LSAT 91 - Section 2 - Question 09

This is a Weaken question.

The author concludes that the government should require drug companies to notify consumers of all known drug-related interactions. Why? Because even relatively minor drug-related interactions can still be harmful to patients. That’s the major premise. Why should we believe this? The author provides an example: aspirin and fruit juice interact to render the aspirin ineffective. People who are unaware of this end up taking an incorrect dosage.

The logic of this argument is cost-benefit analysis. We consider a cost and from that consideration draw a conclusion about what should be done. As with all cost-benefit analysis questions, there are other factors to consider.

Correct Answer Choice (A) provides a counterbalancing consideration. It says that providing information on minor drug-related interactions would detract from a patient’s attention to serious interactions. That seems like a pretty compelling cost which weighs against the stated benefit in the stimulus. In fact, it seems like it outweighs the benefit, though that isn’t required in order to weaken the reasoning.

Answer Choice (B) says many drugs have fewer documented drug-related interactions than does aspirin. This is irrelevant. The argument used aspirin merely as an example. It never assumed that aspirin was the drug with the least documented interactions.

Answer Choice (C) says providing information about all drug-related interactions would result in only negligible price increases for consumers. This is a consideration on the benefit side of the scales. This wouldn’t weaken the argument.

Answer Choice (D) says current research is such that many drug-related interactions have not yet been identified. Of course not. Why should we expect we’d have completely identified all the interactions? But the mere fact that there are interactions that we don’t yet know about weighs on neither side of the scales. If the concern here is that there may be some as yet unidentified interaction X that’s really dangerous, what can we do? We certainly can’t print X on the label because we don’t know about X. That’s what it means to be unidentified.

Answer Choice (E) says pharmacists usually draw patients’ attention to printed warnings that are provided with drugs. This also wouldn’t sway the argument in either direction. Pharmacists are merely acting as a highlighter, reinforcing the already printed warnings. We’re talking about whether to add additional warnings onto the label.