The 5 Most Ridiculously Over-Hyped Health Scares of All Time

You really should have included Ralph Nader's take on the VW Beatle. Remember that? The faulty brakes issue? At least we got the Beatle back, but now its water-cooled and not so neat anymore...

The population of Ceylon grew 147,059% in the next six years? Because if the DDT had nothing to do with it that's what you're implying

Another relevant detail to bear in mind with stuff like malaria? Poverty sort of makes that shit matter. There's a wealth of evidence that indicates that general social investment, stuff the "hippy friend" might bitch about, is actually the main determining factor epidemiologically for everything but smallpox and polio. Given that part of the reason the Third World is so poor is due to policies pursued by the First World, that sort of matters. Sri Lanka and India in general are great examples: Amartya Sen's work shows that it was their lack of a social health care system that killed something like 100 million people. So we can have our cake and eat it too: That is, we can be free of dangerous toxins in our water supplies, killing the ecology, and in our food, AND not have a lot of people dying of diseases. Oh, and yeah, I'm also presuming the population of Ceylon grew from 1963 to 1969. Correlation, particularly cherry-picked bookends, does not imply causation. DDT and other pesticides do pose real risks, not only to animals but to people. Yeah, yeah, the cancer risks were probably overblown. That's how early research tends to be. But the chronic toxicity evidence is pretty damn compelling, not to mention that the EPA still doesn't want to say it DOESN'T cause cancer. Yeah, yeah, I know, it's a joke article, the point isn't seriously to make a definitive stance on the DDT topic, but hey, since when has that stopped commenters?

That's a bad comparison, wowgg, considering the post-nine-eleven terrorist hype WAS way overhyped (especially compared to the list of things that are, yes, much more likely to kill you). Bad enough that a crazy-ass elaborate suicide plot involving passenger planes actually succeeded, but the way so many people cashed in on it afterwards and kept the panic going in the streets so they could get away with all sorts of "national security measures" was just sickening. Incidentally however, you are right about DDT and I don't see how a measure that drops such a species-killing bomb on the environment can be justified to save us from mosquitoes. The more we try to make ourselves immortal, the more we end up fucking up everything around us. Aaand that's my pointless rant for the day.

Perhaps consider all the relevant information... DDT use in malaria eradication was reduced a decade before the release of 'Silent Spring' due to the emergence of DDT-resistant mosquitoes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT#Mosquito_resistance_to_DDT

wowgg... the author did not deny that DDT was harmful to some bird species (though fewer than you'd think), then puts it all in perspective by showing how banning the use of DDT did help these 2 or 3 bird species, but resulted in 2.499 million more cases of malaria per year... perspective...

Perhaps atlantajenny it is you that should check the facts. Start here http://lungdiseases.about.com/od/glossaryofterms/g/chrysotile_def.htm then check the W.H.O

whoever wrote this is ridiculously dumb. ever heard of biological magnification? the DDT infested bugs that were eaten by birds caused an error in the calcification proccess of the birds' eggs. thus, when the mother went to sit on her eggs, they all broke. the facts are that indeed the birds population did FALL. you are fucking retarded to talk about stupid shit. its like saying "OMG we were so scared by september 11th. but did you know that more people were killed by snakes then terrorists?!"

they should have included those dumbasses who think vaccines made their kids autistic.

IT'S TRUE! You can actually SEE the mold he's removing lol.

Adam Brown has his facts seriously wrong on the asbestos issue! Even the picture at the beginning of the article is not asbestos removal. It's mold removal you twit. Although the schools should not have been closed for two weeks, chrysotile asbestos CAN NOT be expelled from the lungs or anywhere else in the body. Check your facts before you post articles that you are ill-equipped to comment on.

2Comment 101. Hah...I'm 102!

Nothing to say, just wanted to be the one to say that Ranger is a tool!

Nothing to say really. I just wanted to be the 100th comment!

It helps if you read your NEJM reference completely, rather than the one line in the abstract that can prove your point. "The association of listeriosis with consumption of milk supports the hypotheses that L. monocytogenes is a pathogen transmitted to human beings from infected animals or their byproducts and that ingestion of the organism is one mechanism of infection. Our results suggest that milk (in addition to raw vegetables) should be considered a possible vehicle of infection in sporadic listeriosis. Our results also suggest that although pasteurization is a highly effective method of eliminating bacterial pathogens from milk, it may not always be 100 per cent effective. This finding must be kept in perspective, however. Human listeriosis is a rare disease. Even if contaminated pasteurized milk is the vehicle for some cases of listeriosis, it is still a distinctly uncommon cause of disease, especially in relation to the frequency of exposure. It is important to remember the potential benefits of this food product and the amount of human illness caused by consumption of unpasteurized milk." In addition, persons who developed listeriosis in this study were severely immunocompromised. People with healthy immune systems very rarely contract listeriosis. To sum it up, this article references an isolated and rare incident, though more often than not pasteurized milk is a safe product to consume.

Hey, farmer, farmer, Break out the DDT! I don't care about worthless old birdies; Make me malaria free!

The DDT arguement allows me to kill off the big yellow taxi song. I FUCKING HATE THAT SONG. But I do love meat. and how meat is made. Murdelicious

any vitamin or mineral (vitamin D and iron) is toxic in overdose. classic toxicology dogma: It's not the poison, it's the dose. To want a food that is completely sterile and free of toxins is absurdly unrealistic. Any food capable of spoiling is not free of bacteria and/or mold. I respect your choices, but get your facts straight before you preach them (i.e. there are no GM animals used in food production). for me, a world without butter is not worth living in at all. unpasteurized milk is also incredibly delicious, and I haven't died or fallen ill yet. everything in moderation.

Soy, breast and Goat are my fav's.

This is just a plain ignorant right winger propaganda rant against those "egghead liberals" - sounds kinda plausible if you're not the kinda fella who likes (or is able to) check out and understand the underlying data. If you do some cursory research, it turns out that the critique is utter BS. I thought it was funny until I got to the DDT part (didn't know enough about the rest to do anything other than take the writer at his word). Thing is, the DDT topic was part of a science course I took back in college, and while I forgot most of the details, I remember enough that what this dude wrote is utter BS - as in a cursory look at Wikipedia could give you a heads up that this guy is just parroting the anti-regulation Chamber of Commerce talking points, or the chemical companies that can't sell DDT anywhere in the developed world, so they fob it off on the Third World. There's a reason DDT has been banned in just about all industrialized countries - it really does fu*k up the environment, and those studies where it's shown that some bird species increased after use of DDT forgot to factor in that the circumstances were such in that locale that those birds would've increased anyway, and what DDT actually did was *limit* the rate of increase that would've occurred if it hadn't been for DDT. And as to DDT and malaria, really now - set aside that nowadays there are more effective means of combating malaria in Ceylon than DDT, but even if there weren't, it's not like malaria is a big scourge in Northern America, Western Europe, or Japan - too cold, you know?