Saturday, May 3, 2008
New immune treatment may control AIDS virus
I feel this a great article because scientists are letting the public understand that they are making tremendous strides in an effort to try and cure the AIDS virus. This article does show that monkeys are used for testing. This obviously brings up the question of whether animals should be tested or not. I feel in this instance it is crucial to test animals because the AIDS virus is such an awful disease that has affected more than 33 million people since 1980. Its also good because it gives people who have the disease a sense of hope that doctors are trying there very best to try to and get a cure. Although doctors have stated that it has not cured the virus the discovery certainly has controlled it. They are testing it on humans as we speak!!
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This article does a good job summarizing how the AIDs virus breaks down immune systems. A reader does not even need a thorough knowledge of the immune system to gain a general understanding of what is going on with the AIDs virus. Although I do not know much about the immune system, I feel that I understand the concept of CD4 T cells pretty well from reading this article. I now better understand how HIV and AIDs could be so devastating. I knew that both stages of the sexually transmitted infection (STI) cause a slew of physical problems for infected people that eventually accumulate too much (often until the person is too overwhelmed to the point of death). However, I did not realize exactly how this happens. Now, I understand how the STIs inhibit the CD4 T cells from doing their job, preventing all kinds of viruses from seriously harming the body. This article really opened my eyes to th issue, as all great articles should. There is even a URL leading to even more information embedded in the text that the author urges interested readers to check out. I couldn't resist checking out the link for a short while after reading the article :).
This article was a very empowering form of science communication. The title, "New immune treatment may control AIDS virus" catches the eye of the reader right away and is both straightforward and true. I thought that this article did a very good job appealing to several audiences, on a scientific and emotional level. I also thought that the authors did a good job of explaining how the treatment worked altogether. This is such an important topic and I definitely agree with Tom, that even though testing drugs on animals may be a sensitive subject, in a case like this it is imperative. Any news like this is good news, even though it is not a cure, at least it is a step to finding one and gives all of those affected by this disease hope.
I also think this article is written very effectively given how short it is. Aside from the information given, I think this article may do the best job of spurring additional questions and more curiosity. I think there are a lot of things that are not elaborated on and procedures that are not explained scientifically which might enourage other researchers and scientists to investiagte this AIDS treatment.
Science communication has an array of goals and one of the most important goals is to grasp people's attention and stimulate their intellectual curiosity. In its concise presentation, this article provides a lot of information about the nature of this animal testing and the HIV virus, but also keeps things a bit vague and open-ended. I am wondering if this is a scientific and literary tactic to encourage people to do more research, give feedback, and become more involved in this field.
This article conveys scientific and medical information in a very easy way to understand. This allows a good understanding, like Anthony said, without any prior real knowledge of the Aids virus or the immune system. It is crucial nowadays that scientific information like this is portrayed to the audience clearly and effectively. It is also inspiring to hear the leaps and bounds science is making in AIDS research.
I agree that this article gives a clear yet concise description of the effects of HIV as well as adequately describes the proposed treatment as a therapy, not a cure. Moreover, the link to the article goes into further detail explaining how therapies are life-long and the goal is to decrease the side effects with the therapeutic approach. This article reminded me of one of my internships studying an inhibitor drug and did an excellent job, from a communication standpoint, of defining and explaining the function of CD4 T cells I also agree with Tom about the urgency and necessity of testing on animals, particularly since they are using our supposed evolutionary line.
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