Challenge Activity
Aspirin Detectives

This activity requires you to do some investigating on your own. You will be researching one of the topics below, and you will prepare a project based on the results of your research. What kind of project? Your teacher will tell you. To make things easier for you, with each topic there is a useful link to get you started. However, you should use more resources than just the one given. The link is a starting place only.

Research topics

1. How did the end of World War I affect Bayer Aspirin?
   Useful link: The Pharmaceutical Century: Companies — from the American Chemical Society..

2. How does aspirin work biologically to reduce the risk of heart attack?
   Useful link: What Does Aspirin Do? — part of "How Aspirin Works" from HowStuffWorks.

3. What are the benefits and risks of taking a daily aspirin regimen?
   Useful link: Aspirin monograph at RxList

4. What is the "Doctrine of Signatures" and what role did it play in the development of aspirin?
   Useful link: An Introduction to the Doctrine of Signatures — by Tamarra S. James for the Botanic Medicine Society, hosted by The Skeptic Tank.

5. What is Reye syndrome and what is its connection to aspirin?
   Useful link: National Reye Syndrome Foundation

6. APC tablets are a form of medication sold by pharmacies after World War II up to the early 1980s. These pills contained aspirin, phenacetin, and caffeine, hence the name APC. What were the benefits and risks of using this combination of drugs?
   Useful link: List of Drug Products that Have Been Withdrawn or Removed from the Market for Reasons of Safety or Effectiveness — from the FDA, Docket No. 98N-0655, 8 October 1998.

7. How does aspirin help reduce fevers?
   Useful link: Aspirin monograph from RxList

8. Although Napoleon didn't use aspirin (it hadn't been discovered when he was alive), he did play a role in the historical development of aspirin. What was it?
   Useful link: Saturday Profile: Aspirin — at the Media Awareness Project site, originally published in Irish Times, 17 August 1997.

9. What is the relationship between aspirin and cancer?
   Useful link: Aspirin and Colorectal Cancer — from the American Cancer Society.

10. How can frogs help people create safer alternatives to morphine?
    Useful link: Epibatidine — from the Chemical Society.

11. How is a migraine different from a regular headache? What medicines are used to treat migraines? Draw their molecular structures, and if possible, tell how some of these medicines work.
    Useful link: Migraine Action Association

12. When simple painkillers like aspirin aren't enough, stronger prescription medicines like meperidine hydrochloride, methadone hydrochloride, or indomethacin may be used. What are the chemical structures for these drugs? What are the risks of using these drugs?
    Useful link: RxList monographs