Argument Essay 8: 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 East Meria, where fish consumption is very high, people visit the doctor only once or twice per year for the treatment of colds. This shows that eating a substantial amount of fish can clearly prevent colds. Furthermore, since colds are the reason most frequently given for absences from school and work, attendance levels will improve. Therefore, we recommend the daily use of a nutritional supplement derived from fish oil as a good way to prevent colds and lower absenteeism."

Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendations.

The memo which appeared on the West Meria Public Health Council stated that the absenteeism in the area are due to cold, therefore the usage of the fish must be enhanced due to a visit doctor in a year.

The above argument seems convincing at first but close scrutiny reveals that the claim is not supported by reliable arguments which are mentioned as below.

First of all the author has completely neglects other reasons of the absenteeism from the school and work. We exactly don’t know whether the health condition is the mere cause or not, because there is no evidence given. Moreover, no statistics has been given whether only the cold is cause of the absenteeism in the East Meria.

Secondly, based on the assumption that since people in East Meria eat much fish therefore they do not visit doctor frequently, does not gives us strong evidence in relating it with rate of absenteeism. Moreover we do not know whether people in East Meria rarely visit doctor merely due to the consumption of healthy food. Not visiting doctor can have more than on reasons, may be the people their do take medicines directly from Pharmacists. May be they use some conventional methods which are home based for the treatment. May be they get ill but they do not visit doctor due to certain issues including transportation and financial issues.

Thirdly, even if people of West Meria do cold there are several other reasons than having not fish consumption, possibly they do not wear enough clothing; there is possibility that they are prone to extreme weather conditions. Only getting fewer amounts of fish cannot be the sole reason for getting cold.

Furthermore there has not been given any of the authentic statistics whether the only reason behind absenteeism is cold only. Only better health conditions cannot be the mere reasons of high attendance in both school and work in East Meria. People may likely to work more because they get enough pay which intends them to work part time as well. Students may love to go schools because there is much fun as compared to the time spent at homes. Instead of this if there was some sort of statistics of  the numbers of school going and working population, and those who don’t get cold, was given we would have been in a great position to find whether the correlation of both the variables is strong or weak. In the absence of such a statistics it is less likely to have uniformity of thoughts with author.

Lastly, even if all the above assumptions were true, it was not feasible to agree with the claim. The author is comparing two unique places irrespective of the similarity in several areas, like population, weather conditions, schooling systems and work environment. Therefore some conditions which are applied on one place do not necessarily can be applied on the other.

Concluding, thorough analysis showed that, the claim of the author is not strongly supported by the reliable evidences, therefore there is much research required to suggest the some recommendations in order to prevent the high absenteeism in West Meria. Moreover the author has presented a mixture of random causes and effects which needs to be clarified in order to have better recommendations.