Astral Codex Ten

Jonas Salk

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Jonas Salk

Article

Jonas Salk is a recurring person in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between October 07, 2022 and February 07, 2023. The archive places it in contexts such as “we get Columbus, Einstein, Edison, Washington, MLK, Disney, Franklin, Jonas Salk, Margaret Sanger, Susan B Anthony, and Louis Armstrong”; “Jonas Salk used Henrietta Lacks’ cells to invent a vaccine for polio”. It most often appears alongside Einstein, Henrietta Lacks, Adraste.

Metadata

  • Category: People
  • Mention count: 2
  • Issue count: 2
  • First seen: October 07, 2022
  • Last seen: February 07, 2023

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

A Columbian Exchange
October 07, 2022 · Original source
Coria: I realize it’s a big ask. It just seemed sort of dishonest or small-minded to not even mention it as a possibility. There are plenty of lists of the greatest historical figures. Taking this one, selecting for only Americans or America-related people, and removing people too similar to each other, we get Columbus, Einstein, Edison, Washington, MLK, Disney, Franklin, Jonas Salk, Margaret Sanger, Susan B Anthony, and Louis Armstrong. We could combine it with this list of people who saved the most lives, of which the Americans are Maurice Hilleman, Henrietta Lacks, Jonas Salk, and Norman Borlaug - I think a good consensus list for both influential and moral might replace one of Columbus, Sanger or Franklin with Borlaug, and keep the rest. That would give us eleven honorees - enough for one holiday a month, leaving room for Christmas.
Inline links: this one, this list
Henrietta Lacks Seems Like A Nice Person, But Not A Scientific Hero
February 07, 2023 · Original source
Jonas Salk used Henrietta Lacks’ cells to invent a vaccine for polio, likely saving millions of lives. He refused to patent it (despite potential value of $7 billion) because he wanted to make it as widely available as possible. Google Trends says he gets less than a quarter as much search engine interest as Lacks. Some people are going to tell me I’m underplaying the race angle, and that black women need heroes. I think this is the worst part. There are thousands of black female doctors, black female scientists, etc. Whenever we recognize white people who have contributed to medicine, it’s Brilliant Dr. So-And-So Who Cured A Deadly Disease. What message does it send black women if the most prominent medical hero that society gives them is someone with zero medical ability or medicine-related-virtues, whose only contribution was passively letting someone else take a clump of their cells without her knowledge? Did you know a black woman, Mattiedna Johnson, helped cure scarlet fever? No you did not, because whenever people want to talk about black women in medicine they talk about Henrietta Lacks - who was not, technically, in medicine.
Inline links: Mattiedna Johnson