Jonas Salk West Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Belgium planning to begin polio immunization campaigns using Salk's vaccine. Salk campaigned for mandatory vaccination, claiming that public health should be considered a "moral commitment." His sole focus had been to develop a safe and effective vaccine as rapidly as possible, with no interest in personal profit. As such, there is no patent for the vaccine. In 1960, he founded the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, which is today a center for medical and scientific research. He continued to conduct research and publish books, including "Man Unfolding" (1972), "The Survival
Jonas Salk "I had an opportunity to spend time in elective periods in my last year in medical school, in a laboratory that was involved in studies on influenza. The influenza virus had just been discovered about a few years before that. And, I saw the opportunity at that time to test the question as to whether we could destroy the virus infectivity and still immunize. And so, by carefully designed experiments, we found it was possible to do so." In 1941, during his postgraduate work in virology, Salk chose a two-month elective to work in the laboratory of Thomas Francis at