Diagnose Yourself
Essay Preview: Diagnose Yourself
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Summary:
This article is about the development of a device that will tell you if you have an STD or not. “Earlier this month researchers in the U.K. received a $6.4 million grant to develop a test for sexually transmitted diseases that would allow people to place a urine sample on a USB-like plug and get instant results by inserting it into their cell phone or computer (Johannah Cornblatt, 1).” The device is an at home test that you can probably purchase at a drugstore and the test wont be in stores till about 7 to 10 years. Just so you know you wouldnt actually be peeing on your laptop or cell phone its a completely separate device. The article also talks about how some of the at home tests like pregnancy tests that you buy at the drugstore are not reliable. “Ancient Egyptians relied on a pregnancy test that was roughly 70 percent accurate: if a woman urinated on grain seeds and they grew–thanks to high levels of estrogen and progesterone in her urine–she was probably pregnant (Johannah Cornblatt).” Today, at home pregnancy test have improve their accuracy to almost 99 percent of the time but other at home tests arent as pregnancy ones. Over time stores have started to sell DNA and STD test directly to the buyers. “Walgreens dropped its plan to sell an over-the-counter genetic test in June, and Rite Aid is now under fire for putting a test for Chlamydia and gonorrhea on its shelves without FDA clearance (Johannah Cornblatt, 1).” The FDA rarely ever approve of at home test that arent at minimum 95 percent accurate, have easy instructions, and get shipped off to a lab to be tested. Some researchers say that you if it has an FDA approved stamp you shouldnt always trust the test. Some of them are not very reliable.
Critique:
This article was super easy to understand and other provided way more information on at home tests then just the product that they are starting to research and develop. This article definitely made me think, why buy a drugstore product that is 95% or less than having a sample sent of to a lab having a 100% chance of knowing the right information. The thoughts were put together very well and it didnt talk about just the same thing the whole time but other relative topics. The article also had a very nice flow to it and didnt scatter all over the place. I liked that it had all the extra information about at home drug tests and some of them not being reliable. I found interesting the part about how ancient Egyptians found out if they were pregnant or not. The author used a lot of percents to show how accurate the tests are and if they are reliable. Im not so sure if the article title goes with the article or not because it only talks about the device they are developing in the 1st paragraph and in the other 3 it just talks about if tests are reliable and the FDA.