Oluwaseyitan Rufai                                                                                                                      1.

Amoeba the Real-Life Zombie

 

In Emily Baumgaertner article Titled A Silver Bullet Against the Brain-Eating Amoeba she discusses the extremely rare “brain eating amoeba”, and how scientists may have found the cure to an incurable infection. Emily Baumgaertner begins this article by emphasizing the severity of the infection stating that the current survival rate of this inflection is 2.7% and only four people have survived after being infected with the amoeba. Once the amoeba reaches the brain, their feeding causes swelling of the brain and nearby tissue which leads to headache like symptoms. Most individuals contract the amoeba from swimming in warm water which is the ideal environment for the species. Individuals who have been affected by the brain eating amoeba usually experience headaches causing doctors to not realize the severity of the infection and in turn, misdiagnosing the patient. Emily then goes into discussing the issue with finding a cure for the disease and why it is currently incurable. The main issue that scientists face when trying to find a  cure for this disease is finding  a drug that is able to reach the right side of the brain without being destroyed by the body. Their solution to this problem was too attach seizure medicine to silver which would be able to reach the brain without being destroyed. She then ends the article emphasizing the fact that the drug is still in its trial phase and has not been tested on humans yet.

The authors purpose of writing this article was to try to bring attention to this development in medicine. The writing is objective the author stuck to only introducing facts and not personal opinions in the writing. The science is presented in a very basic manor in an

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attempt to be understandable for readers who are not educated on the topic. She compares the science too many common day things to make the article seem more interesting and relatable. The author referred to the brain eating amoeba as monsters on multiple occasions taking away from the professionalism of the article. The author did include information that was not a part of the scholarly article like the example she gave of how most people contract the brain eating amoeba. The example she gave was of a ten-year-old boy who goes swimming in the lake during summer and contracts it from the lake. She uses a ten-year-old boy to make the article seem more interesting and important. The intended audience of this article was the everyday reader who was scrolling through the New York Times website. The title of this article makes it clear that views were the first concern, including the phrase “A Silver Bullet” to gain readers interest in the article so they would click on it. Another thing the author did that showed views were the main concern was she never mentioned the actual name of the brain eating amoeba. She either referred to them as monsters or brain eating amoeba never giving the true name which is Naegleria fowleri. She also gave the definition of any word that the average reader would not understand in an attempt to retain the reader’s attention. Even though this article was based on a scientific topic the author of the article wrote with viewers in mind. She spent very little time on the science of the disease and spent most of her time trying to get the readers to relate to what she was saying. The title of the article is A Silver Bullet Against the Brain-Eating Amoeba however she never really goes into detail on how the cure works which was the important part.

 

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Work Cited

 

Baumgaertner, Emily. “A Silver Bullet Against the Brain-Eating Amoeba?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 14 Jan. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/01/14/health/brain-eating-amoeba-silver.html.