The Blaisdell Blog

On April 26, 1954 the Salk polio vaccine field trials began.   It was the first time a “double blind” trial was used for a drug.   The now standard double blind study (where neither the patient or the doctor know who is getting the real medicine as opposed to a placebo) involved almost 2 million children.   It began at Franklin Sherman Elementary School, an integrated school in McLean, Virginia.   The expanded study involved children from the United States, Canada and Finland.             I think the trials conducted in an integrated school reflect the largesse and truly humanitarian thinking of Dr. Jonas Salk himself.   The son of immigrant-Russian Ashkenazi Jews, Salk knew what mindless prejudice and institutionalized bias looked and felt like.   Salk was a risk taker.   He used a dead virus when common thinking assumed a live but weakened virus.   He tried the vaccine for the first time on himself and his son.   When it proved successful he refused to patent the vaccine, say

Today President Trump stumbled on an idea of which I approve.   He wants to do something (not just talk about doing something) to revive our waning steel industry.   And he used the right words to prompt this action, “national security.”   My concern for our lack of a robust heavy manufacturing began several years ago when I toured the Chief Joseph Dam.               In 2012 we visited Grand Coulee Dam and explored the Dry Falls area south of Coulee City.   How can you pass up the Ice Age saga of Lake Missoula’s ice dam breaking and a lake the size of a Great Lake draining in 48 hours, scouring out the great coulee and carving out a path for the beautiful Columbia River?   But, the surprise came a few days later when we took a wrong turn and headed toward Chief Joseph Dam 51 miles down river from Grand Coulee.               Chief Joseph Dam, named for the great Nez Perce leader, is the 2 nd largest electricity producer in the United States.   It is a beautiful dam with th