Whether any act can be entirely altruistic is debatable, but certainly Jonas Salk came very close. The scientist who gave the world the polio vaccine in 1955 did so literally. In other words, he didn't patent it and therefore didn't profit from it.
When Edward R. Murrow of CBS asked Salk who owned the patent, Salk replied: "Well, the people, I would say." According to Forbes, had Salk patented the vaccine, it would be worth an estimated $7 billion USD. While lawyers for the March of Dimes -- founded in 1938 as the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis to combat polio -- considered applying for a patent, they eventually decided it was not what Salk had wanted.
Salk had been working on a vaccine for years and produced an early version of it in 1950. In 1954, two million Americans, including schoolchildren, took part in clinical trials, and the first nationwide inoculation campaign took place in 1955. According to the Centers for Disease Control, polio has been eradicated in the United States for more than 30 years. Salk, who died in 1995, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977.
More on Salk and polio:
- After World War II, polls showed that Americans were so afraid of contracting polio that the only thing they feared more was nuclear war.
- After falling ill while vacationing on Campobello Island in Canada, future U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt was diagnosed with polio in 1921 at age 39, although now medical experts believe it could have been Guillain–Barré syndrome.
- Earlier this year, Africa was declared free of wild polio, now that Nigeria no longer has active cases.