Stop Killing the Good Guys
“Stop killing the good guys” is an article by Aviva Romm, posted on the Huffington Post on 8th January 2015. The article generally talks of antibiotics and their effect on both children and adults today and in the future. The author tries to inform the general public, scientists, and medical professionals on how the overuse or excessive use of medical technology could have adverse effects on the health of all individuals in general. Romm utilizes the famous “The Huffington Post” and employs a writing style to suites, general readers of the article; this can be said to be so based on the fact that the use of language throughout the article seems to address caretakers who include everyone since every individual is a caretaker of themselves and others. Romm is an expert on the topic since she is a professional medical doctor; hence, she is well informed about it. This paper, therefore, tries to briefly explain the structure and strategy used by the author is coming up with the essay and how relevant the article is to the control of antibiotic overuse across the globe.
In the essay, the writer’s thesis is that more is not always better and precisely when it comes to antibiotics. In support of this statement, Romm states that an average child in the United States takes between 10-20 courses of antibiotics before they get to age 18. The reason for this is that most Americans are accustomed to being prescribed antibiotics for their children, assuming that just as the antibiotics are common, the same way they are safe, according to Romm, is not right. She states that the use of antibiotics as foods and medicines has led to two major health problems than include the damage of human microbiome and global antibiotic resistance to severe infections. According to Romm, this awareness has come as a result of learning through the hard way that the overuse of antibiotics is dangerous to the overall health of most children in their adulthood. The beginning of the essay is creating an interest in the topic by choice of the author to first inform the readers of how antibiotics are helpful to the health sector and how their use has helped in reducing the general infant mortality and child death during birth and before birth. This makes the readers get interested in knowing more about antibiotics and more of their impacts.
Some of the main points that support the essay are that antibiotics are good since they help in reducing deaths that result from bacterial infections, the excessive use of antibiotics poses a danger to the health of individuals, in the long run, antibiotics kills or destroys both the good and the harmful bacteria in the human body, and it becomes impossible for the good bacteria to recover in the future. This poses a health problem to individuals; however, people should take steps to control the use of antibiotics. These main supporting points can be identified in every topic sentence in all paragraphs within the essay. All topic sentences try to bring a clear picture of the main supporting points by the author. Romm ensured that the topic sentences are short and brief but still supports the main supporting points clearly and being relevant to the supporting points.
The dominant rhetorical pattern in the essay is argument and persuasion. The reason is that the author raises the evidence that more is not always better. She supports her claim argument using antibiotics, how their overuse poses health problems to the user and describes some of the steps that can help control the overuse of antibiotics. Other rhetorical patterns in the essay are the comparison and contrast of the use of antibiotics. In this how-to rhetorical pattern, the author describes the steps to control the overuse of antibiotics as well as the narration and description rhetorical pattern where the author narrates on why and how antibiotic resistance in the globe is becoming a problem. The author employs data from the centers of disease control and personal experience in the medical field to support the topic and the entire facts and assumptions in the essay. Other sources of information used by the author are books, articles, journals, and websites to support the piece’s thesis.
Romm uses informal language to ensure that the essay is suitable for general readers but uses citations to ensure that its credibility is high. The author uses metaphor in her work when she says, “Stop Killing the Good Guys” which mainly means that people should stop overusing antibiotics since they kill both the good and the harmful bacteria in the human body and the only way to stop the killing of the good bacteria is by controlling the overuse of antibiotics. The author does not express bias since she employs facts and statistics from primary data to support her main points in the essay. The argumentative strategies used by the author include claim statement, appealing to the audience, and persuading people that despite the advantages of using antibiotics resulting from the modern technological advances in the healthcare sector, it also poses long term effects to the users once they are not consumed in a controlled manner.
The author of the essay emphasizes that antibiotics are good since they have helped reduce the problems of infant mortality rates and child death during birth and before birth. However, the excessive use of antibiotics is dangerous since it poses health problems such as the destruction of the human microbiome and increases the global antibiotic resistance to most severe infections. In the article, the author suggests five steps that can be employed to helping in reducing the overuse of antibiotics and hence resolving the issue of global antibiotic resistance.