Credibility and Logic in Gregory Curfman’s “Diet Pills Redux”

1. Gregory D. Curfmans persona Diet Pills Redux is an editorial therefore, a reader must keep in mind that the content will focus on the sources opinion(s) and perspective(s) about a particular situation. Having read Curfmans piece, it does seem credible. The author is a physician, so his analysis of the situation can be reasonably assumed within his field of expertise, especially when integrity considers it is an editorial published in The New England Journal of Medicine. Dr.Curfman presents evidence for and against the example of fenfluramine and phentermine and seems concerned only with provided exploration of a possible connection between the use of these drugs (separately or together) and heart disease (Curfman, 1997, passim).2. Curfman begins his piece with a summary of an outbreak of pulmonary hypertension that took place in Western Europe that was joined to the use of an appetite-suppressant drug. He goes on to reveal a European outbreak thirty years later(prenominal) which connected the use of an anorexigenic drug with more cases of pulmonary hypertension.Later, he discusses weighing the risks of using anorectic drugs against the individuals need, and concludes that only those with no other recourse should be allowed to take the chance. Each of these is an role model of logic without fallacy (Curfman, 1997, passim). There were fallacies in Curfmans piece. To begin with, the even sots and studies he cited were missing control groups and assurances that clamant factors such as patient history had been taken into account. Technically, these might be construed as misleading statistics.Because the verse of persons negatively effected by these drugs was so low, the potential that much of his fate is perhaps a non sequiturspecifically an argument built on a slippery slope does exist. His closing remark that succumbing to the allure of aliment pills as a quick fix for excess weight may be courting misadventure presents a significant logical prob lem the implication that those who suffered a cardiac crisis in connection with the use of one or more of the involved drugs fall into the quick fix categorythis is a precipitate generalization (Curfman, 1997, passim).The overall message in the piece was not that blame must be laid, nor was it a call to halt all availability of either drug, so coupled with this piece being an editorial, even fallacy did not necessarily weaken the strength of the article in my opinion as the point seemed merely to be to convince readers that there was more to be investigated. Based on what I read, I have to agree that further investigation is warranted and that consumers must be aware of the potential dangers listed by Curfman.