Monday, October 28, 2013

Polluted Water Interferes With Drug That Combats Parasitic Scourge



Yeager, Ashley. "Polluted Water Interferes with Drug That Combats Parasitic Scourge." Science News. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Oct. 2013.

             In the article, Polluted Water Interferes With Drug That Combats Parasitic Scourge, by Ashley Yeager it talks about how water that is contaminated with arsenic maybe blocking the effectiveness of a drug that doctors use deal with leishmaniasis.  For those of you who don’t know what leishmaniasis is it is a deadly parasitic scourge that is spread by sand flies. 
            Alan Fairlamb of the University of Dundee in Scotland and colleagues saw that there was a resistance to antimony- based treatments in regions where there was arsenic- laced water.  A region of the world where this water is commonly found is India.  Arsenic is a poisonous chemical often used in herbicides and pesticides.  Fairlamb and his colleagues conducted an experiment to see if the antimony-based treatments were the true reason as to why the drug was not effective.   In this experiment scientist gave mice the contaminated drinking water filled with arsenic and then gave them Lesihmania parasites.  Next the scientists moved the parasites in a second group of mice that had also drank the contaminated arsenic water. Some of those mice got an antimony –based treatment, Pentostam.  Finally it was proven that the parasites in the treated mice made them resistant to the drug.  So this proves that arsenic contamination could contribute to the ineffectiveness of one out of the four drugs doctors use the treat lesihmaniasis.
            I thought this article was very informative.  The plus side to this article was that is gave many facts.  The downside to it was that is didn’t give that much detail so at some points while reading it, was hard to understand.   It was short which made me never get bored while I was reading.  From reading this article I now know that when I travel to certain countries I have to be careful when drinking their water. 

5 comments:

  1. I enjoyed reading Caroline’s review. One thing that I think she did especially well was how much detail she gave on the parasites. She gave a good amount of background detail so that the rest of the review was easier to understand. I also liked how she constructed her sentences – they were simple but detailed and easy to read. Also, I liked how in the end, Caroline connected what she learned in the article to her own life.
    One thing that I think Caroline could have done better in writing her review was that she could have given more information on the location of this issue. She mentioned India, but I was wondering whether or not this issue is occurring in other parts of the world. I also would’ve liked to know how this connects to our lives in the United States, besides just to be careful when drinking water while traveling to different countries.
    I was very impressed on how well Caroline seemed to understand the topic. She used scientific names, instead of just saying “the parasite” and “the drug”. From this review, I learned how dangerous it is to drink water that is contaminated and that it can lead to people having diseases that can’t be cured by some medicines. Overall, I really liked reading Caroline’s review.

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  2. I liked this review because it was concise and to the point. It was detailed but not enough to spoil the whole article. She Did not generalize or use opinion in her article summary which I thought was good because it limits the tendency to get off topic.
    I also liked how you used textual evidence to support your ideas. I di not like how you did not paraphrase the textual evidence. It sort of sounded like a textbook, and something the author might not say. It would also be good if you had explained what the parasitic scourge does to you. One aspect that had impressed me when I read this summary was that polluted water is hindering the performance of the drug that helps to cure Leshmaniasis.

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  3. Caroline's review was very descriptive. She chose a topic that most people would not know about. Therefore it is interesting to read because we have not heard about before in our lives. Another thing she did well was she gave some background to the article and gave her view on the article. It is always good to let the reader know what you think of the article so we know if you have a negative view or your views are positive. Lastly Caroline explained the experiment that was performed so we were not only informed of the problem that was not happening but how scientists are trying to solve it.
    One thing Caroline could have expanded on was how this problem may affect us humans or just affect our lives in some way. This could be more interesting instead of seeing what the pesticide does to mice. Another thing Caroline could have improved was the words. She used many words that were big and I couldn't understand, she tried to define them but used more words that I didn't understand. It makes it hard for the reader to follow the review if they are trying to figure out what the words mean.
    I was very impressed that Caroline chose this article and understood what it was talking about. She used big vocabulary words and seemed to understand what the author was talking about. I learned what can happen if something drinks polluted water and we should be more conscientious of what we throw in the waters. I think Caroline did a good job writing this review.

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  4. I think that Caroline did a good job on this review. One thing I liked about this was that she defined words for people who did not know what the word meant, so that the people who are reading would understand what is going on in the article, like some terms that she mentioned. Another thing, I think Caroline did well in this art5icle was that she gave us a good amount of information, which helped me to understand the basics, and the main idea about this article. I also liked how she used simple language, which made it easier to understand what was going on, and the problems that this issue is causing.
    Even though Caroline did a good job, I think that she could still improve it in some ways. One way how she could improve would be that she could add in more details like whether there are any amounts of deaths, or people getting sick. That could open people’s eyes even more. Another thing that I think she could improve would be that she could develop what she learnt from this the article a bit more. She could have maybe told us about how she felt, or maybe even describe the idea about her being careful when drinking water.
    When I read this article, I was shocked, because this is a serious and dangerous situation. This really opened my eyes on how drinking water is getting dangerous in specific countries, which can be very difficult for people. I hope they can get a find a way to make this situation to come to an end.

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  5. I think Caroline did a very good job at reviewing this article. I liked how she tried to explain the tough terminology. I also felt that she expressed her view very clearly, and did a good job of describing why this mattered to humans. This was a very good review that was understandable and provided sufficient information.
    There were a few things that she could have done better with. First, she didn’t have a very detailed summary; her summary paragraph was basically a definition and a sentence about the article. She included the summary in her paragraph about the relationship of this to humans which became somewhat confusing. Also, there were a few basic spelling, and punctuation mistakes that should have been fixed.
    One thing I learned from this article is what Leishmaniasis is and that arsenic was in water. I had no prior knowledge about anything in this article, and this review taught me a lot.

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