Don’t Take Medical Advice From the New York Times Magazine

Don’t Take Medical Advice From the New York Times Magazine

The dangerous chemophobia behind its popular story about childhood arthritis.

Not explicitly nuclear, but very interesting - chemist Michelle Francl discusses the issues pertaining to "chemophobia" and its consequences for medicine, riffing off of a rather flawed NYT piece and its uncritical acceptance of "natural" alternative medical treatments.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2013/02/curing_chemophobia_don_t_buy_the_alternative_medicine_in_the_boy_with_a.single.html

 

Steve Skutnik writes:

 

"I point it out because almost everything Francl identifies directly corresponds to radiophobia as well - the same appeal to nature fallacy, etc. 

Essentially, the chemical industry shares the same risk communication challenge that the nuclear industry does - particularly a mistrust of "corporate" sources over "natural" alternatives. The two fields could learn from one another in addressing how to break through the persistent cognitive biases (i.e., cultural cognition phenomena) which are present with both."