Critical Reasoning

An employee representative of the Quik Snak company has released a report containing information on about thirty employees at the company’s central meat-packing plant, all of whom were hospitalized with hepatitis. This report follows a similar one released last month by a local epidemiologist pointing out a sharp rise in the number of diagnoses of hepatitis among workers at the same plant. Quik Snak management, however, maintains that the ill employees must have contracted the disease while off the job.

Which one of the following statements, if true, would cast the most doubt on the Quik Snak management’s claim?


The thirty hospitalized workers were all diagnosed with other illnesses as well.

The epidemiologist’s report was scientifically sound.

The Quik Snak company is privately held, and will not publicly release its safety record.

All of the workers in question suffered from Hepatitis A, which is most frequently transmitted through tainted food.

No workers other than the thirty who were hospitalized show any signs of having hepatitis.