Commemorating a milestone: The 70th anniversary of the polio vaccine announcement
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Welcome to a special live episode of Population Healthy, recorded in front of an enthusiastic audience at the University of Michigan. We mark a historic moment—70 years since the game-changing announcement of the polio vaccine's success on April 12, 1955, right here in Ann Arbor, Michigan, at Rackham Auditorium, led by the groundbreaking work of Thomas Francis, Jr., and Jonas Salk.
Join us as we reflect on that pivotal day and the global joy and relief that followed, with Matt Boulton, senior associate dean for global public health at Michigan Public Health, and Natasha Bagdasarian, Chief Medical Executive for the State of Michigan, who explore the development and impact of Salk’s polio vaccine and its ongoing relevance.
In this episode
Matthew L. Boulton
Senior Associate Dean for Global Public Health
Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health
Matt Boulton is a professor of Epidemiology at Michigan Public Health and associate director of the University of Michigan’s Center for Global Health Equity. Prior to joining the University of Michigan, he spent 16 years in public health practice as a local health department medical director for four health departments and later as Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm’s chief medical executive and state epidemiologist, where he was lead physician/epidemiologist for the state health department. His research interests are in global health, global vaccine equity, childhood vaccinations and vaccine-preventable diseases, preventive medicine, and infectious disease epidemiology in low- and middle-income countries.
Natasha Bagdasarian, MD, MPH ‘01
Chief Medical Executive for the State of Michigan
Adjunct Professor of Epidemiology at Michigan Public Health
Natasha Bagdasarian has been the chief medical executive for the State of Michigan since 2021. In this role she provides overall medical guidance for the State of Michigan as a member of the governor’s cabinet. She is board certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases and is a Fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. Dr. Bagdasarian earned her MPH in Hospital and Molecular Epidemiology in 2001 from the University of Michigan School of Public Health, where she now also serves as an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Epidemiology.
Resources
Episode transcript
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Transcript coming soon.