The Truth About SARS
People in general are both fascinated and paranoid of the onset of new infectious diseases. While films such as "Outbreak" are smash hits at the box office, when an actual disease becomes apparent people often react with a kind of mass hysteria. Last year, a new illness reared its evil head. While the name "SARS" has become fairly well-known, the actual facts behind the illness are not as widely talked about.
SARS is an acronym for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. The illness usually first becomes evident with a temperature above 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit, general malaise, and body aches. This adds to the difficulty of identifying SARS; the general signs of the illness are so similar to more common ailments such as influenza and pneumonia. After a period of two to seven days, SARS patients usually develop a dry cough that eventually escalates to the point where insufficient oxygen is reaching the blood stream. In roughly ten to twenty percent of cases, infected persons will require mechanical ventilation. This two to seven day period is generally considered the incubation period (#1).
The treatment of SARS remains a gray area. Currently all treatments are fairly similar to treatments given to patients ailing from serious community acquired atypical pneumonia. Health care professionals are experimenting with new medications to see if other methods are more effective; however, a concrete treatment is still unknown. The antiviral medications oseltamivir and ribarivirin have been used, often in conjunction with steroids. However, there have been no controlled clinical trials using these medications, so their rates of success still remain virtually unknown < "1">1)yahoo.com
While an absolute and final...
... middle of paper ...
...ls to single out SARS to any one cause, thus not really proving anything specific to the syndrome. This is highly unsettling to someone who previously put all her faith in doctors and scientists. Never before had I questioned such esteemed professionals, but now feel that by not questioning them I'll never be aware of the actual truth.
Perhaps someday the root causes of SARS will be known. As with all ailments, there was always a time when certain things that seem obvious now were unknowns. However, until that day comes, humanity will continue to rely on the observations of scientists and doctors to diagnose and treat SARS.
References
1)yahoo.com, comprehensive SARS info site
http://dir.yahoo.com/Health/centers/allergy/710.html
2) href="http://www.who.int/csr/don/2003_09_24/en/">world health organzation, the World Health Organization official site
After reading The Panic Virus, it became evident that this book can in fact be extremely useful. Perhaps people prefer not to educate themselves about vaccination on the grounds that medical language can be dry, confusing, and uninteresting. Perhaps they don’t wish to listen to medical professionals due to the fact that they feel that they have an agenda to protect themselves. Whatever the reason, the need for Mnookin’s The Panic Virus is to provide a strong argument for pro-vaccination that is given by a member of the reader’s peers. Mnookin is not a medical professional, and has no personal gain from defending the medical field; therefore, his argument is ‘by the people, for the people’. Mnookin’s tone throughout the novel also makes The Panic Virus a page-turner. Mnookin uses a tone that is at times formal and factual and at other times snide and informal, engaging the reader with every
Imagine yourself living in a bathtub for 25 years and you could do absolutely nothing about it. Wild orcas, better known as killer whales have been captured to entertain audiences world wide at aquariums. The most popular location being Sea World. Growing up in Miami, I could not control my excitement when it came time to go visit Lolita the killer whale at the Miami Seaquarium. To be able to see such an amazing creature right in front of me was mind blowing. How amazing is it that you can be face or face with an animal of that size? Well, I wish I'd known then what I know now. In the following paragraphs, I will start off with the difference between the life of a wild orca in the wild versus their life in captivity and I will end with reasons as to why families should not participate and give their time and money to these companies who commit such inhumane acts. I hope that towards the end of this essay, you will change your view on wild orcas and not look at them as just an animal that is used for entertainment purposes.
An orca, more commonly known as a killer whale, is currently one of the largest marine animals held in captivity. Countless arguments are being made, supporting and opposing captivity of orcas to be exploited as circus animals in theme parks around the world. Throughout recent history, Sea World trainers have been injured and killed by the orcas and the whales, and the whales themselves have been observed as severely depressed. If Sea World releases the whales, they would undergo an immense economic downfall and the whales would be too weak to survive in the wild if they were freed. Since the first Sea World park opened in San Diego, California in 1964, common questions have arose concerning the well-being of orcas in captivity, the dangers of humans training them, the physical capability of whales theoretically being released, and the psychological differences between whales living in the wild versus whales living in Sea World's confinement.
Almost no one on Earth has any immunity at all to this virus, which makes ordinary vaccines useless against it. The sudden spread of the virus into Europe foreshadows an epidemic development that could be worldwide. Ultimately, there is no way to protect ourselves against epidemics. They will keep disappearing and coming back in new forms.
"Stories of Captiv Killer Whales." A Whale of a Business. PBS, n.d. Web. 19 Nov. 2013.
With forty-three dead (Bekoff, 2013) and countless others living in torment, it’s a wonder that humans haven’t decided to free the orca whales that are held captive in amusement parks all over the world. Marine biologists, psychologists, and other specialists in the field are beginning to recognize a kind of psychosis (Bekoff, 2013) that sets in on the jailed cetaceans. With symptoms that mimic those of humans suffering from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (Bradshaw, 2010), there is no denying that these underwater inmates are sick. But instead of setting the innocent free, the people in positions of power, the ones who really have the ability to make a change in public opinion about cetaceans in captivity, are choosing profit over “vitality” (Clark, 2014). But not all cetaceans live lives of torment and torture. Cetaceans in the wild seem to combine intelligence and emotion, creating familial structures that endure over hundreds of years. Possibly more interesting than the psychological theory behind aggression in captive orca whales is theory behind healthy, wild orcas. The massive mammals, when living in the wild, exhibit behavior which proves their nickname as killers to be totally false. Cetaceans process and feel at a level close to that of humans.
Many states and colonies across the globe issued detailed sets of directives to their residents on what exactly they should do if they come into contact with the illness. One such example is the directive issued by T.W.H. Holmes, the Secretary of the Victoria Board of Public Health in Australia. The directive details the symptoms, complications, treatment, and prevention of the disease. Something very common during the outbreak of any pandemic is the use of quarantines to separate the sick and the healthy. In fact, that is the first order for prevention of disease in T.W.H. Holme...
Currently, live whale performances have become a main attraction for tourists. When visitors are at SeaWorld, they only see what is right in front of their eyes and do not care or want to know about the complications the whales go through just to make people smile. The documentary “Blackfish” exposes the truth about killer whales, their habits, and why they behave in the manner that they do when in captivity. The inhumane treatment of whales in captivity causes negative effects on the animals which, in turn, affects the humans who care for them.
The latest animal rights issue to hit the public is a whale of a controversy. For decades, the public has enjoyed visiting SeaWorld and taking in mesmerizing displays of aquatic performance by orcas, the largest species of dolphins, and their trainers. Recent events have stirred up a media uproar over the safety of these creatures and their trainers. Much of what the public knows about the maltreatment of these creatures comes from a documentary released in 2013 called “Blackfish”. The breeding and captivity of killer whales for entertainment purposes poses a threat not only to the whales, but also the trainers who interact with them.
Researchers were unable to identify what caused Polio to spread. It seemed to be more common in cleaner environments, unlike other diseases. Polio was found more often in the middle class rather than the poor. One reason that the polio virus was so difficult to discover, was because it wasn’t a bacteria and because most microscopes couldn’t detect the microbial agent. Another problem that created difficulties for scientists, was that the researchers couldn’t discover how the virus got
The precursor to modern forensic art has its start in Alphonse Bertillon’s anthropometry. “Mr. Alphonse Bertillon, (born April 23, 1853, Paris—died Feb. 13, 1914, Münsterlingen, Switz.), chief of criminal identification for the Paris police (from 1880) who developed an identification system known as anthropometry, or the Bertillon system, that came into wide use in France and other countries.” (Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 2013) His system of body measurements, while replaced later, paved the way for what we today call forensic art. Still in the 1800s forensic art was used for wanted posters, postmortem drawings (there is a famous one of Jack the Ripper’s fourth victim Catherine Eddowes) and courtroom sketching, such as one of Lizzie Borden. Forensic art progressed in the 1900s, early 1900s it was the use of an updated drawing from old photos, sadly it was a highly romanticized image that flattered the suspect, that helped lead to the arrest of Dr. Crippen who was found guilty of the murder of his wife. Then in the
Killer whales are in danger when they are in captivity. When they are kept in their small cages, they have no where to go or run and hide when they sense fear or tension. While in the wild they have thousands of miles to escape incase tension builds up with another tribe of orcas (killer whales). Here’s something to think about, Why should killer whales stay in captivity after you hear about the violence they are doing to one another and innocent humans? In the movie “Blackfish” it shows trainers working with the marine mammals, and it shows the violence and the aggravation in the movie also. People don't understand that killer whales need to be where they belong because living in an environment that the orcas have no clue about can be dangerous for them. Orcas that live in th...
Francis, David R. “Communities of Killer Whales.” The Christian Science Monitor. National Newspapers Core, 15
Thesis Statement: The deadly virus Ebola is killing thousands of innocent people world wide, but there are some simple steps that are being taken to prevent this coming tide of death.
Murray, M.2006. The epidemiology of SARS. In SARS in China: Prelude to pandemic?, ed. A. Kleinman and J. Watson, 17-30. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.