The 5 Most Ridiculously Over-Hyped Health Scares of All Time
Fear is our national pastime. As a society, we have a long history of getting whipped into a collective frenzy over threats to our health or children that are nearly (or completely) non-existent. No danger is too small or remote to be exaggerated and screamed from the headlines.
For example:
#5.
Three Mile Island
On March 28, 1979, what should have been a minor plumbing problem somehow escalated into a reactor fuel meltdown at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Station in Pennsylvania. Within five days, the Governor had ordered the evacuation of all children and pregnant women (fuck you, dad!) within a five-mile radius of the area. Since that time, the name Three Mile Island has been synonymous with nuclear disaster. Hooters even named one of their hottest (and most delicious) wing sauces after it!
But unlike other nuclear disasters, Chernobyl for example, which caused at least 4,000 eventual deaths, Three Mile Island was responsible for a whopping zero fatalities. In fact, there weren't even any injuries. Later tests revealed that the level of radiation people were exposed to in the five-mile radius was equivalent to the amount of radiation a person is exposed to while flying on a commercial airliner. In other words, the danger was nil.
So why all the ruckus? Much like that restraining order Catherine Zeta-Jones slapped us with a few years back, we blame Michael Douglas for this.
Just 12 days prior to the incident at TMI, The China Syndrome premiered. In the film, Michael Douglas plays a television news reporter who surreptitiously films a nuclear power plant crew as a near meltdown is taking place. As luck would have it, the events depicted in the movie almost perfectly mirrored what occurred at TMI. With the movie stirring public debate about the safety of nuclear power, there was no way the incident at TMI occurring just days later would do anything less than scare the ever-loving shit out of people. And that's exactly what it did.
"Hi, I'm a giant asshole."
In 1979, Three Mile Island killed fewer people than ...
Robot attacks. Ford factory worker Robert Williams was killed when a robot hit him in the head, thus outranking Three Mile Island's death toll, 1-0.
Nuclear power is a good thing, but only when we're 'noid about it. I can't say I don't sympathize with the governor on this one, actually.
ReplyThank you sir for this article :) not only was it entertaining it also gave me information about three mile island which i was tested on today :) you good sir got me an A !
ReplyFor the record, _I_ give a f**k about the damn birds.
ReplyAnd of course let's not forget that in the immediate aftermath of the DDT ban, several of the replacements turned out to actually be toxic, causing a large number of ilnesses and possibly killing a few farmers.
ReplyAnd the idea that DDT was harmful to humans was simply nuts when you consider that when we liberated Nazi concentration camps in WWII, we used DDT to rid the inhabitants of lice, ticks, and fleas. There were no noticible health effects. And this was with people who were so weak that giving the chocolate could kill them.
And yet, DDT was never banned for anti-malarial use.
ReplyUmm, it was banned from every EFFECTIVE anti-malarial use. So poo-poo on your post.
Due to that pesky "economy of scale" thing, it became too expensive for third world countries to afford. When world production is 70,000 tons per year, and you're importing it to spray on your crops anyway, buying some more to spritz the swamps is cheap. When world production is only 3,000 tons, and it's use is restricted to the point where you can ONLY spray it on said swamps, and those new pesticides you buy for your crops cost more money, DDT for mosquito killing becomes a luxury that's out of reach for those countries where it would be most useful.
also, the "thinning of the eggshells" said to be caused by DDT was caused by the fact that these birds were kept in cages indoors. DDT is a HUGE thing for me. I've done several research projects throughout the years on it.
Replyi have heard that a saying goes in China like this "Only one himself knows if the shoes match his feet or not“If u really love her /him ,nothing matters, let alone the age . I met my BF through Agedate*com. a nice place for younger women and older men, or older women and younger men, to interact with each other. he is 12 older than me ,but we think we did find the true love. BTW ,Ever feel that you would best enjoy someone who is not in your age group? If u are interested in it, maybe u wanna check it out or tell your friends.
Replythey f@#k robots in china too.
R-E-S-B-E-C-T
Find out what it means to me (jack shit)
i thought my dad was attempting to be sarcastic when he said he used to run in the street to get sprayed with ddt as a kid, but apparently that was actually a thing to do back then...judging by #1's photo
ReplyThe banning of DDT is also why the bedbugs are everywhere again.
ReplyI just started working at hooters a couple months ago. I clicked on the article and immediatley said "sooooo that's why we call it three mile island". Cause I never had a f*****g clue why you would name hotsauce that.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesOh really? Interesting...
Why don't you tell me more about yourself? So you're working at hooters now. What else do are you into? You seem like the sort who'd have some interesting stories. Mmhm. Just a sec, let me buy you a drink or two or maybe three here, then we'll get right back to that...
You work at hooters...?
Does that mean your hot or are you an insane person who eats crayons?
i was like omg theres a nuclearic disaster named after hot sauce..
I grew up very close to Three Mile Island. We all had to sign waivers that allowed the school to issue us iodine pills (that we kept on hand) in case of a meltdown. For reals.
ReplyWhy don't they use DDT then, if it isn't unsafe or harmful?
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesThey do. They use it in countries where it is legal.
Less and less so, TigerTank due to pressure from environmentalists and internationalists.
It's legal most places, but various UN developement agencies refuse to give you money unless you stop using it.
Replyan increase of approximately a bajillion fofillion percent
HAHAHA!!! that is hilarious. And I've always wondered how to spell "fofillion". Thank you, Adam!!!
Why does 'c u m' in ac'c u m'ulation get bleeped? First off, c u m isn't a bad word, and even if it were, it's in enough words to justify not getting bleeped. Also, why the he'll is j a p in japan banned?
Reply Hide All See All 5 RepliesJ a p is an insulting term for the Japanese people. C u m is a crude slang term referring to male... (re)production.
And the dirty-word filter is really really really stupid. Like with the word s p i c e -spice.
I had i n j u n ior high get bleeped once. Let's see if it will do it again. In junior high
Huh, not bleeped this time. Maybe that was another site, because, you know, calling someone an injun is soooooo common...
just click the "show profanity" option, dipshits!
Wait, spice?
I'm surprised you failed to point out that the vast majority of asbestos-related cancer cases are among people who also smoke. I.e. almost no one who has developed cancer related to asbestos wasn't already a smoker.
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesMy grandpa has pre cancer thanks to asbestos and isn't a smoker. (i don't think it's called pre cancer but he has these things in his lungs from it that will turn into it eventually)
Benign tumors?
Have you considered that maybe many people got cancer after already smoking because asbestos isn't really used much at all anymore, and back in the day when it was a far larger percent of people smoked in general?
Wow sargeantawesome. You are a tard. Benign itself is referring to non cancerous, as opposed to malignant. Does he have polyps?
People are losing their f*****g minds over climate change (formerly global warming but changed because the globe is not warming). Al Gore claimed a couple of years ago that it is likely the Arctic ice will be completely melted in five years! Panic merchant techniques and unfortunately everyone's buying.
Reply Hide All See All 8 RepliesHa ha, you're an idiot. The globe is warming. Climates are changing. Arctic ice is melting faster and not refreezing as early, freezing much thinner ... ah, I'm just wasting my breath. By the way, the Earth is round, but you probably won't believe that either.
Youlostme, You are a f*****g idiot.
If the arctic ice melts, the ocean will lower.
Further more, less than 5% of the water on earth (that's being generous, I recall it being less than 1%, but I'm playing it safe) is fresh water. Only fresh water is capable of freezing, not salt water.
This means that all the glaciers (including the ice caps) account for 1-5% the total water of the earth. Continents would not become entirely submerged were they to melt. Lowlands might flood, but that would be the extent of it.
CO2 also is not a good green house gas. Methane is far superior. Roughly 100 times more effective at trapping heat, if I recall correctly. Any reputable chemistry teacher or climatologist can tell you that.
When you cease to be so smug, and approach your peers with the intention of finding the truth (not YOUR "truth" but willing to accept whatever facts, statistics, and other information they offer to reach a conclusion, instead of simply discounting them), then you might learn a thing or two and not be an object of mockery.
Whoawhoawhoawhoa wait here...have I stepped into another dimension?
Since when are climate-change deniers ever taken seriously by any normal human being? And even though youlostme sounds like he's a f*****g pre-adolescent clown, since when are people who ridicule climate change deniers called out for doing so?
I must have fallen through a rip in time and space or something by coming to this article. I'm going back to the rest of the site where most people would agree with youlostme, even if they'd put their opinions far more eloquently...
It really should be global realignment. Some places are becoming warmer, some colder. Some more humid, while others are turning to arid wastelands. Ad far as it being doomsday, I personally don't think so. I do believe billions, as many as 4 billion, people will die from starvation during this process. Natural process? Yes. But you best believe we are accelorating it too.
There is a world of difference between believing that we're in the midst of a warming trend and believing anything Al Gore says.
Yet another pearl of wisdom from tassiedevil. You do realise you're propping up a Tasmanian stereotype, right?
"Only fresh water is capable of freezing, not salt water." Wow. Seriously? That's not true. I... I just want everyone who reads that to know it's not true. Global Warming aside, we should all know that salt water can freeze. Okay. Carry on.
This format sucks. Why can't it just be all in one page?
ReplyOr at the very least 2 pages.
More hits
So Left wing celebrity activists were causing trouble back than as well. Michael f*****g Douglas. The entire Western world could be on nuclear power today if it wasn't for left leaning liberal idiots like Douglas. The man should have shut his mouth and let the experts do the talking. But he knows it all. I really hate Hollywood liberals.
Reply Hide All See All 5 RepliesWhile i most certainly lean toward the left, i have to agree with you on this point. Nuclear energy is one of the absolute cleanest and most efficient. Unfortunately, after all the hype following the tsunami in Japan last year, the cause of nuclear energy has been set back decades.
Leaning left has nothing to do with fear of nuclear power. Try building a nuclear power plant deep in the heart of conservative, right-wing territory and you'll get as much hoo-hah over it as if you built it in the middle of San Fransisco. Ignorance/fear is not owned by one political leaning or the other...
I think that liberalism has come to be associated with the "eco-freaks." Since the democratic party makes more passes at them, and said "eco freaks" also tend to be hippies. As well as single issue voters.
If you're only voting based on one issue, rather than the over all welfare of your country, then you have a problem. Everyone that is affected by your vote has a problem. Sigh.
Down here in Texas, most of the people around Bay City are all for the planned expansion of the Nuclear plant, as are most of the state reps, from both parties. But now it probably won't happen any time soon, because one of the main financeers was going to be the Tokyo Electric Power Company. D'oh!
Yeah, dang them lib-er-ahls and their complaints about potential meltdowns, like Chernobyl and Fukushima and that nuclear waste that no one can find anywhere safe to put, which will be highly toxic for thousands of years to come...and...and...wait...what was the point again?
Way more than 4,000 people died from Chernobyl...
ReplyIt's estimated at 30,000-60,000, good catch.
And those are the ones that they can prove...
There is no global ban on DDT. There is no government-related organization which supports a ban on DDT and, in fact, most support the Stockholm Convention which (among many other things) supports the use of DDT in cases where public health is at risk and specifically names malaria as a valid concern. Rachel Caron's book goes into detail about the pros and cons of using DDT, including mentioning malaria and mosquito, and isn't a screed against DDT.
ReplyNow, you don't mention where you get the information about deaths in Ceylon/Sri Lanka. However, if you start doing some digging, you'll find that it comes from Roger Bate and the American Enterprise Institute. Bates and the AEI are promoters of "sound science", a term first used by the tobacco lobby. In fact, AEI was part of the tobacco lobby in the 1980s, and is part of the water-privatization and global warming denial groups.
But, hey, this is a comedy article, right? They can't be expected to get every little detail right.
looks like he didnt even use Wiki for this one
I'm with you. The writer failed some incredibly basic fact-checking/science for the DDT portion of this article. Not to mention that at the point when DDT stopped being used, mosquitos in many parts of the world had already developed such a resistance to it that concentrations 2x and 3x greater than normally used still failed to effectively control their populations.
Did Art Robinson at the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine write this portion?