Answer: How to Use Science? Arsenic and Drinking Water

A. INCORRECT CHOICE

Feedback: Although mice are often used to test for the possible effects of chemicals and drugs on humans, they are far from being a perfect model for us. In this case, data derived by examining people drinking water from the same source all of their lives provide better evidence of a health effect than can any animal study.

Which choice balances public safety and enormously costly remediation efforts?

B. INCORRECT CHOICE

Feedback: Governments will always have limited resources to use for protecting human health. They therefore must conduct a cost-benefit analysis to distribute resources in a way that improves the most lives. In practice, this means that only exposure to arsenic levels above a certain danger level will be prevented.

C. CORRECT CHOICE

Feedback: In practice this is what makes the most sense, even though it means that a small number of people are likely to get bladder cancer from a very low level of arsenic in their water.

D. INCORRECT CHOICE

Feedback: Nothing is certain about the future of disease treatment; moreover, it is much better to prevent a disease, if possible, than to try to cure a disease after it occurs.

Which choice balances public safety and enormously costly remediation efforts?


Courtesy of Norton Publishing’s Smartwork assessment platform for Essential Cell Biology, 6th edition.