George Daskalakis 2/25/15
Chemistry 9H D Even Mr.Ippolito
Grady, Denise. "Researchers Call for More Study of Anesthesia’s Risks to Brains of Young
Children." The New York Times. The New York Times, 25 Feb. 2015. Web. 25 Feb. 2015.
In the article, Researchers Call for More Study of Anesthesia Risks to Brains of Young Children, by Denise Grady, explains the risk of children, specifically before four years of age, are at risk after having anesthesia for sedation in a medical surgery. This is a potential concern for young children getting anesthesia, but it has not yet been proven on humans. Several tests have been performed on monkeys showing that anesthesia can kill brain cells, cause behavioral problems, and diminish learning and memory. But, this was evident in the lab monkeys, but not in human life. Dr. Randall P. Flick said, “On the one hand, we don’t want to overstate the risk, because we don’t know what the risk is, if there is a risk...On the other hand, we want to make people aware of the risk because we feel we have a duty to do so.” The main focus of this article is to inform people who have either have infants who have received anesthesia or people who received it at a young age, without alarming them.
The reason I picked this article because I have received anesthesia twice in my life, once when I was 4 months old, another time when I was 6, both for medical procedures. When I first saw the headline and I immediately thought to myself, “Could this affect me?” Then as read through the article and saw the affects it could have on a child, and was sure I have never exhibited those side effects. Even though my surgeries about 10-15 years ago, I still wanted to make sure that I was safe and the anesthesia and no effects on me. Also, I chose this article because there are many young kids who have received anesthesia. The article states that about a million children under the age of 4 have had surgery with anesthesia. Wow! That is an alarming statistic and many children can be affected by this.
Overall, I thought the writing style of the article was well done, I just have a few critiques on the actual context of the article. At first, I seemed engaged in the article, wanting to read more and see what the anesthesia can do to a young child. But all of a sudden, the article said that nothing has been proven yet, honestly, that was a little disappointing. I was expecting parents of young kids experiencing the effects to speak out, BUT NO HUMANS HAVE YET TO EXHIBIT THESE SYMPTOMS. That was a huge let down and took away the excitement I had going into reading this article. Otherwise, it was a great article, and I hope to learn more about the effects of anesthesia on children.
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