The death of Jonas Salk, in June 1995, was reported in major news media world-wide, and his vaccine against polio was everywhere remembered. In the Pocono Record, an obscure newspaper serving the mountainous area of northeastern Pennsylvania, Salk was remembered with fondness by two disparate local people. Merrill Baylor, a sevenyear old girl in 1954, had been a test subject in the pivotal clinical trial of the Salk polio vaccine. G. Willard Webster, a biologics production engineer, remembered working with Salk on an experimental vaccine––not for polio, but for influenza (1).

Caesar would find few to agree with his preference for fat men in twenty-first century America. Obesity has become a subject of great concern among the public and the medical profession, as it is said to have reached epidemic proportions in the United States. As a known risk factor for diabetes, hypertension, coronary artery disease, gall bladder disease, and sleep apnea, obesity is indirectly responsible for a great deal of illness and mortality (1). And even more associations between obesity and adverse conditions are being reported. One recent study finds that an obese woman’s chance of becoming pregnant decreases as her Body Mass Index (BMI) increases (2). Another reports that overweight or obese adults are 50% more likely to have asthma than normal weight adults (3).

Pray for the welfare of government; since were it not for the fear of government; men would swallow each other alive.