163. The following memo appeared in the newsletter of the West Meria Public Health Council."An innovative treatment has come to our attention that promises to significantly reduce absenteeism in our schools and workplaces. A study reports that in nearby E

In this memo, the author claims that the daily use of nutrition of beneficia would significantly increase the attendance in schools and workplaces for the reason that in the area where the consumption of beneficia is very high, residents see the doctors less frequently for treating colds. At first glance, this argument seems plausible, however, a close scrutiny reveals its untenability.

At the first place, the author mistakenly relates the frequency of visiting doctors for treating colds to the consumption of beneficia. He overlooks other possibilities which may be relevant to the occurrence of colds. Perhaps in East Meria, residents have pretty healthy life style and do exercise everyday. Or perhaps local climate makes residents less susceptible to colds. And the difference of immune systems also should be taken into account. Without ruling out these possible reasons, the author cannot conclude eating beneficia usually is the only reason of preventing colds.

Secondly, the author wrongly equals the frequency of visiting doctors for colds to the frequency of getting colds. The author neglects strong possibilities that many cold patients are not willing to visit doctors in East Meria. Or those patients cannot be absent in schools and workplaces due to more strict rules. The actual situation may be that in East Meria, more residents get colds every year than in West Meria. Therefore, the counselor’s conclusion of less people getting colds in East Meria is unjustifiable.

At the third place, suppose the above assumptions are realistic in East Meria, less absenteeism cannot be predicted by the recommendation of eating more beneficia-related nutritional supplements. On the one hand, whether or not residents would like to use this kind of supplements is unknown. If a large part of residents do not use them, many students and workers would have gotten cold and the absenteeism would have still been high. On the other hand, although colds are the major reason for absenteeism currently and assume less people get cold after using beneficia-related nutrition regularly, people may have other reasons to be absent in schools and workplaces.

In conclusion, the author fails to prove that ingesting nutrition of beneficia can reduce the absenteeism at least bases on this memo. To make the argument more persuasive, more information should be provided about the exact data of relation of eating beneficia and getting colds. More statistics about the absenteeism are also appreciated.