Table Case

For our team assignment, we were to research a current event that relates to the weekly course objectives and discussion questions for the week. We were to also explain how the current event applies weekly objectives and concepts discussed in our weekly discussion questions. The current event that our team researched is regarding a child cancer cluster that has affected the residents of a small town in Clyde, Ohio. The two articles that were researched by our team are from highly reliable sources, and they are NBC News.Com and SFGate.Com. Both of the articles can be tied to this week's discussion questions; in particular discussion question 1 which talks about externality.

An externality is an effect of a purchase or use decision by one set of parties on others who did not have a choice and whose interests were not taken into account. In this case, 35 children have been suddenly diagnosed with different forms of cancer and the epidemic is unknown. Whirlpool Corporation has a nearby factory and is suspected of being the primary cause of the cancer cluster because it is said in one of the articles that Whirlpool factories use a chemical called benzaldehyde as a solvent in paint and porcelain coating and this chemical if released from within the factory's smoke stacks could have caused the children to become sick with the cancer. Although much research is being conducted to find the definitive cause of the cancer cluster, at this time the articles state there is not yet a conclusive discovery of the root cause of the cancer cluster in Clyde, Ohio.