March of Dimes
March of Dimes is a US charity that today aims to improve the health of newborns. The organization was founded in 1938 as the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis on the initiative of Franklin D. Roosevelt to find cures and preventive agents for polio . The organization has been called the March of Dimes since 1979 and is reminiscent of one of its most successful campaigns.
history
Polio was an endemic disease until around the middle of the 19th century. However, epidemic-like outbreaks increased in the course of the 19th century. The Otter Valley polio epidemic in 1894 was the first polio epidemic scientifically described for the United States. Numerous small epidemics followed. In June 1916, another major polio epidemic broke out in the eastern United States, killing over 6,000 people. For the city of New York alone, over 8,900 cases of illness were reported, with only the paralytic form being registered in each case. About 27 percent of the sick died; 80 percent of them were children under the age of five.
In the United States, regional epidemics followed every five to six years, with sporadic cases occurring at intervals. Young Franklin D. Roosevelt was one of the victims in the summer of 1921. It is not excluded today that Franklin D. Roosevelt suffered from Guillain-Barré syndrome ; he himself and his doctors assumed polio until the end of his life. Roosevelt, who was very active in the fight against polio, founded the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis on January 3, 1938 . The aim of this foundation was to raise money for research and for the care of polio victims. Due to Franklin D. Roosevelt's connections, public figures soon became involved. The name March of Dimes was proposed by the entertainer Eddie Cantor , who borrowed this title from the well-known American news program The March of Times .
The use of “ dime ” (10-cent coin) was intended to express that everyone can take part in the fight against polio, no matter how small their donation. Eddie Cantor's appeal was joined by other prominent figures in the US entertainment industry such as Jack Benny , Bing Crosby , Rudy Vallee and Edgar Bergen . The appeal was so successful that the White House post office could barely handle the number of letters. The White House received around 5,000 letters a day at the time - more than 150,000 letters were received on the third day after the appeal.
For the first 17 years, March of Dimes assisted scientists in researching the cause of the disease and developing cures for polio. The urgency to find a cure for this disease increased particularly in the years after World War II, when the number of cases of the disease soared. The introduction of virus culture by JF Enders in 1952 led to significant advances in vaccine research , thanks to which Jonas Salk was able to develop an inactivated (dead) vaccine in 1954.
Both JF Enders and Jonas Salk had received significant research funding from the March of Dimes. The attenuated live vaccine developed by Albert Sabin led to major advances in the fight against polio from 1960 onwards. Thanks to the vaccines, the number of polio cases fell from several 100,000 per year to only around 1,000 per year. One of the areas of activity of the March of Dimes organization was the support of polio victims. Many of the sick people were paralyzed and dependent on intensive care. March of Dimes made money available to the families concerned.
From 1958, the March of Dimes (MoD) set another goal: The money raised was to be used to reduce the rate of premature births, deformed infants and infant mortality. Virginia Apgar , a very experienced surgeon and midwife, was vice president for medical affairs at MoD and headed the MoD program for the exploration of 'birth defects' (about: malformations ), its treatment and its prevention.
Current fields of activity
To this day, MoD finances research activities and supports clinics that care for premature babies. MoD has held a March for Babies since 1970 and has raised $ 1.7 billion in donations to date. MoD will award several academic awards , including the 250,000 US dollars doped March of Dimes Prize in Developmental Biology ( Developmental Biology ) and Agnes Higgins Award (nutrition of pregnant women ).
Numerous celebrities support MoD.
The March of Dimes is often cited as an example of an organization that has not dissolved after achieving its original goal and founding reason, but continues its activities in another area. Today's goal of the organization, to improve the health of newborns, is not a finite goal. Charity Navigator rated March of Dimes in 2008 with only one of four possible points. With this assessment, Charity Navigator indicates that other organizations can achieve their goal more efficiently. In 2020, the rating had risen to two out of four points.
Others
In Munich there is the Pfennigparade Foundation . Her name is the German translation of March of Dimes.
supporting documents
literature
- David W. Rose: March of Dimes . Arcadia Publishing, 2003, ISBN 0-7385-1253-2 .
- David M. Oshinsky: Polio: An American Story . Oxford University Press, USA, 2005, ISBN 0-19-530714-3 .
Web links
Footnotes
- ↑ Oshinsky, p. 22
- ^ William H. Helfand , Jan Lazarus and Paul Theerman: "... So That Others May Walk": The March of Dimes . In: American Journal of Public Health . 91, No. 8, August 2001, p. 1190. doi : 10.2105 / AJPH.91.8.1190 . PMC 1446742 (free full text).
- ↑ Oshinsky, p. 54
- ^ Edward Epstein: Polio vaccine's golden anniversary . San Francisco Chronicle . April 12, 2005. Retrieved August 9, 2007.
- ↑ Aylward R: Eradicating polio: today's challenges and tomorrow's legacy . In: Ann Trop Med Parasitol . 100, No. 5-6, 2006, pp. 401-13. doi : 10.1179 / 136485906X97354 . PMID 16899145 .
- ↑ www.marchofdimes.org (2009): March of Dimes Honors 100th Anniversary Of Virginia Apgar
- ↑ www.looktothestars.org/charity/march-of-dimes (accessed April 15, 2018)
- ^ Howard P. Greenwald: Organizations: Management Without Control . Sage Publications, Inc., 2007, ISBN 1-4129-4247-0 , p. 369.
- ^ Charity Navigator Rating - March of Dimes . Retrieved April 8, 2008.