Lyme Disease Studies

Dr. Maria Diuk-Wasser of the Yale School of Public Health and her colleagues spent over three years running pieces of cloth through forests collecting ticks. With the information that they gathered, they were able to create a map that shows which areas of the country are most affected by Lyme Disease. This disease is transmitted by the bite of a deer tick. Although antibiotics usually cure people, some victims develop arthritis, meningitis, and other serious illnesses. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that the latest data available is that there were 30,000 cases of Lyme Disease in 2010. They also say that "more then 90 percent of those cases were in 12 states: CT, DE, ME, MD, MA, MN, NJ, NH, NY, PA, VA, and WI" (huffingtonpost.com). This data coincides with the map below very well. 

The author of this article, Holly Ramer, provides some good background information on Lyme disease, stating that is was originally named after a small Connecticut town. However, I think she does not place this information in the appropriate or best place. She places this information right in the middle of the passage. I am not sure of the technique, but I think it would have been better if she discussed Lyme disease towards the beginning so that the reader could then understand the rest of the article. Maybe she wanted to add suspense. She does make good use of logos, though, when she says "About 1 in 5 ticks collected were infected- more than researchers expected- and that percentage was fairly constant across geographic areas" (huffingtonpost.com). Overall, I am glad that I read this article. 


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