AW Argument Essay: Inoculation Against Cow Flu
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23 Jan 2021, 17:38
Hello. Could someone please look at my essay to tell me what score I could realistically get? Thank you.
The prompt:
Many lives might be saved if inoculations against cow flu were routinely administered to all people in areas where the disease is detected. However, since there is a small possibility that a person will die as a result of the inoculations, we cannot permit inoculations against cow flu to be routinely administered.
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
The response:
The argument being made in the passage is that the inoculations against cow flu are too dangerous to be routinely administered. However, the text does not provide sufficient information to adequately access this argument. Certain data needs to be taken into consideration before one can make a decision regarding this matter.
First of all, it is crucial to find out the exact likelihood of a person dying after taking the vaccine. The passage mentions a "small" possibility, but just how small is it? This inoculations would have to be tested on a certain amount of subjects, so that we can see how ma y of them actually die after taking it. A death percentage of something like 20% (still technically the minority, so "a small possibility") would strengthen the argument. But if it turned out that only about 0.1% of the people involved died, that would make the argument questionable at the very least. However, certain other evidence would have to be examined to truly dismiss it.
The next step should be a thorough examination and analysis of the causes of death of those who died after taking the vaccine, and the circumstances around it. What is their medical history? Did they have any other potential lethal diseases? Were any specific unusual symptoms noticed in their bodies after getting the inoculation? The answers to these questions could be detrimental to the argument, as it could very well turn out that the deaths were not caused by the inoculations in the first place, but rather by some pre-existing health problems.
Another important piece of evidence to consider is the statistics regarding the severity of the epidemic. We would have to know just how widespread it is and what is the death rate. If, for example, it turned out that ten thousand people die every day, than taking a small risk by routinely administering the vaccines would be justified, as even if a small portion of people dies, many more would be saved. However, if, say, less than a hundred dies daily, then the risk is much more serious and it would probably be wiser to wait for a safer vaccine to be developed.
Overall, in order to reasonably evaluate the argument presented, it is necessary to determine the chance of a person dying from the inoculation, find out whether it is truly the inoculation that is causing it, and analyze just how severe the epidemic is.
