The article that I read, Doctors Mystified by Paralysis in Dozens of Children, talks about mysterious cases of paralysis that are believed to be linked to a respiratory virus that has sickened thousands of young children in the last couple of months. The doctors call this sickness enterovirus 68, and though they suggest that it is the reason for the paralysis of dozens of children, a legitimate conclusion has not yet been made. The author also mentioned how this rare and random outbreak of enterovirus 68 is causing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to compile a group of data linked to the disease, so that it may be prevented. (The article noted in the fifth paragraph, that the mother of a four year old boy with the disease told how her son, who used to climb the jungle gyms started having trouble climbing onto the couch.) Not to worry though, Mark A. Pallansch, the director of the division of viral disease at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says, “...it looks like whatever the chances are of getting this syndrome are less than one in a million.”
This article hits pretty close to the heart because anyone under the age of 21 is able to get it. I imagined what would happen if I got the disease and had to stop thinking about it because it made me very sad. If I was paralyzed, it would mean that I wouldn’t be able to play the sports I love, do fun activities with my friends, or even walk or write on my own (depending on where I would be paralyzed). Though it is rare, if doctors find out what is causing this disease, it could allow the public to be informed and precautious towards it.This article seemed to serve the purpose of informing me, and I’m sure others, about a disease that I wasn’t even aware existed.
In my opinion, I felt that this article was written very very well. The author gave a fantastic summary with lots of details in pretty much every sentence. No important information was missing and I had no questions about any part of the writing. There wasn’t a time when I was reading in which I didn’t understand what the disease was and its effect on children. I felt that the author was also very informative because he gave a few quotes for experts. This backed up all of the explanations that he gave and made me feel that this information is reliable. I also noticed that the author seemed to know a lot about what he was talking about and knew how to correctly portray the information in an understandable way to the reader.
Louis, Catherine Saint. "Doctors Mystified by Paralysis in Dozens of Children." The New York Times. The New York Times, 28 Oct. 2014. Web. 30 Oct. 2014.
I thought Hadley did an excellent job on her report of this article. First of all, she chose a very interesting topic that I, as well as probably most of my classmates would like to read about, considering how it could affect us. Hadley also wove quotes from the article seamlessly into her report, and also made a great connection back to how she would feel if she or someone she knew got the disease. However, I think she could have maybe talked about the origins of the disease a little more (if it had been written about in the article, of course). I think she also could have concluded her whole report a little more smoothly, although none of these problems greatly affected the overall tone of her writing. Overall, I thought it was very informative and I'm glad I read about this disease, because as she said, I didn't even know it existed, though I am reassure that the chances of getting the syndrome are "less than one in a million".
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