Self-paced
Researcher: Support Every year approximately the same number of people die of iatrogenic "disease"—that is, as a direct result of medical treatments or hospitalization—as die of all other causes combined. ██████████ ██ ████████ █████ ████ ████ ██ ██████████ ███ ██████████ ████████ ███ ██████ ██ ██████ ███ ████ █████ ████████ ██ █████
Argument Summary
Start with the numbers the researcher gives. Each year, deaths from iatrogenic causes roughly equal deaths from all other causes combined, so iatrogenic disease accounts for about half of all deaths.
From there the researcher concludes that preventing all iatrogenic disease would cut the yearly death total in half. The reasoning is based on subtraction: remove the half caused by iatrogenic disease, and half the deaths are gone.
The Flaw
Since this is a Flaw question, the conclusion does not follow from the premises. The argument treats the people who die of iatrogenic causes as though, without that cause, they would not have died at all. But these are people who were sick enough to need treatment or hospitalization in the first place. Take away the iatrogenic death and many of them might still die from the illness that put them in the hospital or from something else.
For example, say 100 people die in a year, 50 from iatrogenic causes and 50 from everything else. The researcher expects preventing iatrogenic deaths to keep 50 people alive. But if most of those 50 were already gravely ill and die of their underlying disease that same year, the yearly total might barely move.
Currently
100 deaths a year
What the researcher expects by preventing iatrogenic deaths
50 deaths, half gone
What might happen
barely down from 100
Preventing one cause of death is not the same as keeping those people alive, because they can still die from other causes. So the total deaths might not drop by half.
15.
The reasoning in the researcher's ████████ ██ ██████ ███████ ███ ████████ █████ ██ ████████ ████
a
prevention of noniatrogenic ███████ ████ ████ ██ ██████ ██ ███ ██████████ ██ ██████████ ███████
The argument is about what happens if we eliminate iatrogenic disease, not about preventing noniatrogenic disease. Even if preventing noniatrogenic disease affected iatrogenic rates, that would say nothing about whether removing iatrogenic deaths cuts the total in half. What we care about is whether preventing iatrogenic deaths might increase the number of noniatrogenic deaths.
b
some medical treatments ███ ██ ████████ ██ ████ ████████ ██ ████████ ████████████
The author never assumed that no medical treatment could be replaced by less invasive/damaging alternatives. So pointing out that such replacements are possible doesn’t undermine the reasoning of the argument.
c
people who do ███ ███ ██ ███ █████ ███ ████ ███ ██ ███████ █████
(C) describes a possibility that would undermine the argument, so it's correct. The people who die of iatrogenic causes were sick enough to be treated or hospitalized, so many of them might die of something else, if the iatrogenic death were prevented. Maybe, for example, some of them won't die from hospitalization, but will instead die from the cancer or serious ailment that caused them to be hospitalized. If that happens, the yearly death total would not fall by half, even if we prevent iatrogenic deaths.
d
there is no ███ ███ ██ ███████ ███ █████ ██ █████ ████ ██████████ ███████
The researcher claims what would happen if medicine could prevent all iatrogenic disease. The argument never assumes prevention is actually achievable, whether through one way or multiple ways. So pointing out that it's impossible to prevent iatrogenic disease using one way doesn't affect the argument.
e
whenever a noniatrogenic ███████ ███████ █████ ██ █ ████ ██ ██████████ ███████
We already know that iatrogenic disease results from treatments/hospitalization. So the author would already acknowledge that iatrogenic disease might result from other kinds of diseases. The conclusion doesn’t assume that eliminating iatrogenic disease is actually possible.
Saying that noniatrogenic disease carries a risk of iatrogenic disease tells us nothing about whether eliminating iatrogenic deaths would actually cut the yearly total in half. Also, the author's conclusion is conditioned on if medicine could prevent all iatrogenic disease. So for the purpose of evaluating the argument, we should assume we're in a hypothetical situation in which iatrogenic disease could be prevented.