Register
Home > History > The 5 Most Ridiculously Over-Hyped Health Scares of All Time

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

By Adam Brown March 27, 2008 1,403,515 views
article image
#2.
Asbestos in New York City Public Schools

Few environmental hazards strike more fear in our terrified little hearts than asbestos. Tell someone they have asbestos in their house and you might as well tell them they have a chainsaw wielding serial killer in their house. Actually, given the exorbitant costs involved with removing asbestos from a house, most people would prefer the serial killer.

So when it was revealed in 1993 that an independent contractor hired by the New York City Board of Education to inspect schools for asbestos had failed to perform the inspections properly, nobody was surprised by Mayor David Dinkins decision to not allow kids to return to classes until proper inspections could be performed. Granted, the decision kept over one million kids out of school for two weeks, threw the plans of their working families into chaos, and panicked the shit out of countless parents who thought they had been sending their kids off to get cancer on a daily basis, but it had to be done to keep the kids safe, right?

So what's the problem? For starters, the type of asbestos that was typically found in schools, including those in New York City, was not the monster-under-the-bed type that tends to kill people. No, when you absolutely, positively must kill every motherfucker in the room, crocidolite or amosite is what you need. Chrysotile asbestos, the kind present in the NYC schools, on the other hand, is easily expelled from the lungs and therefore far less dangerous.

The risk of death was in the range of .009 deaths per million. And while you may say that any risk is too much, dammit, you should keep in mind that a child is a thousand times more likely to die playing high school football.

Also, in other schools, botched asbestos removal jobs had actually left the buildings with higher levels of asbestos in the air than if they'd done nothing. But why let that get in the way of a good panic?

In 1993, asbestos in New York schools killed Fewer People Than ...

... were killed in hot air balloon crashes.

Recommended for Your Pleasure

154 Comments

Putting DDT on this list is absurd. It wasn't so much banned for its carcinogenic effects as much as for its absolutely devastating ecological impact. And like it or not, the state of the environment DOES affect the state of humanity eventually.

But don't worry, the United States still to this day manufactures and sells DDT to third-world countries (you know, the ones that don't care about human rights, much less human responsibility to the environment).

7/3/2009 10:29:33
slarso

DDT is no longer useful for preventing malaria; most mosquitos are now resistant to it. Still, the hippies should shut up.

4/28/2009 9:08:43 PM
CorruptUser

To all the nuclear power proponents: It really isn't nearly as cheap as you make it out to be. It's just cleaner, which in my view, already recommends it enough.

4/28/2009 8:34:04 PM
iheartjihad

Heh. Haven't heard about DDT since The Machine used it to try and kill Willy in the Free Willy Cartoon. GOOD times...

4/18/2009 9:08:04 PM
BATZARRO

The China Syndrome and Three Mile Island is what caused all nuclear power plant building to come to a screeching halt. Thereafter we have visions of glowing green whenever we we hear the word "nuclear" much less use it. This is still true dispite the many years of safe use by electrical utilities (and military aboard ships and subs.)
Oh yeah, those of that will bring up Chernobyl should note that it envolved a screwball, obsolete reactor design that we don't use and there are modern pebble bed reactor designs that would be as safe as running a microwave.

3/20/2009 10:28:42
thunderguppy

And those environmentalist got the DDT banned once it had removed the malaria from their continents. Once they were safe from it, save the f*****g birds!, who cares of the africans and asians that still die in millions because of no DDT?

2/24/2009 12:32:28 PM
traktor

"No, when you absolutely, positively must kill every m**********r in the room, crocidolite or amosite is what you need."

Substitutes not accepted. That made me laugh a lot.

1/29/2009 5:50:25 PM
rachel_renegade

The Mad Cow Disease scare should be on there. 319 cases out of 6.5 billion, and there isn't conclusive evidence that eating mad cow beef gives you the disease, scary s**t

1/19/2009 12:51:19 PM
Asparagus

WTF1920, the amount of radiation from 3 mile island was far less than a chest x-ray, that level of radiation is basically negligible, nuclear power is still the cleanest most effective alternative power source available today

12/10/2008 9:47:48 PM
terminusthrall

Lol @ MarcAbian's comment.

12/5/2008 9:07:56 PM
Umup0

Don't forget the obviously fake video of the lady pouring out the diet pepsi and a syringe came out.

12/5/2008 5:48:55
RacerE7773

The less hazardous chemicals around us, the better. I'm not saying we all have to be hemp-wearing, organic-eating hippies, but I can say that I wouldn't send my daughter to a school full of asbestos, even 'harmless' asbestos that is 'more easily' expelled from the lungs. Although, living in NYC, I doubt that any asbestos is as dangerous as the air outside.

11/18/2008 1:39:22 PM
kvinnan86

Asbestos Over-Hyped? I don't think so. It doesn't have to kill you right away to be dangerous. It can cause lung cancer 20 years AFTER exposure. Same thing with Three Mile Island. And these "statistics" can be manipulated to downplay the dangers of anything.

11/17/2008 8:18:37 PM
WTF1920

Yaraday
lots of people die from dihydrogen monoxide every year... ps learn to swim people!!!

11/11/2008 11:16:11
shawnaldo

Asbestos isn't a big deal for short exposure... but what about the teachers who work for decades in the school... or do you not count them?

11/2/2008 9:36:45 PM
volterwd

Bird flu not dangerous?
Hmmm, very clear evidence on one side, someone called Luftwaffe commenting on Cracked.com on the other...

I just don't know which to believe.

10/25/2008 3:56:43 PM
MarcAbian

Don't forget to include SARS and the Bird Flu on this list.

10/23/2008 11:42:09
Luftwaffe

How about that dihydrogen monoxide scare? Nasty stuff....

:P

9/25/2008 4:14:48 PM
Yaraday

This article reminded of last year when everyone in the United States died of avian flu. It was sad when that happened.

Oh yeah, and when everyone in the US died from eating apples sprayed with Alar. That was really sad too.

By the way, everyone in the US is going to die from all the plastic we use. We will all be dead by the end of next week. It will be sad.

9/18/2008 5:53:10
soup-on-a-stick

If a spider doesnt wanna get killed, it shouldnt make a web in my house...

So if you don`t want weird diseases like malaria - dont live in a jungle.

Stop f*****g with nature. DDT is not a solution for a reason, you literally can't eliminate a species just because it inconvienences you, go read war of the worlds and origin of species, get some perspective

Some of you should be taking notes

9/17/2008 3:12:37 PM
chuck_steak

More on History

Fark Logo
Recent Videos

Copyright © 2005 - 2009 Cracked Entertainment, Inc. All rights reserved. CRACKED, CRACKED.COM and the "CRACKED" logo are trademarks owned by Cracked Entertainment, Inc. All rights reserved.