The American Innovation $1 Coin program honors the innovators who have made what America is all about. The program started this year and will run till 2033. Every year the U.S. mint will release 4 coins. The coins will represent each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia and the five U. S. territories – Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands. These will depict the ‘Statue of Liberty’ design on the obverse and a new reverse design for each coin every year to honor an innovation from each state/territory.

The 2nd Innovation coin in the series this year is from Pennsylvania and it honors the invention of the Polio vaccine by Dr. Jonas Salk and his team of researchers.

Dr. Jonas Salk – Medical Researcher

Polio, a dreadful disease that’s been active for centuries, has caused death and paralysis among millions. In the 19th century it was called with different names; Infantile Spinal Paralysis, Dental Paralysis, Essential Paralysis of Children, Regressive Paralysis, Myelitis of the Anterior Horns, Tephromyelitis and Paralysis of the Morning. Confirmed reports of Polio as an epidemic in the U.S.A. is available to us from the 1840’s.

The first few decades of the 20th century saw millions affected by them and most of them, children, under the age of three. From 1916, every summer Polio outbreak was seen in one state or the other in U.S.A. It reached a head in 1949 in the U.S.A when nearly 3000 deaths and 42,173 cases were reported. Different treatment methods were thought of; iron lung, passive immunotherapy, Kenny regimen. But none prevented polio.

From 1935, vaccines were considered, but either partial or no results were seen until Jonas Salk and his team came up with the Inactivated Poliovirus Vaccine (IPV). It had a dose of killed poliovirus. Massive immunization camps were done in 1957 after he got the license and the number of affected got reduced from 58,000 to 5600 cases. Eight years after the success of Salk’s vaccine, Albert Sabin came up with the Oral Polio vaccine (OPV) that had live but weakened virus. After getting the license for OPV, mass immunization began in earnest all over the world, in both the developed and developing countries.

The Polio Virus vaccine from Salk and Sabin revolutionized the medical field in many ways and improved lives a thousand-fold. People understood the value of sanitization, and rehabilitation. Philanthropy and disability rights movements gained importance and the experience helped to tackle public health issues.

2019 American Innovation $1 coin design

The 2019 American Innovation $1 coin from Pennsylvania honors the invention of polio vaccine by Dr. Jonas Salk and his team of researchers from the University of Pittsburgh. The reverse depicts an artist’s conception of the poliovirus at three different levels of magnification along with the silhouette of a period microscope, representing the extensive research conducted to develop a cure for polio. The inscriptions are “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,” “POLIO VACCINE,” “1953,” and “PENNSYLVANIA.”

The 2019 coin has the ‘Statue of Liberty’ design in its obverse that is common to all the coins that would be released in the coming years.

This entry was posted on November 01, 2019 by lavanya kannan