Evaluation of New York Times Stories

For this project, I had to go exploring through the different sections of The New York Times and find two articles that really caught my eye.  The two topics that I went exploring through were Health and in Science.

Health: "When the Water Turned Brown" Jan. 23, 2016

woodleywonderworks. "water is unfit for human consumption".  11/20/09 via Flicker.
Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License 

1. Main Characters

     Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, a local pediatrician in Flint, Michigan, was not originally seen as the protagonist of this unfortunate disaster.  Instead, she was viewed as the hysterical doctor who made the local and state government look bad.  However, Dr. Hanna-Attisha ended up saving the town of Flint, Michigan.  Had she not brought up the fact at a news conference that the tap water was not healthy and was leading to an increase in lead levels in the blood of the Flint children, residents of this small town may not have started paying attention to the smell and the look of the tap water.  Unfortunately, the Department of Health and Human Services said that Dr. Hanna- Attisha's findings were not found in the tests that the state did.  So the state made the pediatrician look insane while the state covered up their mistake of not testing the water correctly.  

2.  The Setting 

      This upsetting health issue happened in the small town of Flint, Michigan around September 2015.  It is a town that has dwindled down from 195,000 in 1960 to a mere 100,000 people.  With this extreme decline in population, the city decided that it would make more sense to save money and start using the water from Lake Huron instead of from Detroit resources. However, a pipe had to be built so in the meantime, Flint residents would be getting water from the Flint River.  The big problem with this is that Flint used to be a giant automobile manufacturing site.  It was where the General Motors engine plant had been.  So, the Flint River had been the place to throw all of the waste from the cars.  

     Since so many jobs in the car industry had been rid of, the town has become a small sort of ghost town.  One mother of 4 kids, Tammy Loren, lives off of federal disability payments and food stamps.  This became an issue when she realized that one of her sons had a rash and itchy skin on his neck that she noticed came from showering with the tap water.  She tried to only buy bottled water however, a lot of the time, there was just not enough money to have clean water and food to eat.  For the less fortunate families, the contaminated water was a major issue that wasn't being solved but was affecting the lives of family members who couldn't do anything about it.  

Michian Municipial League. "Flint Vehicle City Arches in Downtown Flint During Back to the Bricks 2013".
08/2013 via Flicker. Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License.  

                

3.   The Dilemma

    The main issue with the Flint water pollution was that the state was trying their best to do everything they could to prove that nothing was wrong with the water.  When E. coli was found in the water, instead of switching water sources, the state put more chemicals in the water to rid of the bacteria which in turn caused more health problems because TTHMs (chemical compounds that can lead to health issues after long exposure) became present.  Gerald Ambrose, the state appointed medical emergency chair of the City Council of Flint said that the water met the federal and state standards and that the Detroit water wouldn't be any better it would just cost much more.  After many more tests done by the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, as well as Virginia Tech, the results came out to match what Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha had found.  The lead contents in the water had severely increased over the years but somehow the state had managed to only get results that they wanted.  It was discovered that the city only retested the water in houses that already had lower lead content than others.  This way, the houses with a lot of lead content wouldn't be accounted for.  

     The results of this fiasco are that the residents of Flint, especially Tammy Loren, no longer trusts the people that work for the city or the state.  She no longer feels safe and she is constantly worried about the health of her four kids.  The people are furious that the city didn't try hard enough to help the health of the residents and all that they seemed to care about was money.  

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Science: "El Salvador's Advice on Zika: Don't Have Babies" Jan. 25, 2016

1. The Main Character (or lack thereof) 

Lon&Queta.  "Mujer y Hija". 08/11/07 via Flicker.
Creative Commons Non-Commercial License

    In this article, the women of El Salvador and the government are really the "characters" of the story.  The women of El Salvador have mixed views on not getting pregnant for two years.  Some of the women say that it is just the government trying to cut down on the dense population, while others say that there are other reasons why waiting a couple years isn't a bad idea.  The government is a bit iffy on the whole subject.  Dr. Eduardo Espinoza, El Salvador's vice minister of health, mentioned that government's initial plan did not involve halting pregnancy for two years.  However, the World Health Organization strongly discourages the so-called "pregnancy ban".

2.  The Setting
     The setting in this article is El Salvador.  However, the article describes El Salvador to be the most violent country in the Western Hemisphere.  So, women already are worried about becoming pregnant because of the violence and the gangs that are ever-present in their lives and they don't want their babies to be born in those circumstances.  Another issue that the women of El Salvador worry about is the extreme poverty of their country.  Zika seems to be less worrisome for the potential mothers which makes the government's job a bit easier.  However, El Salvador is a heavily Roman Catholic country.  So the government can't impose a law saying that they have to use contraception and stop having babies if that is against their religion.  But the government really has no choice but to bring up the situation with the archbishop because it is important to the health of the other El Salvadorian people and the possible future babies.
   The main reason that El Salvador is in the predicament that they are, is because it is an underdeveloped country with poor sewage systems.  El Salvador is also prone to having a wet climate.  With these two factors, mosquitos are more likely to nest there.  This is why Zika has become so prevalent.

3.  The Dilemma

Hadley Collins, Frank.  "Close-up of a mosquito feeding on blood".
2006 via FreeStock Photo.  Public Domain License.  

     The reason why El Salvador wants to halt pregnancy for two years is all due to the fact that mosquitos are running rampant through the wet and dirty streets of the impoverished country.  The problem is that mosquitos are extremely hard to get rid of when the condition that the country is in is the absolute perfect spot for them to live and nest.  So, while the mosquito problem hopefully dies down and the Zika disease is no longer such a threat to the El Salvadorian population, women can start to become pregnant again.  But there are some women who don't agree with that government issued policy, and there are some who are more worried about the other dangerous factors for the lives of their future babies than the disease that leads to brain damage and a small skull.