Salicylates are members of the same chemical family as aspirin a medicine used to treat headaches Although many foods are naturally rich in salicylates for the past several decades food processing companies have also been adding salicylates to foods as pr

Merely based on insufficient premises and dubious evidence such as salicylate is the only reason behind the steady decline in average number of headaches and study's results, the author draws a conclusion that a decline in number is expected again as the content of salicylate in food is going to be increased. At first glance, this conclusion appears to be correct, however further reflection reveals that the statement omits substantial concerns to be addressed, and thus, not cogent enough to sunstantiate the conclusion.

Firstly, the author claims that the decline in headache is because of more amount of salicylate present in food. However this assumption is gratuitous, as there may be some other possible reasons for the decline. For instance, the lifestyle of people might have been changed over the decade. That in turn results into decline in the average number of headache. There may be the case, that some people are still having headache, however those who have migrated to Mentia were healthy people and thus the average number of headache is reduced.

In addition, the author hastily assumption that the participants in the study represents the whole population of Mentia's statistics. This assumption is unacceptable because it may be the case that the study includes people, that are specific to some area, or they are health conscious and maintain themselves to be fit.The author would have been benifited if he/she could have sighted that the study includes most of the people of Mentia or similar reasons.

Furthermore, the author's shaky conclusion that use of Salicylate as flavor additive will reduce the average number of headache is not acceptable. This may be the case that the extraneous amount of Salicylate may have negative effects on body and may cause headache or some other problems. Moreover if the presence of Salicylate is the reason behind the decline, then it should have already been prevented people from headache as it is stated that many foods are naturally rich in salicylate.

On the whole, the author ill constructed arguments wrongly concludes that use of Salicylate as flavor additive will decrease the average number of headache, because the evidence cited do not lend strong support to the arguments conclusion. With the reason cited in the argument, it would be wary for someone to accept the conclusion of the argument.