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Question1. During a recent trial period in which government inspections at selected meat-processing plants were more frequent, the amount of bacteria in samples of processed chicken decreased by 50 percent on average from the previous year’s level. If the government were to institute more frequent inspections, the incidence of stomach and intestinal infections throughout the country could thus be cut in half. In the meantime, consumers of Excel Meats should be safe from infection because Excel’s main processing plant has shown more improvement in eliminating bacterial contamination than any other plant cited in the government report.

Answer: The argument states that government should conduct more frequent inspections at meat processing plants so as to cut down the incidence of stomach and intestinal infections. This argument is based upon the premise that bacteria level in the plants which have been frequently inspected by government have gone down by 50 percent. It further states that consumers of Excel Meats are safe from infections as Excel Meats has shown more improvement than any other plant cited by the Government report. This argument is flawed as there are several assumptions that have been made by the author to draw the conclusion.

First of all, the author has assumed that level of contamination has gone down solely due to the inspections carried out by the Government. He fails to consider the fact that previous years’ high level might be because of some diseases like bird flu and not because of the inspection carried out by the Government.

Secondly, author has mentioned only about the plants which were inspected by the Government. There is no data about the plants which were not inspected. It is necessary to know about the contamination levels of such plants before reaching the conclusion. There might be other plants which have shown more improvement than the ones inspected by the Government.

Thirdly, author has assumed that the stomach and intestinal infections are caused only by the intake of contaminated meat. But consumers of Excel Meats might be consuming other products which are contaminated enough to cause infection. Hence, it is important to know about the eating habits of the consumers of Excel Meats before concluding

And lastly, the author only tells about the improvement shown by Excel Meats and does not provided any data about the current level of bacteria in the plant which might still be higher than many other plants.

Hence, above mentioned points should be taken into consideration before drawing conclusion. To make the argument well-reasoned, the author should provide more data like previous years’ level of contamination, level of bacteria in the plants not inspected by government, other products consumed by the Excel Meats consumers and the level of contamination in those products and current levels of bacteria in all the plants.