Salk was intensely disliked by the medical community, who saw him as operating kind of selfishly. The way that he approached the creation of the vaccine was very unorthodox. He wasn't interested in converting what he saw as an obvious public good into private gain. To me, I think if they're working on something that will create a lot of value for the world, I don't care how selfishly they may seem to act.
Also: why do we habituate to life’s greatest pleasures?