The following appeared as part of an article in a trade magazine.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 per

The argument that government inspection of meat-processing plants would reduce the amount of bacteria contamination in processed meat omits some important concerns that must be addressed to substantiate the argument. The statement that follows the argument predicts that instances of stomach and intestinal infections will reduce in the country by half. This alone does not constitute a logical argument in favor of the government’s action and it certainly does not support the main argument.

Most conspicuously, the argument does not address the sample space that the government has inspected and simply states about a few selected meat-processing plants. There is a possibility that these plants already have low contamination's of bacteria in their processed food. The result of the government’s inspection has been compared with previous year's average data which does not give substantial evidence. The data should have been compared with a trend of data collected from past several years.

First, the data given in the argument talks about processed chicken and not about the entire meat processing industry. Processed chicken forms a very small part of processed meat industry and so this data is inadequate to evaluate the argument.

Second, the assumption that as a result of the inspections the incidence of stomach and intestine infections throughout the country would reduce to half are completely absurd.These infections may be caused by various other food products which may not necessarily be processed meat.

Finally, the example of Excel Meats is completely baseless because it is not necessary that the consumers can get infected only by meat consumption.But, it is quite possible that Excel Meats has had a very good processing plant compared to other plants.Similarly,it can also be a case of small consumer background with Excel Meats which makes it appear to show signs of improvement in the government report.

Because the argument leaves out several key issues, it is not sound or persuasive. If it included the items discussed above instead of simply giving vague examples, the argument would have been more through and convincing.