The Metaphorical Viruses, by Linda Pendleton
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the
mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.”
~
Albert Einstein
Dr. Jonas Salk giving his son, Peter, the first polio vaccine
Dr.
Jonas Salk, the son of Russian-Jewish immigrants, and a world-renowned scientist
and medical researcher, and developer of the polio vaccine, touched millions of
lives. Today as we are facing another
world pandemic, one cannot help but think about the past. Some of us are old enough to remember the
fear of the worldwide epidemic of poliomyelitis during the 1940s and 1950s, and
many of us knew someone afflicted. How
well we remember the iron lungs, the braces, the crippled limbs, the hot
summers when the virus obtained a foothold, the closed public swimming pools,
the fear of houseflies and dirty hands, Sister Kenny and her physical therapy
program—but most of all, we remember 1955 and Jonas Salk and his vaccine.
And
how thankful we were, not only as children but also as parents who could then ensure
protection for our children from this dreaded, acute, infectious disease, the
virus particularly invasive of children.
In the early days, before the term polio was coined, it was known as
infantile paralysis. Salk’s research and
perfection of the vaccine perhaps saved millions from the crippling and/or
fatal effects of the virus.
In
1960, Dr. Salk founded the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California,
and it was there he later researched for a vaccine for HIV and AIDS. He said if he found a vaccine for HIV, he would
test it on himself as he did the polio vaccine.
In
March of 1993, my husband, Don Pendleton, and I had the privilege of hearing seventy-eight-year-old
Jonas Salk lecture at the Harvey
Mudd College
(Claremont Colleges). Dr. Salk was a recipient
of the Wright Prize, given to scientists and engineers who achieve excellence
in interdisciplinary work or research. The
doctor spent several days on the Harvey Mudd campus, sharing his experiences
and ideas with the students. The topic of his lecture was “AIDS: The Metaphoric Disease of Our Time.” After giving us some history on HIV, he told
us that “the idea of a cure in the sense of eradication of the virus itself in
an already infected individual is highly unlikely,” but went on to say that
strategies can be used to “keep the virus-infected cells under control so that
the symptom-free period can be prolonged, hopefully for the life of the
individual.”
Considering
the pandemic situation that mankind was facing at that time, those were hopeful
words indeed. But what I found most
fascinating in his lecture was how he correlated the actions of the HIV
retrovirus with human behavior and the world problems of our time resulting
from our “political behavior.” He said,
“The patterns seen in HIV, are like patterns, in a way, that are seen in humans
and human behavior and relationships. The humans, we know, invade, usurp, and destroy,
and therefore, metaphorically, I imagine that they have a similar effect on the
defense mechanisms. The humans behave
like retrovirus in a way; they produce cancer-like effects and autoimmune-like
effects. The autoimmune-like effects—war—war to protect one’s self, to attack
another—that, in turn, self-destruct.
And so by thinking about the human condition and thinking in a way that’s
homologous to a biological phenomenon, you begin to recognize that maybe it is
useful to consider the use of biological metaphors—the epistemology biology,
the epistemology of science, in understanding how nature works—toward an
understanding of how the human side
of nature works.”
True
scientific theories all begin as inspiration.
Through the microscope, Jonas Salk studied the ecosystem of the cell and
also retroviruses, which are dependent on a living cell for reproduction—and
have the ability to impress their memory on the cell and forever change
it. But Jonas Salk peered beyond the finite
into the infinite with a holistic view that sees not only the big picture but
many of the infinitesimal forces behind it.
What
I discovered in listening to Jonas Salk’s talk, and greeting him and his wife, Françoise
Gilot Salk, afterward, was a kind, warm man, who gave me insight into the
common thread through which his genius flowed, and that was the holistic
blending of the creative forces of science and artistic expression, touched
with love and healing.
Dr,
Jonas Salk refused a patent for his work, stating that this vaccine belonged to
the people and that to patent it would be like “patenting the Sun.”
I
wonder what Dr. Jonas Salk would be saying today about the latest pandemic and
the patterns existing within the COVID19 virus.
In today’s strained society, and political upheaval, it appears to be a
more volatile society than it was in the 1980s.
And we are faced with a novel virus that is extremely contagious and
transmittable without symptoms, and that puts others at risk. What I find somewhat lacking in today’s
attitudes is self-responsibility and responsibility for others. Our current political behavior is such that an
absence of leadership and responsibility has enhanced the challenging issues of
getting through the pandemic. We do need
a vaccine to get beyond this. Back to
normal? No, it’s like a death—we may
return to a new normal, in time. It will be up to us to build again that way of
life that we hope to have.
Dr.
Jonas Salk’s son, Peter Salk, M.D., who decades ago was the first to receive
the polio vaccine along with his whole family, is president of the Jonas Salk
Legacy Foundation in La Jolla, and a Professor and specialist in Infectious
Diseases. This is what he had to say in
an interview on the Best of Allegheny
Radio Show April 23, 2020, regarding COVID19.
“We
need a vaccine to make us really secure that we’ve got this under control. We need treatment for people who do get
infected. But I can’t emphasize enough
the importance at this moment in time of the social distancing. That has allowed us to put a lid on things
for the moment as long as we continue that, and only to back-off of that in a
very careful and measured fashion as the caseload diminishes, as the hospitals
move out of the risk of being overwhelmed, when we have the appropriate testing
both in terms of who is currently infected, even if you’re not showing symptoms,
and who has already been infected and may
have recovered, or not even known they were sick and have antibodies in their blood,
having the ability to have enough people to trace contact if someone does come down
with the illness, who they have been in contact with, get them quarantined and
tested, and so on. We really need to use
all the tools at our disposal, and right now, this social distancing and the
ability to develop tracking and testing, those are the key things at this point,
until we have the security of a vaccine.”
Let’s
hope that this novel coronavirus does not mutate and slow down the search for a
vaccine. I agree with Dr. Peter Salk that we do need the security of a vaccine
for COVID19. The ongoing and sad high
loss of life worldwide is very regrettable.
In the meantime, we can do our best to take self-responsibility and
social distance, and wear our masks. Do others a favor and protect them from
you, as they reciprocate. That is the significance
of community and healing.
~Linda
Pendleton
May,
2020
©Copyright
2020 by Linda Pendleton
