The passage suggests that Colwell most likely holds which one of the following views regarding V. cholerae?
Karen-Norrison February 12, 2022
Why D, and not B?
I'm puzzled by the explanation of why D is the correct answer. The question states that the "passage suggests that Colwell most likely holds which of the following views regarding V. Cholerae?" On lines 12 and 13, it is indicated that Rita Colwell's "Claim that she had isolated V. Cholerae" was met with great skepticism. But to me use of the word "Claim" makes it sound absolute, as if this were a fait accompli, not just a theory. Of course in lines 27 to 33, it explains how she was able to further prove the existence of V. Cholerae by use of both the fluorescing bright green antibody method as well as the 'culture' from the infected human method to quiet the skeptics, but it did not appear that Colwell herself had any doubts about her original claim. I felt B. was supported by the fact that Colwell pursued an alternative method to detect V. cholerae without a culture.
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(B) is suspect because it talks about “most” cases. While Colwell does argue V. cholerae can return from dormancy to a culturable state via a human host, she never uses language strong enough to support the view that this is how “most cases” emerge. Plus, the reference to people getting cholera from eating crab in the New Orleans bayou (lines 25-30) suggests that animal hosts may lead V. cholerae to return from dormancy. On top of that, Colwell notes in the last paragraph that the outbreaks coincide with peaks in sea-surface temperatures, suggesting at least the possibility that the bacterium awakens from dormancy because of temperature changes rather than entering a human host.
For (D), Colwell used a new detection method that found V. cholerae in 51/52 samples, and she claimed to have found that bacterium in Chesapeake Bay water samples. That strongly implies that she believes the new test that she used in New Orleans would have also shown the bacterium in the Chesapeake Bay samples, had the test been available at the time. Note that this answer essentially says, “Colwell believes that her test would have worked at detecting what she claims it can detect,” which seems like something she’d probably agree with!
