Jonas Salk vaccine. A few weeks later, Salk injected children at the Polk State School for the retarded and feeble-minded. In 1954 he tested the vaccine on about one million children, known as the polio pioneers. The vaccine was announced as safe on April 12, 1955. The project became large, involving 100 million contributors to the March of Dimes, and 7 million volunteers. The foundation allowed itself to go into debt to finance the final research required to develop the Salk vaccine. Salk worked incessantly for two and a half years. Salk's inactivated polio vaccine was the first vaccine for the disease;
Lee Salk his older brother. Salk attended the University of Michigan. Salk's published work investigated the effect of retirement on mortality, the effect of the mother's heartbeat on the newborn, and the relationship between adverse maternal and perinatal conditions and later self-destructive behavior. He was the author of eight books. Salk was married twice, first to Kerstin and then Mary Jane. He had two children from his first marriage, a son Eric and daughter Pia. Salk developed cancer and died in hospital in Manhattan at age 65 on May 2, 1992. Salk was a professor at Cornell University Medical Center. Lee Salk