The article I chose is called, "Chance of Getting Ill May be Minuscule", written by Liz Kowalczyk on May 3, 2010 and it appeared in the Boston Globe. It can be found at http://www.boston.com/news/health/articles/2010/05/03/chance_of_getting_ill_may_be_minuscule/
This article has to do with the recent water issue and the boil-water order that was put in place. The article says how health officials stated that there was little risk of people contracting intestinal illness. It explains that the boil-water order remains because there is essentially some pond water that is flowing through the pipes. They were unsure if the bacteria levels were safe and therefore wanted to take precautionary measures.
It was explained in the article that no outbreaks of intestinal illness from contaminated water have been detected. Water-borne diseases have a long incubation period and it may take five to seven days to get sick from the contaminated water, so they did not expect to see any illnesses caused from this problem at this point anyway. Giardia or cryptosporidium are the most common pathogens found in pond water that would possibly cause people to get sick if they drank the water. The water contaminated with these pathogens would cause diarrhea, stomach pain and fever.
The article also mentioned that people with a weak immune system are the ones who should take the most caution and that is who the people from the department of health are most worried about. Without a strong immune system, if they were to drink contaminated water, they would have a harder time fighting off the disease.
I thought this article was very interesting because it was relatable to our class while also being a current issue which we (Reading) were actually affected by. I feel like I could really relate to the article because it was something that I was affected by and I was nervous about using the water. This article provided some relief because it talked about how there was very little chance of getting sick from the water. It related to the class because it talked about certain diseases that someone could possibly contract if they drank contaminated water. It reminded me of the cholera unit because that dealt with contaminated water. After learning about that, I knew that these diseases affected the intestinal tract and would result in diarrhea and a few other symptoms.
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This is a perfect blog post looking at our current water-less crisis. This article is really nice because it settles some wary feelings of those in Reading. Everyone is freaking out so much about not drinking contaminated water that it is really freaking me out. This article was nice to read because it shows how although it was important for our local community to be cautious, things may have been a little bit blown out of proportion.
ReplyDeleteAs Jenny said I thought this was a perfect topic to talk about because it was so recent and impacted all of our classmates lives. We all had to adjust to the bacteria outbreak in the water as an inconvenience. We got a very tiny taste of what it's like to live without clean water.
ReplyDeleteI really like this article because I think that many people during the boil water order went a little crazy and over reacted. I think that the CDC did the right thing by making people boil the water and such but I think that it is pretty crazy that people were rioting in the stores. I think that the people of the government should have come out and said that it's really not as bad as everyone thinks and not to freak out! Also many people thought that you would die if you drank the water... or at least that was how they were acting when really you would just get a stomach ache at the most.
ReplyDeletethis is a cool article. I laughed when i heard that there really wasn't anything wrong with the water in the first place. I thought it was funny that everyone freaked out over nothing. We are however very lucky that nothing very serious got into the water or many people could have been seriously sick. After learning all year about all of the deadly kinds of diseases that plague the world today we could have been in really trouble. Thank goodness nothing seriously bad got into the water.
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