The following appeared in a business magazine As a result of numerous complaints of dizziness and nausea on the part of consumers of Promofoods tuna the company requested that eight million cans of its tuna be returned for testing Promofoods concluded tha

In this editorial, the author argues that the Promfoods which result in part of consumers of tuna feel dizziness and nausea did not pose a health risk after testing. To support the conclusion the writer points out that the conclusion is based on tests performed on samples of the recalled cans by chemists from Promofoods and only find small amounts of the three remaining suspected chemicals which could cause symptoms of dizziness and nausea and they occur naturally in all canned foods. However the argument suffers from several flaws and is therefore unconvincing as it stands, albeit it may appear plausible at a cursory glance.

First, there are problems about the representativeness and the randomness of the survey’s sample. The author should provide the information about the sample, we don’t know where are the cans from and when do they product, perhaps the sample comes from nationwide or just only a local, the two statistics does not necessarily apply to each other, so the survey results are not reliable. Hence, without accounting for as well as ruling out other likely factors, the author could not assumes that the canned tuna did not pose a health risk.

Secondly, even if five of the eight common food chemicals which cause symptoms of dizziness and nausea were not found in any of the tested cans but it does not means there are only eight food chemicals can result in the symptoms of dizziness and nausea, perhaps the device of testing is not advanced enough to find out other potential food chemicals which may cause the same symptoms. So the company should pay attention as well as deal with testing the canned tuna if they want to substantiate that there is no health risk with the canned tuna. With the evidence of ruling out other likely factors could writer bolster his assumption.

Thirdly, the author cites that the chemists did find small amounts of the three remaining suspected chemicals but pointed out that these occur naturally in all canned foods. Small amounts does not necessarily indicate zero and the author did not say what is the degree about small amounts, we can regard 0.1 percent as small amounts and we also regard 0.01 percent as small amounts, so the point is how much can cause people sick, so is it open to a number of interpretations, without compelling evidence to support, the arguer’s conclusion is not worthy of consideration. Providing more information about the results of testing the writer could substantiate his assumption.

In retrospect, further investigation and analysis are needed, if the argument had included the given factors discussed above, it would have more thorough and logically acceptable.

Time 30min