#17 - An antidote for chicken pox has been developed, but

[Johnclem]

Hi powerscore,
Can someone please explain why E is the correct answer here . ?
I got rid of it because the stimulus said the drug has no side effect. I mean if it's causing a deadlier form of Chickenpox I really fail to see how that's not a side effect . I thought this question was totally unfair.
I chose D as resolving the paradox. As I felt D allows for the " danger " and no "side efffect " to be true .

Thanks
John

[David Boyle]

Hi powerscore,
Can someone please explain why E is the correct answer here . ?
I got rid of it because the stimulus said the drug has no side effect. I mean if it's causing a deadlier form of Chickenpox I really fail to see how that's not a side effect . I thought this question was totally unfair.
I chose D as resolving the paradox. As I felt D allows for the " danger " and no "side efffect " to be true .

Thanks
John

Hello John,

Answer D, "When misused by taking larger than prescribed doses, the drug can be fatal", is pretty general and can refer to any drug. (Or even food or water: eating 500 pounds of anything, or drinking 500 gallons of water, at one sitting, may not be good for your health!) So it may not be the optimal answer here.
Answer E is kind of dirty, arguably, but it is what it is. Maybe "side effect" means something immediate in your body (like a headache), as opposed to a more long-range thing such as deadlier forms of chicken pox.

Hope this helps,
David

[silent7706]

Hi,

Can someone elaborate on why (D) is wrong? Some suggests that it is because the scope is shifted from widespread use to misuse. In addition, how would (D) weather if it reads, "When taking larger than prescribed doses, the drug can be fatal"?

Thanks in advance.

[James Finch]

Hi Silent,

There is the issue you noticed with (D) about the dosage--it requires the assumption that people would actually take higher-than-prescribed doses of it. Then there is another issue, in that its scope is only of "can be fatal" as opposed to "is fatal," which means we'd still need another assumption that anything that can be fatal is automatically dangerous. Swimming in the ocean can be fatal, drinking a beer can be fatal, walking across a street can be fatal, but none of these are what I would describe as dangerous activities. This means that (D) requires two extra assumptions to work.

(E) works off the bat by making use of the drug a direct cause of more dangerous forms of chicken pox, thus directly allowing the drug to be both very effective without side effects and yet ultimately dangerous.

Hope this clears things up!