Finally, a Thesis Topic

I've been thinking a lot about my topic and have even done quite a bit of preliminary research on a couple of my ideas, but just this week it occurred to me that all of the topics I've been considering are more political than scientific or technological in nature. Given that the focus of the course is The Rhetoric of Science and Technology, I thought I'd better come up with something that more closely linked to what we're studying. :-)

Several months ago I read a book titled 102 Minutes: The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive the Twin Towers by Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn. It had a great description of how the the architects and builders got around the safety codes that were in effect at the time. I'd like to do my paper on this topic, if possible.

If this one isn't approved, here are some other ideas I have:

• Thalidomide, a drug that was used by some pregnant women during the late 1950s and early 1960s to treat morning sickness. About 10,000 women in Europe and Africa who took the drug in early pregnancy gave birth to children with severe birth defects such as missing or shortened limbs. Although thalidomide was not prescribed or sold for decades, in 1998 the FDA approved its use for the treatment of a form of leprosy.
• The Swine Flue vaccine. In 1976 President Gerald Ford allocated $135 million to vaccinate Americans against what was feared to be a reincarnation of the Spanish Flu that killed as many as 100 million people worldwide in 1918/19. The program was halted when it was discovered that the risk of developing Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare, usually reversible but occasionally fatal form of paralysis, was seven times higher in people who received the vaccine.
• The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which marked the end of World War II, were the only offensive detonations of nuclear weapons to date. The bombs killed as many as 220,000 people during the next four months, and thousands more died afterward from exposure to radiation. The issue that has divided scholars ever since is whether using the bomb was necessary for the U.S. to achieve victory over Japan.