By the mid-1950s, polio was as scary as an atomic bomb. In the United States alone, more than 40,000 people died or became disabled due to polio, and there were about 500,000 victims around the world every year.
It is now declared that polio which made the world so terrified has ended in most countries except for a few countries. That is thanks to Jonas Edward Salk, an American medical researcher, who developed the polio vaccine. In 1955, he officially announced the safety of the vaccine, after years of research and injections to himself and his family for clinical trials. The success of the vaccine development was led to a festive atmosphere in the United States, and many pharmaceutical companies have fiercely competed to monopolize the vaccine. But he flatly said at the question about the patent right.
“There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?”
Salk refused the opportunity to become wealthy, and he freely revealed the method of producing the polio vaccine to the public. Thanks to him, the polio vaccine is widly available to all people around the world, just as the sun gives light freely to everyone in the world.