5 'Common Sense' Solutions That Make Everything Worse

The Surprising Downside:

There are many ways vitamin supplements will mess you up. Especially if you don't pay attention to the dosage. In 1999, researchers noticed that people who ate lots of beta-carotene (vitamin A) were less likely to develop lung cancer. They tested the theory by feeding 15,000 smokers the equivalent dose of six carrots a day, only to find that their doses were too large, and they were actually giving their test subjects cancer. In 2015, Norway's equivalent of the FDA verified that overdoing it with vitamin A may increase lung cancer risk for anyone with any kind of lung problems at all -- not only smokers.

Other vitamin supplements don't fare much better. A study of 2256 women over 70 found that people who took mega-doses of vitamin D had 15 percent more fractures than those who took a placebo, because it turns out that our bodies consider high amounts of D toxic and start to break it all down, including the D already in our bones. Vitamin E doesn't fare much better: Several extensive trials have reached the conclusion that it seems to "increase mortality," and not because it gives you so much energy that you're out all day jumping motorcycles over bridges.

The problem with vitamin supplements is mostly related to free radicals, which are atoms with an odd number of electrons that form when the body turns food into energy. If they interact with DNA, then, scientifically speaking, you've bought yourself two front-row tickets to the shit show. Antioxidants, which you find in vitamins, are thought to combat this. However, when you take too many antioxidants, you kill too many free radicals, severely impairing your immune system in the process. Going nuts with vitamins to supplement your diet is like setting fire to the bar in order to stop a fistfight; sure, it works, but it's generally not worth it in the long run.

Not that you're any safer if you pay attention to the dosage. The FDA has virtually no oversight when it comes to supplements. Sure, manufacturers need to have scientific evidence in support of any claims they make, but they are under no obligation to present said evidence to the FDA until something goes terrifyingly wrong. And sometimes it does: The FDA recalled 237 supplements from stores between 2004-2012 because they contained substances that might cause death or serious injury.

Listen: We know vegetables are weird. We've been taught all of our lives not to eat food that's been dropped on the ground, but suddenly we're supposed to eat food that comes out of it? Nice try, hippies. Still, if the alternative is a supplement high in "Vitamin Cancer," maybe we'll choke down those carrots after all.

Related: 8 Health Foods That Are Bad For Your Health

Another Australian cull study: Tasmanian scientists began trapping and killing feral cats in a local forest, in the interest of protecting native wildlife. After the cull began, the researchers did indeed notice a shift in the cat population ... by which we mean it exploded, increasing 75-211 percent. Unwittingly, the researchers had killed most of the forest's alpha male cats, because they were the only ones brave and confident enough to stroll right into the traps. With the alphas gone, a massive surplus of beta males immediately started sexin' the females, leading to a full-blown kitty sexual revolution.

If you think of the forest as a high school, it's like we thought we'd lower teen pregnancy rates by expelling all the sports teams, then were shocked to see the chess club finally getting some play.

Related: 6 Animals That Kill Nature's Scariest Creatures For Fun

Oof, teenage drivers, right? They're reckless, they're impulsive, they probably listen to stupid music that you can't relate to -- just the worst. Science backs us up on at least two of those accounts: According to the CDC, the risk of a teen driver being involved in a fatal crash is nearly three times that of drivers over 20. They're more likely to drink and drive than other age groups. Hell, only 55 percent of them even use seat belts. That's why high school driving education is such a great thing: Any amount of training you can cram into a teenager's skull might keep their brains from leaking out later when they flip their Mazda while texting.

The Surprising Downside:

Research indicates that drivers ed is all but useless, and may even be harmful to a driver. That's partially due to stuff like ineffective teaching methods and bored, unmotivated students who won't pay attention unless you pepper your lectures with hip slang and freestyle raps. Worst of all, since drivers ed courses emphasize emergency maneuvers, teen drivers make the deadly mistake of assuming they know what the hell they're doing. Pro tip, teenagers: You never, ever know what you're doing.

Besides, that training doesn't last unless you practice it, and most don't regularly practice it. So by educating teen drivers on what to do in emergency situations, we make them overconfident and they drive more recklessly, leading to them more frequently encountering those emergency situations that they are not truly prepared for. We guess the alternative is either never letting teenagers drive, or throwing them out there on the streets with as little instruction as possible and hoping they bounce on impact.

Related: 6 Insane Educational Claims Published In Real Textbooks

The Surprising Downside:

Nope! In fact, subjecting troubled teens to a Scared Straight program increases the chances of them turning to a life of crime. The problem with Scared Straight is simple, when you think about it. The program specifically targets troubled kids, i.e. teens who already think crime is cool. Putting them in a room with criminals won't exactly scare them. Hell, we're essentially paying for these kids to hang out with their idols for an afternoon. Experts have noted that doing absolutely jack shit to help these kids would be better than exposing them to the program.

The program's reputation took a blow when one of the kids from the original documentary was arrested for shoplifting in 2005. DNA evidence then linked him to a cold case murder, for which he is currently serving a 25-to-life sentence in the very prison he visited in the film. He committed that crime in 1982 -- a mere four years after the movie was shot. Strangely enough, it turns out that if you throw a kid into a cell with Murderin' Mike for an afternoon, all he'll learn is how to murder better.

Related: Weird Ways Sleep BS Royally Messes Up Our Programs

The bigger problem (holy shit, there's a bigger problem than mass baby theft?) is that no one wants to adopt a kid in actual need. Privileged parents want their babies to be as healthy, cute, and young as possible. As such, they're in really short supply in poverty-stricken areas. Which is why in 2008, 98 percent of all US-adopted babies from Guatemala were "relinquished" -- a.k.a signed over to an attorney who approved of the adoption "without any review by a judge or social service agency." That means that the baby was almost certainly bought or stolen from its parents.

This shit is global and high-profile. Consider the case of Lauryn Galindo, the woman who arranged for Angelina Jolie's adopted Cambodian child, Maddox. Galindo has a heavy-handed history of purchasing healthy babies from Cambodian mothers for prices ranging from $700 to as little as $100.

Holy crap, you can buy a human being for less than an Australian pays for GTA V.

David Rose thinks he's some kinda comedian, huh? He'll be performing stand-up at the Melbourne Fringe Festival from September 26-October 3. Like him on Facebook.

We have a long history of instituting safety measures that just do not work -- like automatic seatbelts that behead drivers. See that and more in 5 Safety Measures That Caused Rampant Death And Destruction. And this bad habit is even filtering into our schools, like those that force kids to wear tracking devices. See more of these awful policies in The 6 Dumbest Things Schools Are Doing In The Name Of Safety.

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