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 writer has made the claim that the city of Mentia will decline in number of headaches in the future because of a proposed increase of using Salicylates in food.  The evidences for such a conclusion are weak in that further information is required in order to connect his reasons with his conclusion. Also, certain questions need to be answered before the conclusion that headache reports in Mentia will continue to fall. 

First, evidence cites that salicylates is in the same chemical family of aspirin, which is used to ameliorate headaches.  Although this may appear to be strong enough on its own to draw the conclusion that salicylates could in fact work similar to aspirin, this assumes that since two chemicals are in the same family that their desired impact on the body is the same, and thus, salicylates can be used to cure headaches.  What the author needs to answer is, what does being in the same chemical family really mean?  Does it mean that they share some of the same elements and thus must act the same on the body?  Surely carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide are in the same chemical family because they share the same elements, but while carbon monoxide will kill you, while carbon dioxide is basically harmless. The writer needs to elucidate what being in the same chemical family means to the effects of each chemical being compared. 

Second, the author states that a 22 year study found a correlation between reported headaches and use of salicylates for commercial purposes. What is unknown, and would bridge the gap between this evidence and the conclusion that he draws, is what exactly commercial use means and will this trend continue in years to come.  If commercial means use for food in livestock, not human consumption, than this evidence is moot. Also, without assuming that this trend of declining headache reports and commercial use of salicylates will undoubtedly continue to happen in the future, then one cannot accept his final conclusion. 

Third, the notion that since companies say they will use salicylates in the future as food flavoring assumes that enough companies will partake in this to impact the population of Mentia.  The author must tell us how many of the companies will partake in increasing the use of salicylates in their food before we can determine its impact. Maybe only a few companies out of hundreds have decided that they will use salicylates in their food. We do not know.  Evidence that supports the breadth of the future use of companies that use salicylates in their food is required in order to evaluate the conclusion. 

In a final analysis, the author fails to answer questions that strengthen the evidence for his argument.  More evidence is required to draw the same conclusion as this author.