Source of Article : http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa011&articleID=B7713CCF-E7F2-99DF-36298EB8CAD42382&pageNumber=2&catID=9
Title : Fact or Fiction?: Pets Protect Children against Allergies
(1) What new information did you learn?
I learned that pets can prevent children from developing allergies. Because pets carry lots of endotoxin which make cells to release fewer allergic responses.
(2) What is your opinion of the research processes? Is it ethical or exploitive? What are weaknesses and biases to the research? Several researches were practiced to prove that pets provide an immune benefit stems. Some of them are exploitive. For example, children who keep pets were put in the laboratory and were exposed to allergens to find out if endotoxin of pets can protect them from allegens. This is obvious an exploitive experiment. Children could be in danger if endotoxin did not protect them. Also, there are certain weaknesses and biases to other researches. For example, researchers questioned groups of people about their pet ownership patterns and compared this with their allergy profiles. Here, firstly, not every people stay with their pets for a hour a day, some of them might just feed their pets but not play with them. Secondly, there are many other factors that can affect allergy profiles. Let say someone has a dog, he/she goes outside with it everyday, so he/she absorbs much vitamin which can protect them from allergy. So, even if pet ownership patterns and allergy profiles turned out to be related, the result can not perfectly accurate due to other factors.
(3)What further research could be conducted in this area?
Researchers can test if endotoxin of pets can protect other animals from allergy. Because animals are much controllable than human beings. For example, researchers can control the amount of vitamins that animals absorb so that the result will be much accurate.
(4)How does this information relate to you?
When I was a child, my parents did not allow me to keep a dog in my house, because they thought a dog can cause allergy. Now, I am glad to learn that pets actually can protect us from allergy, and i will probably buy pets in the future for me and my children.