False fears, real harm

An Ottawa Citizen editorial:

After everyone has had a laugh over the Mayan doomsday hoax, it’s worth remembering that this story has done real harm: suicide hotlines were busy with people who were truly terrified.

That’s just one tiny example of the widespread harm done by toxic conspiracy theories and imagined dangers, and the underlying distrust they breed.

A British doctor managed to publish a study that alleged the common measles, mumps and rubella vaccine causes autism. Even after his faked data and under-the-table payoffs were exposed, after he was banned from practising medicine, he continues as a paid speaker spreading this lie. The result is fewer vaccinations, and outbreaks of measles in Quebec, in Britain, and other places. Measles can kill small children.

We’re surrounded by hoaxes about fake dangers: “chemtrails” in the sky (governments supposedly spraying mind-control drugs on us from airplanes); flu vaccines; just about any aspect of medicine; artificial sweeteners; and ordinary food. A French scientist named Séralini published a study alleging that genetically modified corn causes cancer. Though he refused to make his data public and major scientific organizations concluded his study is worthless (he used a strain of rats selectively bred to develop tumours spontaneously at high rates), his conclusion circulates on the Internet, where the level of oversight is no higher than on a bathroom wall.

Public health officials are the first to recognize this danger to the public. The only protection against it is knowledge.