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Here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by science and technology. But you probably

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knew that since... you're watching it on a computer, via the internet.

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Based on information found in the passage, which of the following issues might be a case

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for the ATSDR?

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In the very first paragraph, we're told that ATSDR stands for the Agency for Toxic

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Substances and Disease Registry.

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We're glad this is clarified because, based on the information about the ATSDR in the

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rest of the passage, we might think it stood for the Alarmingly Terrible Society of Death

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and Recrimination.

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Anyway, knowing what the ATSDR is supposed to be doing is the key to narrowing down these choices.

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We can nix (D) without too much thought.

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From the very beginning of the passage, it's glaringly obvious that Congress is the one

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investigating the ATSDR, not the other way around.

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Although we're sure that, if the ATSDR did want to investigate Congress, they'd find

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all sorts of...um...interesting information.

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Answer (C) isn't tough to eliminate either.

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As we learned in an earlier question, the CDC and the ATSDR are sister agencies.

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Since they're equals in a way, it wouldn't necessarily make sense for one to crack down on the other.

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Although, as sister agencies, it would make sense for them to fight over their parent's love.

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Choice (B) is a certainly a temptation.

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All the bad stuff that the passage describes does happen in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

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However, from the report we can infer that the ATSDR is responsible for investigating

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environmental threats like contaminated drinking water or soil, not natural disasters.

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Sure, Katrina did do a lot of contaminating, but this answer is too generally focused on

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the storm and not the specific aftereffects that the ATSDR is supposed to deal with.

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This leaves us with choice (A), the correct answer.

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...since one of the agency's main focuses is figuring out what's going on when a single

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community reports lots of cases of a disease.

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Although, if this report is in any way accurate, the ATSDR took kind of a hands off approach

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when it came to the refugees in post-Katrina New Orleans.

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Make that a total hands-off approach...

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