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Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient Albert Bruce Sabin
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Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient Albert Bruce Sabin
ALBERT BRUCE SABIN
Awarded by
President Ronald Reagan
May 12, 1986
When, as a boy, Albert Bruce Sabin came to the United States from Russia, no one could have known that he would number among the most prominent immigrants of our century. From an early age Sabin devoted his life to medicine, and by the 1950's his research had resulted in a breakthrough. In the years since the Sabin vaccine has helped to make dramatic advances against the scourge of poliomyelitis.
Albert Bruce Sabin
Lieutenant Colonel, United States Army
Medical Pioneer
Albert Sabin (left) and Jonas Salk (center) meeting with Basil O’Connor of the March of Dimes in 1961 Courtesy of March of Dimes
Some of the thousands of children who received free vaccine in the weeks following the announcement, waiting in segregated lines Courtesy of Memphis Commercial Appeal.
From the early 1900s, researchers pursued two different kinds of polio vaccine. One used inactivated (killed) viruses. The other kind used live but attenuated, or weakened, virus. Jonas Salk was the leading proponent of the killed virus and Albert Sabin became the foremost proponent of the attenuated virus approach.
From a contemporary news report:
A legend of modern medicine and local resident for many years, died at Georgetown University Medical Center, March 4, 1993. Buried Monday March 8, 1993. He was 86.
His oral polio vaccine saved millions from crippling disease or death, and he now rests in Section 3 in Arlington National Cemetery, near Dr Walter Reed, whose work in Panama conquered Yellow Fever. He also worked in the Army, although his breakthrough work on polio came later.
It is estimated that during past 21 years his vaccine has prevented about 5 million cases of paralytic polio and 500,000 deaths. Polio-myelitis, technical name of the disease, is also known as infantile paralysis, as most of its victims were children.
Born 1906 in Bialystok, Poland, he emigrated to the US, speaking no English. He learned enough to finish high school in New York City, then went on to undergraduate and medical studies at New York University. He worked in polio research at Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research until the outbreak of World War II. At that time, he joined US Army where between 1943-46 served with Board of Investigation of Epidemic Diseases of Office of the Surgeon General, with special missions in the Middle East, Africa, Sicily, Okinawa and the Philippines. He isolated viruses for sand fly fever, found a vaccine for dengue fever and developed vaccine against Japanese encephalitis.
He returned to polio research after war, continuing a 30-year association with the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and Children's Hospital Research Foundation. He developed his vaccine by the mid 1950s. At the time, disease was one of the most feared, becoming highly contagious during summer months. In 1952 there were 21,000 reported cases, many requiring artificial breathing aid of so-called "iron lung." It has virtually disappeared since mass immunizations began in early 1960s with his live-virus vaccine, which was administered orally, on lump of sugar.
Jonas Salk had already produced an injectable vaccine, and the two became rivals. Salk described his rival's death to a Washington Post staff writer as "a great loss. His contribution toward the control of polio will endure long into the future."
During 1970 served successively as president of the Weizmann Institute of Science, and full-time expert consultant to National Cancer Institute in 1974. Then he became distinguished research professor of biomedicine at the Medical University of South Carolina from 1974 to 1982, and senior expert consultant at Fogarty International Center for Advanced Studies in Health Sciences of National Institutes of Health from 1984 to 1986.
Since his 80th birthday, has worked part-time at Fogarty International Center as senior medical science advisor and as a lecturer in US and abroad. He was a member of National Academy of Sciences, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Association of American Physicians, the American Pediatric Society and many other professional societies throughout the world. He also has served as a member of many advisory committees on medical research, including panels advising National Institutes of Health, US Armed Forces, World Health Organization, and the Pan American Health Organization.
He received more than 40 honorary degrees from US and foreign universities and is recipient of numerous awards including US National Medal of Science, Presidential Medal of Freedom , Medal of Liberty and Order of Friendship Among Peoples, awarded by Presidium of Supreme Soviet of the USSR. When the National Medal of Science was presented to him in 1971 by the President of US, the citation reads: "For numerous fundamental contributions to the understanding of viruses and viral diseases, in development of the vaccine which has eliminated poliomyelitis as major threat to human health."
What child of the 1950s could not be grateful to Dr. Sabin for his work on our behalf. -- MRP
Gravesite Photos Courtesy of Ron Williams
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Medal History
