Bursting the Antibacterial Bubble

The speaker for the speech entitled Bursting the Antibacterial Bubble use very clear and vivid language. A couple of examples from the text include “today millions of Americans are trying to build a bubble around themselves and their families to keep out germs. The bubble is not made of plastic, however, billions of dollars’ worth of antibacterial hand wipes, tissues, soaps, and sponges.” The language included in this speech tends to be very clear out and supported with numerous facts. The speaker does little to embellish and only uses heavily emotional words on spare occasions. The organization of this speech was very through and included all of the necessary elements for successful presentation. The first paragraph is the attention getter sense a lot of people have either seen or heard the movie. The following paragraph contains the topic for this speech being antibacterial soap use. The speaker then gives credibility through their own personal history of them using antibacterial soap and then includes that the speaker has researched this topic thoroughly. The preview statement is located in the 4th paragraph and stated as “I ‘m here to tell you that, try as we might, we cannot build a bubble between ourselves and germs with antibacterial products and that these products more problems than they solve.
The speaker in the following paragraph claims that (a) antibacterial products are ineffective (b) they harm human health, and (c) they pollute the environment. She supports these claims with statistics about how widespread the use of antibacterial product is, as well as numerous citations of expert testimony, including a quote from the director of the Harvard school for Public Health.
The speaker calls (a) for federal legislation to regulate the use of antibacterial products, and (b) for each of us to stop buying them. She doesn’t tell us how the federal legislation would work exactly, although she does draw an analogy to the Food & Drug Administration’s regulation of prescription antibiotics.
The speaker claims first that federal regulation of antibiotics shows that federal products is workable. She supports this claim by reminding us how we have to get a prescription to get antibiotics, since we are all comfortable with this; it supports the idea that federal regulation of antibacterial products would by analogy not be too troublesome.
The speaker claims second that washing our hands with regular soap is just as effective as using antibacterial products. She supports this claim by expert testimony from the Center for Disease control, and by statistics from a study of hand washing at the University of North Carolina.
The speaker uses for this speech both an example and emotional language to arouse pathos when discussing the environmental consequences of antibacterial products she gives the example of the way that antibacterial chemicals have been found in ground water even in remote parts of Rocky Mountains. She also says that these chemicals” pollute the water supply, disrupt fish, and remain active for years and years” this is at least somewhat vivid language
To show how widespread antibacterial products are, the speaker gives a series of brief examples products that are in use, include cotton, swabs, shampoo, toothbrushes, and cutting boards. These help her clarify her idea, because they show us what antibacterial products looks like. They also help reinforce her ideas by showing us so many different objects; she makes a case for how widespread these products are. These examples help her to personalize her idea, since they don’t really have much human interest.