7-16-28

Dr. Julius Youngner, right, with Dr. Jonas Salk

New York Times: Dr. Julius Youngner, Polio Vaccine Pioneer, Dies at 96

By SAM ROBERTS

Dr. Youngner was the last surviving member of a predominately Jewish-dominated research team (Salk, Youngner, Lewis & Friedman) assembled by Salk at the University of Pittsburgh to develop a vaccine to fight polio, which had peaked in the United States in the early 1950s. Salk was actually in a race to develop the vaccine -- against another glory-seeking Jewish scientist named Albert Sabin, from Chicago. Salk's team got there first, but when Salk announced the development of the polio vaccine on April 12, 1955, he soaked up all of the press hype for himself while barely mentioning the critical contributions of the other team members.

 

 

"Me! Me! Me!"

After rushing his vaccine and announcing it to Judea's Piranha Press, media-hound Salk was all about Salk. Just weeks after the vaccine had been declared safe, more than 200 polio cases were traced to lots contaminated with virulent live polio strains. Almost all of those stricken became paralyzed and eleven died. The haste (both of Salk and the Federal government under Eisenhower) to rush the vaccine to the public was responsible for this tragedy.

 

Though this Slimes article about Youngner downplays and rationalizes St. Salk's selfish snubbing of his colleagues, its portrayal of the team members' resentment is accurate.

From the article:

"While Dr. Youngner, who was 34 at the time, remained at the university and made further advances in virology, he and other members of the team remained embittered that Dr. Salk had not singled them out for credit in his announcement speech.

In 1993, Dr. Youngner crossed paths with Dr. Salk for the first time since Dr. Salk had left for California in 1961. According to “Polio: An American Story” (2005), by David M. Oshinsky, Dr. Youngner raised the 1955 announcement speech in confronting Dr. Salk.

'Do you remember whom you mentioned and whom you left out?' - the book quoted him as saying to Dr. Salk. 'Do you realize how devastated we were at that moment and ever afterward when you persisted in making your co-workers invisible?'”

Later on in life, Youngner published hundreds of scholarly papers and was awarded 15 patents. He served as president of the American Society for Virology from 1986 to 1987. But in spite of his impressive resume, he (as well as the other forgotten team members) never let go of their justified resentment at the publicity-seeking scumbag Jonas Salk. In a talk given before a local chapter of the National Council of Jewish Women in 1992­,  Youngner described what happened. From the obituary in the Pittsburgh-Post Gazette:

"Dr. Salk’s announcement of the success of the polio vaccine in field trials in 1955 created a sensation, he said, and the group that had funded the effort, then known as the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, knew that 'it was much easier to continue raising money when you have a hero, and they had an enormous public relations department that took up Jonas’ name as the hero. But in the meantime, Jonas was, how shall I say, not very generous to his colleagues and he made sure that nobody else was ever mentioned.'

To add insult to injury, Dr. Salk’s wife later called Mrs. Youngner and said, 'You know, we’re really disappointed in your husband, because he hasn’t called Jonas and congratulated him.' Mrs. Youngner responded with a brusque reply, and the two couples, who had once been close, never socialized again."

 

Wow! Just wow. Can you believe the unmitigated "chutzpah" of Salk's yenta bitching to Youngner's yenta about Salk not receiving a congratulatory phone call from Youngner?!

To put it all in terms of an analogy to American Football, Salk's "accomplishment" is the equivalent of a third-rate football player coming off the bench with only seconds remaining on the clock, punching the winning "touchdown" into the end zone from just 1 yard away, showing off by spiking the football in celebration and doing an end-zone dance, accepting the Most Valuable Player of the game award, granting interview after interview to the fawning Piranha Press, and finally, solely on the basis if that single 1-yard score, being inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame -- all while the grueling work of the talented players who had driven the ball for the other 99 yards is ignored.

 

The Jewish super-hero has been honored with headlines, statues, postage stamps and award after award after award -- all based on the research and creativity of others who have been ignored. The Slimes headline reveals that the hasty nationwide administering of the shots was set to begin in less than two weeks!

 

Youngner does not deny that Salk was a capable scientist. But St. Salk's intentional, pre-meditated and selfish hogging of all the credit - even to the exclusion of the fellow tribesman who probably deserved the most credit of the 6-member team - tells us a whole lot about the low down and dirty character of yet another of history's "great men" that has been placed upon a pedestal for us to worship.

Apart altogether from the contributions from other members of Salk's Jewish research team, there was the pioneering work of several HUGE contributers to the field, whose earlier independent research was critical to understanding the polio virus and developing a vaccine. Four of these non-Jewish scientists (Enders, Hammon, Bodian, Horstman) were briefly mentioned on page 21 of the Jew York Slimes issue dated April 13, 1955 --- the same issue that had tribesman Salk, and only Salk, splattered across its front page.

So, in a nutshell, the story of the polio vaccine, as it relates to the animosity between Tribesmen Salk and Youngner, goes something like this:

A well-funded, publicity-seeking Jewish scientist from Pittsburgh assembled a team of other Jewish scientists for the purpose of beating yet another well-funded, publicity-seeking Jewish scientist from Chicago in the race to develop a polio vaccine. To achieve their objectives, they all had to rely upon the earlier ground-breaking research of long-since-forgotten White Gentile scientists. When the team of Tribesmen in Pittsburgh developed the vaccine first, the organizer of the team then cheated his fellow Jewish scientists out of the credit that they wanted as well!

Oy vey, as the chosenites like to say! Ya just can't make this stuff up.

 

The Forgotten White Scientists

Above: John Enders, William Hammon, David Bodian, Dorothy Horstmann

Salk and Youngner stood upon the shoulders of scientists that Sulzberger's Slimes relegated to a small corner of page 21.

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Why weren't any of the other researchers ever honored?

1. Salk, with his family, honored by the fiend Eisenhower at a White House ceremony.  2. About 25 years later, Salk is awarded the "Medal of Freedom" by President Jimmy Carter.

http://tomatobubble.com/truth_about_jonas_salk.html