Jonas Salk in 2007, 12 years after Jonas Salk's death in 1995. Although many advances have been made in treating AIDS, "the world still waited for the miracle vaccine the conqueror of polio had sought", wrote historian Alan Axelrod. In 1966, "The New York Times" referred to him as the "Father of Biophilosophy." According to "Times" journalist and author Howard Taubman, "he never forgets ... there is a vast amount of darkness for man to penetrate. As a biologist, he believes that his science is on the frontier of tremendous new discoveries; and as a philosopher, he is convinced that humanists and
Jonas Salk known the world over, Salk, in the public's eye, had a superstar aura. Airplane pilots would announce that he was on board and passengers would burst into applause. Hotels routinely would upgrade him into their penthouse suites. A meal at a restaurant inevitably meant an interruption from an admirer, and scientists approached him with drop-jawed wonder as though some of the stardust might rub off." For the most part, however, Salk was "appalled at the demands on the public figure he has become and resentful of what he considers to be the invasion of his privacy", wrote "The New York