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Prions, BSE and the fear of airborne risks
What most people will take away after hearing about today’s research on the possibility of airborne transmission of prions is a feeling that they aren’t as safe as they thought they were. They might...
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Familiarity and the Shingles Vaccine
One of the greatest areas of success of public health has been the discovery and widespread adoption of vaccines to prevent infectious disease. Polio, smallpox, tetanus, diphtheria, …. The list of...
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Public Health Needs Humility to Address Vaccination Fears
Last Thursday, the New York Times published an op-ed piece by Michael Willrich titled “Why Parents Fear the Needle.” I won’t go through Professor Willrich’s narrative in detail, though I do think it’s...
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Why We Prefer Surgeons to Cut Stuff Out of Us, Even If We Don’t Need Them To
Findings published in last week’s Journal of the American Medical Association suggest that many women have had unnecessary surgical procedures done in the name of curing their breast cancer. The...
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Fears of Fukushima: If It Can’t Be Fixed Quickly, Is It Necessarily Really Bad?
Today’s New York Times blasts as its headline that “Radioactive Releases in Japan Could Last Months, Experts Say.” It’s the top bullet in the world news stage, and already many of my friends have...
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Finding My Tears For Japan: When 1 Is Worse Than 10,000
“Human beings with the tears dried off.” That’s how Paul Slovic recently described the dry statistics that are supposed to help us understand the scope of human tragedies such as genocide and, more...
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Presenting Risky Choices in Small Doses Makes For Better Decisions
One of the most difficult lessons I try to teach the students in my health communication course is that providing less information can often be more effective than trying to be “comprehensive.” This...
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Vaccine Risk Communication in the Context of Web 2.0: Respecting the Power of...
I just returned from an interesting small-group conference on discussions of vaccination risk in the era of Web 2.0 (full program is here). The conference was sponsored by the Center for Empirical...
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Do Messages of Safety Create Fear and Vice Versa?
In yesterday’s New York Times, Andrew Revkin reposted an excerpt from David Ropeik’s book “How Risky Is It, Really?” His purpose was to draw attention to Ropeik’s concern that society needs to figure...
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Misunderstanding Momentum in Risk: The Climate Doesn’t Stop Warming on the...
Every fall, I teach a graduate seminar in risk communication at the University of Michigan. I’ve been revising the class reading list over the summer, both to add newer material but also to remind...
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Recommended Reading: FDA Publishes Evidence-Based User’s Guide to Risk and...
Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published a new report titled Communicating Risks and Benefits: An Evidence-Based User’s Guide, edited by Baruch Fischhoff, Noel Brewer, and Julie...
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Risk Perception ‘Fallout’ from Tokyo’s Radiation Hotspots
Today’s New York Times includes a report that citizens groups in and around Tokyo have been performing radiation testing separate from government efforts. Of concern, these groups are finding hot spots...
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