2006 Pulitzer Prize winner. Drawing on newly available papers of Jonas Salk, Albert Sabin, and other key players, Oshinsky paints a portrait of America in the early 1950s, using the widespread panic over polio to shed light on national obsessions and fears.
Tying in the role polio victim FDR played in making the effort a national priority, the precursory scientific developments that aided Salk and Sabin's work, and the ethical dilemmas surrounding human testing, Oshinsky sometimes bogs down in details. But all in all, this is an edifying description of one of the most significant public health successes in U.S. history.
