Good evening and welcome to todays meeting of the Commonwealth Club of california. This is a place where you are in the know. I know symantec Commonwealth Club. Org. Find us on facebook and on twitter and on the clubs Youtube Channel as well. My name is joe epstein. My pasture the Commonwealth Club word of governors and im going to chair todays program. This program is part of the clubs series underwritten by the bernardo share foundation. 60 years ago researcher jonas salk changed Human History by inventing the polio vaccine. His work has saved countless lives, helped shape the medical field as we know it today. Recently dr. Charlotte jacobs, Professor Emeritus at tampered medical School Published the First Comprehensive biography of this medical pioneer in tighter jonas salk a life. Today we are pleased to have got your jacob along with his work and the Lessons Learned from it. Dr. Jacobs will be in conversation with Janet Napolitano, president of the university of california, former secretary of the u. S. Department of Homeland Security and the former governor of arizona. But they now just a big order that each. A graduate of Washington University school of medicine in st. Louis, dr. Charlotte jacobs came to stanford as a fellow in oncology in 1975. She joined the faculty in 1977 and was promoted to full professor in 1996. She has received numerous awards for excellence in teaching and contributions to medical education. Dr. Jacobs also served for several years and senior associate dean for education and student affairs. 1997 dr. Jacobs was appointed director of the stanford Clinical Cancer Center and served concurrently as director of the Cancer Program for this stand for joint health care program. 2001 dr. Jacobs stepped down from a position to return to patient care. Dr. Jacobs is known for research in the head and neck there is ms held several leadership positions in the cancer arena nationally. Janet napolitano became the 20th president of the university of california in 2013 years she leaves the University System with 10 campuses, five medical centers in the three affiliated National Laboratory and the statewide agricultural and Natural Resources program. As you see president , ms. Napolitano has initiatives including Financial Stability for the university, focusing researchers resources on local and global food issues in achieving Carbon Neutrality across the system she hopes by 2025 and accelerating translation of research into products and services. Shes implemented the fair wage for your work plan which established a 15 wage for employees and contract workers. This is a first for a public university. From 2009 to 2013, president napolitano was the first woman to serve as the u. S. Department of Homeland Security in 2003 until 2009 served as the first governor including the third female governor and the first woman to win reelection. President napolitano graduated from Santa Clara University and received her jurist doctor from the university of virginia law school. Please welcome dr. Charlotte jacobs will be in conversation with you see president Janet Napolitano. [applause] well, thank you joe and all who were in attendance with us tonight for listening and for what i think would be a terrific hour of conversation. We agreed to call each other by her first names. So charlotte, i would like to start us off by asking, how did you come to choose jonas salk . I grew up in the time before the polio vaccine and so i remember how frightening it was to see pictures in the magazines or newsreels of children struggling with crutches or entombed in iron lungs. It was an enormous fear because no one knew which child, which town would be the cripplers next victim. In 1954 the National Foundation held a National Trial looking at the efficacy of jonas salks vaccine. They chose 200 a little over 200 towns around the United States in my hometown of kingsport, tennessee for select it as one of the sites and so i was in the original trial called the polio pioneer. A year later when the vaccine was called a success, salk became one of the greatest heroes of my generation so i was surprised as an adult to realize no one had ever written a full biography so i set out to write one. Lets work our way backwards a little bit in terms of salks life, his beginnings and perhaps you could talk some about his work prepolio, what he was doing, for example in respect to influenza, another great scorches in 1800 was brought into the field of polio. So i will scroll all the way back. He was unlikely to be a great physician scientists. He was born in east harlem to an immigrant family. He was bright but not brilliant. He wish i and yet his mother had told him when he was born that he was with a call, and amniotic sack over his face and that meant he was destined for greatness and he believed her. He really felt any us to pray as a child that someday he could form some noble deed. That drove them all the way to medical. Right after the training the war broke out and he had done some research, went to the university of michigan for Thomas Francis was rushing to make an influenza vaccine. An epidemic of those was threatening the truth and brought back this terrible memory of made in 18 when almost as many young men died of the flu as died in combat. They were rushing against time and the two of them concoct it and tested the First Successful influenza vaccine for which ms is salk did did not get a lot of credit. So then he got a little stymied by francis and took a position at the university of pittsburgh and there he wanted to work in a universal influenza vaccine. He thought you could make a vaccine that would take care of all the different influenza in may 1947 when harry weaver was a talent scout for the National Foundation for infantile as invited him to join them on the attack on polio, he readily joined the effort. It is interesting because there are some names to our dimension that become recurring names throughout the biography. There are lots of very fascinating carrots verse in the book and many biography says that were included. I picked five. And maybe you can describe who they were and how they would fit into the ultimate tori of the polio vaccine. I will begin with harry weaver. The wwhiskey and why was he important . Harry weaver worked for the department of infantile paralysis. He facilitated Research Among scientists and had an eye for talent. He saw this young researcher who was not full of himself and would really work on exactly what the march of dimes wanted him to work on compared to many scientists who take their money and do what they wanted to do. So he was really instrumental in getting him into that brew crew working on the polio vaccine. But harry weaver wanted to see things move along. So he had appointed a group of senior scientists in the field of polio were going to rise them about the best approach to polio. But weaver thought they were going pretty slow thinking about we have to understand the basic science, et cetera. He saw jonas salk is a resource kind of chomping at the bit not because he wanted fame but because he could see beyond the microscope. He wanted to get out there and get the vaccine. He didnt want another summer to go by with children being paralyzed. Harry weaver was the stimulus behind. Polio was seasonal. Every year people knew there would be another polio summer and you didnt know where it was going to head and he was going to be there. So you mentioned Hazel Oconnor, one of my favorite biographies of this biography. He is my favorite as well. He was actually a law partner of Franklin Delano roosevelt and he was kind of a funky irishman from an immigrant family who saw himself working with fdr who was very classy and obviously from a very wealthy family. He made a deal with fdr that he would do all the work but they have fdr and allow for many and he became a successful lawyer. When fdr had this idea of having a place for polio but im, they have this idea of raising money to help polio but comes. When fdr died suddenly it all fell into his hands. Oconnor always horribly carnation, pinstriped suit in his work was lost. He ran the foundation width typeface and everything had to go his way. That is the National Foundation for infantile paralysis, which then started the march of dimes is a mechanism to raise money for polio vaccine. Interestingly, there is a 20 year difference between dale oconnor and jonas salk and they could have been more different. Oconnor was bombastic. He knew exactly what he was thinking. You were strong, outspoken. Jonas salk was a shy, retiring, very kind individual and coming back from a polio meeting early on, that time together on the queen mary and that is when this deep, deep friendship border and i love affair were just crazy about each other and they became lifelong friends. The little postcards, the nospaceon vacuum for us were very endearing and their whole friendship week through the entire book and i would say one of the saddest most poignant parts for me was when their friendship tell apart. That is towards the end over issues, et cetera. Basal oconnor had a daughter. He had a daughter called him up one day and said i think i have the disease. She survived and develop a nice friendship also with jonas salk. Many people by jonas salk was the son of basal oconnor never had. The scientists didnt like their friendship and some of them referred to jonas is chosen. We will get to that in a minute. You mentioned the march of dimes and medical research was funded very differently in this period in our history than it is today. So talk a little bit about the march of dimes and the whole connection of the public to try to find a cure. That was amazing. Someone working on a book now about the march of dimes which is an incredible organization. Itll probably never happen again. Petrov was carried out by the march of dimes, by volunteers. Not a lot of highpowered, welltrained research assistance. It was carried out by school principals, housewives. Housewives were involved in that enormous trial and collecting all of the data and the data sheet. It really was the public was so engaged in that through the march of dimes. It was a universal, National Effort focused on one disease. On one disease. Were going to get to the count in a minute because the whole discussion of the trial and what happened is an amazing story. Two other names though. Isabel spent Isabel Morgan is a minor character in the book but not in the world of science and she was part of the Johns Hopkins team that was working on polio. One of the first things that have to be done by this group that harry got together with to figure out how the different types of polio are there. Are the one like smallpox . Arthur 100 that change over time like influence which makes it difficult to make a vaccine. They were working and trying to figure out what techniques are all going to use so that they would all agree on how to test for the different polio types. Jonas salk this listing to albert sabin and Isabel Morgan talk but which technique and suddenly his mind goes to Something Else that isabel market is talked about when she thought that her experiments in monkeys and she is a vaccine with kills virus that no one else is arguing about this approach and hes sitting there thinking yes, i can make a vaccine would kill the virus because that killed a virus that she used its daily commute. Thats important because at that moment in history of medicine most of the Scientific Community believed that only a vaccine made with a live weakened virus could impart immunity to prevent disease and that it indicates with smallpox for example, and with rabies. They all believed that ever all working towards having a live virus vaccine. Salk is sitting saying gosh darn it, im not going to tell them that im going to make a killed virus vaccine individual work. He credited Isabel Morgan with that idea. Shirleys research shortly thereafter because there was no role for a woman at that time. And became a homemaker and lived a quieter life and she might today unfortunately that was a slog of a lot of women scientists in the danish. Thats what i wanted to pull turning out. John enters . John enters was a pretty famous harvard professor in these important because everybody used to have to grow poliovirus in monkeys. Had to do it in live animals. He came up with how to grow poliovirus in cell culture which does have like very much to his buddy got a nobel prize for. Like the steam engine and was greeted or something. Many people said he shouldve gotten even more credit from the public. John enders that no interest in making a vaccine. Is a basic scientist. He wanted to work ahead of grow poliovirus, and he did. But he also did not believe you could use a killed virus and and that he opposed salk all the way along the way. He relies on ill come back to that. I attribute his determination as the reason for 1700 paralyzed kids in boston but weve come to that later. I want to get back to that. You mentioned a minute ago, but Thomas Francis. Thomas francis had been at nyu where salk was a medical student and salk was different from most. He knew he wanted to do research and not be a practicing doctor. He went in and as Thomas Francis if you can work in his lab because francis was working on viruses and francis said he was kind of a nice presentable young man who just want to tinker in the lab but he realized what they determined young man he was. So that when he went on to work on the vaccine, then went onto. He kind of exits that field. He became a very prominent epidemiologist. He wasnt engaged in making vaccines but when it came time to test the vaccine, a National Foundation, march of dimes, oconnooconno r, weaver, took the vaccine away from salk and said you cannot be the person who runs were analyzed at trial. At that point in time salk was starting to get some kind of bad vibes in the Scientific Community, number one. That the people would be suspect if he tested his own vaccine. And so actually the march of dimes, the ones would run the red cross ran the trial and Thomas Francis was selected to do all of the analysis and present the trial data in ann arbor, michigan, on april 12, 1955 interestingly, Thomas Francis what. Com he was kind of a study of he would not let anyone know what was going on. He would give no previous ahead of time. And so at ann arbor with this huge announcement was going to get it, jonas salk was to follow him in talking. Salk found out at breakfast the morning before they started to talk an hour before that the trial had been a success. I mean, it was an amazing the trial, now you have a polio is a set of national attention. The president has been a polio victim. You have the nations schoolchildren added what else raising times. Everybody is trying to find a vaccine. Everybody knows that theres going to be a trial. But its not a little human tropic there have been some small human trials before then in places like homes for children with disabilities, and prisons, et cetera. But the real trial, the one that anyone thinks of now is the 1954 trial. May be explained for the audience the scope of this trial. So this was probably one of the biggest trials in the history of medicine. Certainly in the United States. It was conducted solely in children, first, second and third graders at 211 sites around the United States, and over 1. 5 million children participate in this trial. Thats astronomical. They were actually two trials going on at the same time. The major trial was children were randomized between just a placebo or the vaccine and it was a double blinded so no one knew who got what. Amazing, housewives read this topic a with the ones responsible for randomization in determining who got what and collecting the data. Betty lee still just goggles my mind. The second part of the trial because oconnor had to some of the states they could do it that way, everybody in the second grade got the vaccine in those towns and they were compared to the first grade and third graders in terms of incidents a polio. Thats what happened in my hometown so i knew i got the vaccine. It was an incredible trial. And carried out magnificently. I just had this picture of francis and his team up statistics gatherers picking up these cards being sent in from all over the country assembling the data, analyzing it for months. There were no computers. This was all handwritten the step coming into ann arbor. And they select april 121955 to announce the result of the trial, which is a significant day for another reason. That was at the death of fdr. Francis said i selected that day because they give you a choice of five days and i was the longest want to give you more time to do the analysis. That sounds like francis. All the naysayers said no, it was for publicity. And they said salk chose that date for sure because he wanted the publicity. And salk had nothing t to do with it a compliment for a bunch of stuff that wasnt his fault. Ann arbor, michigan, everyone was paying attention. What was francis going to announce . This was a marvelous section of the book w