peter salk. you andhey, pedro, hope your family are doing well. dr. salk, such a pleasure to talk to you. i am 73, so you know the era i grew up in. i was in elementary school in the 1950's, and i remember standing in line to get that, and i did not smile. i have a good friend to this day, he did get the disease and still has a slight limp from it. for thethe question, gentle good of the public -- by the way, i will be first in line when i can get that vaccine, i do not mind a bit. but i know it is very controversial. should the vaccine be mandatory? i do not think i had a say-so back when i was a kid standing in line. i think thatow, there are a couple different phases. let's deal with the coronavirus vaccine now. we are in a phase where there is not going to be enough supply to vaccinate everyone. it will be continue to be rolled out 1, 2, three, however many come along, in stages. so people who want a vaccine they are in -- if the right group, high-priority, and so on, they will be able to take advantage of that. people who do not want the vaccine o

salk willng up, peter join us, the son of jonas salk.was talk about the polio vaccine and parallels today with the covid vaccine. that is coming up podcastn to c-span's "the weekly." we are talking to a purdue university political scientist about congress' use of lame-duck sessions to tackle big-ticket legislation. find it where you get your podcasts. c-span for our continuing coverage of the transition of power as president-elect joe biden moves closer to the presidency. with the electoral college votes cast from states across the country, joint is on january 6 live at 1:00 p.m. eastern for the joint session of congress to count the votes and declare the winner for president and vice president. finally, at noon on generate 20, the inauguration of the 46th president of the united states. our live coverage begins at 7:00 a.m. eastern. from the statehouse congress to the white house, watch it all live on c-span, c-span.org, or listen using the free c-span radio app. >> " washington journal" continues. host: joining us as dr. peter salk, pr

peter salk, president of the jonas salk legacy foundation, here to talk about the history of vaccines, concerning the polio vaccine and how it applies today. dr. salk, thanks so much for your time. guest: pleasure to be here. host: we are at a point with covid where we have two vaccines being rolled out and administrated. is there historical parallel from when the distribution of the polio vaccine took place? guest: it is a little bit separated

salk used a vaccine that used dead polio virus. he first tested it on himself, wife and family and his 9-year-old son peter. have been confident in his work? >> totally. he and his colleagues carely defined the procedures to inactivate the virus. >> the experiments on peter and lucy and a million other school children proved the vaccine effective. still at the time there was no infrastructure for distribution. in late 1954 the federal government stepped in and authorizized 5 labs to rush the vaccine countrywide. unfortunately one lab rushed it too much and ended up including live virus that got people sick. >> that is correct. the laboratory was cutter labs at berkeley, california. kids were paralyzed by the vaccine. >> he is the author of polio. he said oversight quickly restored public trust in the vaccine. >> the fda hired thousands of people to work on fda safety. >> he calls it the greatest medical mobilization in american history. as for lucy and peter they are proud of their role in diminishing a deadly disease. >> we learned from the scourge of polio that a vaccine, a simple shot could help make it