Your letters for April 28, 2020

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He refused a patent for his work, saying the vaccine belonged to the people and that to patent it would be like “patenting the sun.” Leading drug manufacturers made the vaccine available, and more than 400 million doses were distributed between 1955 and 1962 in the U.S. alone, reducing the cases of polio by 90 per cent. By the end of the century, the polio scare had become a faint memory

Developing the vaccine was a collective effort, from national leadership by president Franklin Roosevelt to those who worked alongside Salk in the lab and the volunteers who rolled up their sleeves to be experimentally inoculated.

Compare this to the anguish and deaths resulting from the erratic and irresponsible behaviour of Donald Trump in the development of a vaccine for the coronavirus.

Anyone supporting his ways or ideas need hope our maker is as forgiving and generous as many or most of his followers preach. (Or as the song goes “I can swear there ain’t no heaven and I pray there ain’t no hell.”)

Larry Deters, Regina