April 12: A Triumph of "Voluntary Effort"

Most Libertarians favor the abolition of The Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Libertarians believe in "the separation of medicine and state."

Unfortunately, far too many Americans believe there is some reason why government must be involved in medicine. "How could the Free Market mobilize the forces necessary to develop a vital life-saving drug if there were no profit involved in its development and sale?"

In 1980, President Jimmy Carter explained how:

April 12 is the 25th anniversary of the field trials of the Salk vaccine, which led to the elimination of massive polio epidemics in this country. In 1955 there were almost 30,000 cases of polio in the United States, while last year there were only 26--16 of them in unvaccinated communities. Through the entire decade of the 1970's, the number of reported cases of polio was less than on any single day in the frightening summer of 1955.

This remarkable accomplishment was possible because the March of Dimes, in one of the most dramatic examples in history of concerted voluntary effort, marshaled the concern and resources of our Nation to help finance the development of the first polio vaccine by Dr. Jonas Salk and conducted the mass field trials necessary to prove its safety and effectiveness.

One of the things that has always set America apart is the willingness of our people to join together to solve their problems, to volunteer their time and effort and resources to help each other and strangers far away.

On this 25th anniversary we acknowledge our debt to all who had a part in one of medical science's greatest achievements-the scientists who first cultured the polio virus, Dr. Salk and the doctors who conducted the field trials, those who continued the work into massive immunization programs, and all the thousands of volunteers who made their work possible.

Public Papers of the Presidents, Jimmy Carter, 1980, p.645

This is Libertarianism at work. It succeeds in every field of human action.