portrays Salk injecting a little girl with the vaccine and belongs to the 1950s edition of the Postal Service's "Celebrate the Century" commemorative stamp program. Salk's medical breakthrough was voted to be the most important advancement in sci- ence and technology for the decade. Although Salk developed his vaccine at the University of Pittsburgh, Francis oversaw researchers who conducted clinical trials of the vaccine in Ann Arbor. During the trials, 1.8 million children were administered with either the vaccine or a placebo, said Public Health Prof. Hunein Maassab, who studied under Francis as a University graduate student in 1955. Maassab said the trials, which lasted from 1953 to 1954, were "a hallmark of organiza- tion, of integrity (and) of implementation, because not before and not after (has) any kind (of trial) of this magnitude been iitiat- ed." Maassab added that the reason so many children participated in the trials was because they were desperate for a remedy to the disease. "Because of the problem ... everybody wanted to be a part of the vaccine," Maassab said. Ann Arbor Mayor Ingrid Sheldon, who spoke at the unveiling ceremony, said that "polio was a great fear all of us had." Sheldon said she was glad "many more gen- erations" will "never have that fear." Dave Rich, representing Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), said "my generation never had to deal with polio." Tom Landry, chapter chair of the Southeast Michigan March of Dimes, said "Jonas has given us a legacy we can all be proud of," and he thanked the "Post Office for acknowledging one of America's true heroes." But even though Provost Nancy Cantor said "Salk received high praise throughout the scientific community," Time magazine reported that Salk "had sinned unforgivably within the brotherhood of researchers" by not giving credit to "his colleagues at the 4 0 DANA LUNNA Postal and University officials unveil a new stamp at Rackham Auditorium last Wednesday commemorating the development of the polio vaccine. Pittsburgh lab" or John Enders, a researcher at Harvard who first gre the polio virus in the lab, thereby making it easy and inexpen- sive to work on a vaccine. Enders received the Nobel Prize for his efforts, making sure to share it with two col- leagues. According to Maassab, Salk "will never win the Nobel Prize." But Maassab also considers the stigma attached to Salk's biography "all in the back- ground," and it remained unmentioned at the ceremony. As Salk has been honored with a stamp, so too may Maassab some day. The University professor developed the first genetically stable, live influenza vac- cine which will be sold under the title of FluMist. The vaccine may be available by the flu season of 2000 in an intra-nasal spray form, instead of an injection form. Previous attempts at a live flu vaccine failed due to their genetic instability, which resulted in children being infected with the flu at the clinical trial stage. Maassab's vaccine, which was developed at a temperature fourteen degrees colder than previous research attempts, was proven safe " for all people from the ages of two months to sixty-five years. I rr. >: / , r 1 - ;; M m . - F T" Earn $10 in a 1 hour computer-mediated negotiation experiment that is being held in the business school. Dates: June 2, 3, 8, 9, 10, 15, 16, 17 Times: 4:30 and 6:00 PM. te' KNWBUDGET OF NEWS? Continued from Page 1 CALL 76-DAILY. Engler's original plan of lumping the state's public universities into four general groups used inappro priate methodology, according to Schwarz. The proposal based the amount of federal funds upon the number of in-state students. This method would be a disadvan- tage to the University, since about 30 percent of University undergrad- uates and half of graduate students are out-of-state. "The methodology was punitive to U of M," Schwarz said. University President Leo 35 CLAY ARTISTS OFFER Bollinger has said he is opposed to SCULPTURAL & Engler's proposal, which he felt FUNCTIONAL CERAMICS oversimplified the funding process and disregarded the diverse needs of J different universities around the stale. 1"It's critical that we think about a university and its needs broadly, and not to he seduced by forimsulas," Bollinger said last mnthsl at a llous@ Education Subcomnmittee hseartisg tn 201ER HillD t Lnsn sn Hill St. very easy to make short- 663-4970 sighted decisions when it comes to :!universities," Bollinger said. To be included in the pool of possible subjects, register at: http://www.umich.edu/~cisdept/DDM To participate, you must be an undergraduate over the age of 18.