A recently issued twenty-year study on headaches suffered by the residents of Mentia investigated the possible therapeutic effect of consuming salicylates. Salicylates are members of the same chemical family as aspirin, a medicine used to treat headaches.

The above argument presented a study regarding the positive impact of Salicylates on healing headache of the citizens of Mentia based on a longitudinal study. Since the individuals under survey showed attenuated pain on intake of Salicylates, it has been considered as a panacea for this particular disease. Along with this, the probability of usage of Salicylates by the food-processing companies has shown an upward trend by assimilating it as a preservatives or enhancing flavor of eatables. Hence, the community of health-experts predicted that Mentia citizens will have fewer headaches. This study seems plausible but a closer scrutiny of the facts and figures presents web of loopholes and tend to make results quite spurious and flimsy.

First of all, the results deducted on the basis of twenty-year long study, in the absence of information regarding sample, methodology and environmental attributes etc can't be considered valid. One can't ignore the perishable nature of human life and the researchers might have changed the sample due to his unavailability during the deductions of final results. An inconsistency or variation in the sample alters the complete scenario. Also, nothing has been mentioned about the sample size, quality of sample like their age-structure, demographic characteristics etc. In addition to this, the place where the people are studied might be free of noise, work-load or family tensions; since these are major reasons of head-ache and if these have been ignored, the results can never yield apt output. The study showed decline in average of persons suffering head-ache, but average in the lack of base value won’t provide pertinent information.

Further, health experts gave prominent emphasis on the introduction of salicylates by food-processing companies. Indeed, salicylates act as preservative and adds flavor to the goods, yet the business personnel can't introduce it without considering the cost that will be incurred on it. In business ventures, the decisions depend on margin of profit. Though, salicylates act as a advantageous tool yet extrapolating the results in spite of assessing the real market situation won't be cogent and sturdy. Had they cost-benefit analysis or profit-margins be described the results could have been valid.

Last but not the least, extrapolating the result that salicylates is the only factor to cure headache is wrong, as the researchers have ignored other related factors like genetic pattern, professional pattern, climate of the particular region etc. Moreover, deductions are made on the data that had been initially collected 20 years back and so its authenticity is questioned since various habits and attitudes of individual’s changes with the passage of time. The denizens might start in taking fresh food, adopting exercise etc to avoid headache in spite of using Salicylates directly or indirectly. Thus, predictions made for the future generations can’t be termed as sturdy.

To conclude, the prediction seems implausible since the related factors have not been widely studied. Had the conclusions been dependent of firm hypothesis with strong foundation of results and data, the above discussion could have been proper and cohesive.