Past President Dennis Zell called the meeting to order at 12:15.
This Week: Bob Doerr led the Pledge of Allegiance.
Invocation: Lage Anderson recited a meditation from the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius from about A.D. 170. In his meditation, Marcus Aurelius recommended that we start each day in this way:
“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive—to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.”
Guests of the club: There were no guests today.
Mark Lucchesi shared with us the February and March birthdays, Club anniversaries, and wedding anniversaries. Of particular note: Mark and his lovely wife Kathy celebrated their 50
th wedding anniversary last month, and
Marilyn Orr and her husband
Richard also celebrated their 50
th wedding anniversary in February.
Cheryl Fama and her husband Dennis are just behind them at 46 years in March. That’s some staying power! Happy birthday and congratulations to all celebrants!
Jennifer Pence reminded the group that Rotary is hosting Burlingame’s Got Talent at the Community Center on April 30. The website will be up and running soon. Save the date!
Jay Miller announced that he is the new coordinator for the community college scholarship program. Burlingame Rotary is currently providing financial support to 11 college students.
Jerry Winges let us know that he is giving a free architecture talk at the Burlingame Woman’s Club at 6 p.m. on Monday, March 6. Your fearless editor will be at a City Council meeting, but hopefully some of you can attend what promises to be a great program.
Jennifer Pence and Scott Williams played two truths and a lie. Scott told us:
1) In a single day, he saw two sunrises and two sunsets.
2) As a pilot, he was taking off from a place he’d never been before. He saw a bridge ahead of him and decided to go underneath instead of over. Somehow, he didn’t get into any trouble for that move.
3) On a recent trip to Switzerland, he was on a train that went through the longest, deepest railroad tunnel, which is over 34 miles long and 8,000 feet below the mountaintop.
One Rotarian guessed the lie—Scott did not ride the train in Switzerland. He did fly under the bridge, which seems very sketchy!
Cary Koh announced that he has one extra ticket each to two concerts in Berkeley, one on Sunday and one next Wednesday. First-come, first-served.
Program: Bob Doerr introduced today’s speaker, Steve Wright. Steve is Chief of Staff and District Governor 5150 Nominee and is also a member of the Rotary Club of Pacifica. Steve’s presentation was entitled, “Polio – Again???”. The presentation included a very interesting history of polio.
In 1985, there were 350,000 new cases worldwide (the number would have been 650,000 if vaccines weren’t in use)
In 2022, there were only 30 cases for the entire year.
There are 0 cases so far this year!
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt is the person most responsible for Rotary becoming involved in fighting polio. He developed polio at age 39 in 1921. In 1933, he became President. In 1938, he founded the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (NFIP), which was subsequently renamed the March of Dimes.
In 1943, the NFIP gave a grant to the US Army to study polio in Africa. Albert Sabin was one of the people doing the research. (Remember that name….)
Jonas Salk, a doctor and researcher, was convinced that using a “killed polio virus” was the best approach to developing a vaccine. In 1952/53, he began human testing, including on himself, his wife, and kids. He also tested his vaccine on institutionalized mentally impaired patients. In 1954, he conducted a field trial on 1.8 million children, which was the largest field trial in history. The results showed the “killed virus” vaccine was 80-90% effective and safe. Salk’s vaccine went into production and distribution. Sadly, there was an error at the lab producing the vaccine, and it was made with a virus that was still alive. 220,000 doses of this faulty vaccine were administered, leading to 164 children permanently paralyzed and 11 killed.
Albert Sabin (remember him?) felt that using a live polio virus in a vaccine was a better approach than using a killed virus. He tested his version of the vaccine on himself, his wife, research associates, and volunteer prisoners at a penitentiary.
In the 1950s and 1960s, there were conflicts between Sabin and Salk and their different approaches to the vaccine. Salk developed his version of the vaccine before Sabin did, but Sabin continued to believe in the use of a live virus.
The US didn’t have the appetite to try Sabin’s live vaccine, and Salk’s vaccine was working, so why change to something else. In 1957, Sabin convinced the USSR to field test his vaccine. More than 100 million people were tested, and the vaccine was shown to be almost as safe as Salk’s vaccine.
Hungary was the first country to conduct mass vaccinations using Sabin’s vaccine. In 1961, the US Public Health Service approved Sabin’s oral vaccine. Cuba was the first country to launch a polio eradication campaign. In 1960, putting the vaccine in sugar cubes became one of the methods for distributing the vaccine. This method was popularized by the Mary Poppins song “Spoonful of Sugar”.
A final researcher involved with the polio research was Isabel Morgan. She discovered that there were three different strains of polio. She named the first strain Brunhilde after a female chimpanzee in the testing lab. The second was named Lansing, and the third was named Leo. Morgan was the first scientist to successfully use the killed virus for polio inoculation in monkeys.
The efforts of Sabin, Salk, and Morgan led to great strides towards polio eradication. The number of circulating vaccine derived polio virus cases (which occur when local immunity to the polio virus is low enough to allow prolonged transmission of the original weakened virus in the oral polio vaccine) was down to 724 cases worldwide in 2022. There have been only three cases so far in 2023. Since Sept. 15, 2022, there have been no wild polio cases (or cases not due to the vaccine).
Remarkably, Rotary has helped immunize over two billion people against polio. What an accomplishment!
Past President Dennis closed out the meeting at 1:30 after thanking Steve and presenting him with a
certificate noting that Burlingame Rotary is donating polio doses in Steve’s name.
