Disease Trend. Some Examples Tuberculosis Sarah Eucalano's

¶ … disease trend. Some examples Tuberculosis Sarah Eucalano's article that appeared in the Badger Herald, "Bird flu studies to resume shortly" details the research efforts of the international community towards the bird flu epidemic. This work attempts to identify the reasons why research into this field was abandoned, and why it is attempting to recrudesce. It alludes to the seriousness of this particular illness, and makes a plethora of references to the international research community's efforts to counteract some of the negative effects of this virus.

However, the article makes no claims regarding the treatment of the disease. This rather egregious omission is considerably understandable, of course, due to the fact that research on this particular virus had been quiescent for "more than a year" (Eucalano, 2013). At this point, treatment options for this particular virus are still being studied -- or rather, the study of treatment options is just now resuming.

The article only alludes to the need for treatment options -- a fact which is evinced by the lethalness of this virus which the author said was responsible for killing ferrets that researchers in the Netherlands inoculated with it (Eucalano, 2013). The reference to the Dutch researchers is indicative of the magnitude of the bird flu virus. It is due to the seriousness of this particular strain of the flu that research was suspended in the first place.

Eucalano's article examines the research of this virus primarily at the University of Wisconsin, which was merely one of many research facilities around the world that was exploring options regarding the nature of the bird flu. Nonetheless, the article alludes to the fact that the "self-imposed" (Eucalano, 2013) moratorium at the university of Wisconsin merely mirrored an international trend, and that research was postponed all around the world. The article is somewhat ambiguous regarding the explanation for the lengthy pause in research that took place.

In order to properly deconstruct that reason, it is necessary to state that the author primarily focuses on the research of the University of Wisconsin which, along with certain Dutch researchers, incurred the most notoriety for the work it performed into the nature of the bird flu. On the one hand, there were governmental implications about the nature of the research that needed to be identified and resolve.

According to a research compliance specialist at Wisconsin's Office of Biological safety (Rebecca Moritz), "The United States government has made a list of bacteria, viruses and toxins that need to be registered with the government" and that "certain government bodies regulate all the entities that uses these agents" (Eucalano, 2013). The article implies that the bird flu was one of the substances that needed to be registered with the government, and that one of the reasons research on this virus stopped was to obtain governmental compliance on a domestic level.

This explanation ties into another key point that the article made, that at least in the United States, research was abandoned due to the formulation of formal regulations regarding work on the bird flu. The author states that the recent publication of research guidelines in Science Magazine as completed by the National Institute of Health coincides with the revival of interest in the topic domestically. This information is somewhat at odds with Moritz's statement that the University voluntarily decided to stop working on the virus.

Interestingly enough, while the article merely suggests that the University of Wisconsin may resume research on the bird flu, it does state that research has "started" in other parts of the world (Eucalano, 2013). This allusion to the global perspective of research on the bird flu is also another one of the reasons that the author claims was responsible for the temporary cessation of work on the subject.

The general public decried acts of research at the University of Wisconsin as well as in the Netherlands that was based on animal testing. Researchers claimed that involving animals, and ferrets in particular, helped them to glean a fair amount of insight into how this particular virus is transmitted. Eucalano implies that testing on animals was viewed as unethical by some members of the public, and which may have contributed to the respite from research on the subject.

"People questioned what was the benefit of this type of research," said Moritz, who maintained.