![While expanding the production and use of the Salk polio vaccine nationally and internationally, Connaught also intensified its research focus on the development of an oral polio vaccine (OPV), using live, but attenuated or weakened, poliovirus strains developed by Dr. Albert Sabin, a virologist based at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. Salk's vaccine built blood immunity, but Sabin’s polio prevention strategy was based on preparing a vaccine that would build immunity in the digestive tract, where the poliovirus naturally replicates. Sabin’s research was thus focused on carefully selecting and cultivating attenuated poliovirus strains in the laboratory through a complex series of tissue cultures which utilized various animal cells, mostly monkey kidney and testicular tissues, in which the virus replicated.[5] But Sabin’s poliovirus strains remained alive, yet weakened and genetically stable to the point that they consistently stimulated immunity without causing disease. The finished vaccine would be easily administered with a spoon, or dropped onto a sugar cube. Once Sabin provided seed samples of his attenuated poliovirus strains, the OPV production process was not as technologically complex as for Salk’s vaccine. They involved more precise and painstaking work with tissue culturing, requiring highly sterile conditions and constant testing of the genetic stability of the attenuated strains. OPV’s advantages include ease of administration, lower cost, longer immunity, and the ability of the vaccine strains to spread in a community and immunize beyond those directly given the vaccine, thus potentially stopping outbreaks. This latter advantage also carried the very low, but real, risk of live vaccine strains reverting to virulence and directly or indirectly causing polio.](https://bittergrounds.com/wp-content/uploads/Albert-Sabin.jpg "Albert-Sabin")
Albert Sabin, polio vaccine creator, was born August 26, 1906, in Bialystok, Poland. His family left Poland in 1921 for the US, where Sabin would become an American citizen in 1930. His oral vaccine helped lead the way to nearly eradicating the virus world wide. Through the early 1950s, polio outbreaks caused such panic and […]
Moldovan Independence Day is celebrated on August 27. Moldova threw off Soviet control in 1991 after a landmark free election in 1990. By August 1991, Modova's parliament adopted the Moldovan Declaration of Independence from the Soviet Union. Two stamps represent Modova's Independence. The first is 30th Anniversary of Declaration of Independence of Moldova […]
On August 28, 1975, Austrian sculptor and graphic artist Fritz Wotruba died. Fritz Wotruba (1907–1975) is considered to be one of the most important European sculptors of the twentieth century. Today he numbers among the “classics” of modern sculpture. Through his continual exhibition presence in Europe and the USA from the 1950s onward, his work […]
Actress Ingrid Bergman was born August 29, 1915 in Stockholm, Sweden and died August 29, 1982 in London, England. ''I have had a wonderful life. I have never regretted what I did. I regret things I didn't do. All my life I've done things at a moment's notice. Those are the things I remember. I […]
On August 30, 1797, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was born in London, England. The daughter of free thinkers and early feminists, Shelley went on to write a science fiction and philosophical masterpiece. She was heavily influenced by both her mother Mary Wollstonecraft's humanist and feminist writings, as well has her father William Godwin's philosophical outlooks on […]
On August 31, 1962, the Caribbean country of Trinidad and Tobago gained independence from the UK. Independence, 60th Anniversary Four stamps: Justice, Education, Health and Agriculture Released in 2022 by Trinidad and Tobago's post office to celebrate the country's independence day. Celebrating 62 years of independence - Trinidad and Tobago Newsday
Sickle Cell Awareness Month begins September 1. TEST EARLY FOR SICKLE CELL Issued in 2004 by the USPS using an original oil painting by artist James Gurney Sickle cell disease (SCD) is an inherited blood disorder in which red blood cells may become sickle-shaped and harden. For a baby to be born with sickle cell […]
Barbara McClintock, Nobel Prize winning geneticist, died September 2, 1992 "Throughout her career, Barbara McClintock studied the cytogenetics of maize, making discoveries so far beyond the understanding of the time that other scientists essentially ignored her work for more than a decade. But she persisted, trusting herself and the evidence under her microscope." The […]
Crypto Fox 1 stamp on souvenir sheet, FDC, cancel, maxi card Designer: Isabella Hutter Release date: September, 2, 2024 Forest Habitat Business Fox 1 souvenir sheet, no perfs 1,700 stamps embossed folder
On September 3, 1810, artist Paul Kane was born. “On my return to Canada from the continent of Europe, where I had passed nearly four years in studying my profession as a painter, I determined to devote whatever talents and proficiency I possessed to the painting of a series of pictures illustrative of the North […]
On September 4, 1957, after Federal courts issued an order sending the Little Rock 9 to Central High, in Little Rock, an angry mob of adults gathered at the school to intimidate and harass the teenagers. National Guard troops were called out to protect the children from the crowd of hysterically, angry white people. “I […]
The Great Fire of London died out on September 5, 1666, after raging 3 days. ...;but, Lord! what sad sight it was by moone-light to see, the whole City almost on fire, that you might see it plain at Woolwich, as if you were by it. Samuel Pepys, writing in his diary Wed. Sept. 5, […]