Would You Patent the Sun? Polio Vaccine Inventor Jonas Salk’s Son Urges More Access to COVD Vaccine

The total number of deaths from COVID-19 in the U.S. is set to top 400,000 before Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20, but the rollout of coronavirus vaccines has been slow, with many describing a vexing amount of red tape standing between them and the shot.

Democracy Now! look at the development and distribution of another vaccine during the polio epidemic in the 1950s with Dr. Peter Salk, a physician and professor of infectious diseases and microbiology at the University of Pittsburgh, whose father, Dr. Jonas Salk, developed the first polio vaccine and famously declined to patent his invention. “The rest of the world and the countries that are less able to afford vaccines need consideration, as well,” says Dr. Salk.

“There needs to be a creative cooperation among all of us, including the businesses, in order to find ways to satisfy the needs of these other countries.”

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