The Not-So-Hot Zone
A mutated strain of the AIDS virus can be transmitted through the air. Underarm deodorants can cause breast cancer. A new form of toxic shock syndrome is killing women. None of these statements is true, but at one time or another a lot of people have believed otherwise. These days, rumors about diseases spread across ...
A mutated strain of the AIDS virus can be transmitted through the air. Underarm deodorants can cause breast cancer. A new form of toxic shock syndrome is killing women.
A mutated strain of the AIDS virus can be transmitted through the air. Underarm deodorants can cause breast cancer. A new form of toxic shock syndrome is killing women.
None of these statements is true, but at one time or another a lot of people have believed otherwise. These days, rumors about diseases spread across international borders faster than the diseases themselves — and the Internet typically provides the means for spreading those rumors.
But if the World Wide Web is a fertile medium for incubating irrational beliefs about illnesses, it can also be an effective tool for innoculating against them. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention maintains a site devoted to debunking "Current Health Related Hoaxes and Rumors" seeking, for example, to assure a worried public that, contrary to what they might have read online, Costa Rican bananas do not cause the "flesh-eating" disease necrotizing fasciitis.
Meanwhile, in Great Britain, the attempt to halt the spread of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) has led to the closure of rural paths and parks, costing the countryside tourism industry £100 million per week. The "Foot and Mouth Disease" home page, maintained by the British Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food (MAFF), tries to convince would-be tourists that there are still plenty of open footpaths (as long as hikers follow "sensible precautions" such as cleaning their boots between walks) and lots of rural charm to be found. "It is perfectly safe," the site claims, "to visit country pubs, village teashops, stately homes, craft fairs, country museums or anywhere else in the countryside where there is no livestock."
MAFF also assures the public that FMD does not harm humans. But others in cyberspace disagree. Dr. Michael Greger of the Organic Consumers Association recently published his research on the human health risks of FMD at his "Mad Cow Disease" site. The page links to an archive of more than 8,000 articles on FMD and mad cow disease worldwide. Collectively, the articles imply that, assurances of government health experts notwithstanding, the mad cow epidemic will get worse before it gets better. Or, put another way, sometimes a little public panic might not be such a bad idea after all.
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