Is there a term for scientific claims made in this way? I saw something similar on reddit the other day where a commenter was trying to prove that a certain chemical was not harmful. It went something like "The reason we think this chemical is harmful is because of this study from the 60s which was done in 17 countries. But one country was excluded from the study because of inconclusive results. Which one? The US! The country that we care the most about, and there weren't solid results here!"