Carol Tavris is a social psychologist who's written before about how cognitive dissonance makes it difficult for us to admit our mistakes. Now, she turns her spotlight on how our thinking is manipulated by statistics and the media. This time, she and Avrim Bluming, a medical oncologist, have written an article about the risk factors for breast cancer and how they've been publicized in the media, feeding the fear of women around the world.
Millions of women felt compelled to trade in their hormone replacement therapy for hot flashes after publicized reports of higher rates of breast cancer in women taking those hormones for menopausal symptoms. More recent analysis may reduce those fears.
Part of the problem, on the part of the journalists who write the articles that end up under headlines that misinform us, is the difficulty of explaining complex science in three paragraphs. And many of us are also guilty of reading those three paragraphs and actually changing our lives as a result - without going to the source of that information to see what it really reports.
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15 comments:
This article does nothing but scare me. It kinda makes me afraid of the world that we live in today. One can't expect anything.
i agree with courtney's comment about being scared, you cant expect anything in the world. Things just happen in a time where we dont know its going to happen. This article kinda makes me scared for my mother and for me.
Rutica Patel
Washington High School
I used to eat a whole, (not a quarter) grapefruit everyday until I learned of the "new findings". But then, there's always been something under attack whether it was coffee or milk linked to cancer. So I still eat my grapefruit in moderation along with my cancer fighting green veggies until more concrete evidence is proven.
I honestly didn't know people were so paranoid. I think you should just live your life without fear of the future. What's going to happen is going to happen regardless of what you do about it. I did think the article was very informative though and did give insight about how crazy this scare is.
alex lea
there are always new breakthroughs in the feild of medical science,women need to check all there facts before getting paranoid the artical said that 90 percent survived (johnniesmallwood whs)
Any time that cancer is thought of, it is fightening. However, it does seem that breast cancer is a huge fear among women. It might be the fact that women feel that they can not prevent breast cancer as much as they can heart disease. In my opinion, I am extremely terrified of breast cancer. It seems to be genetic which is very scary for me. I never knew that a grapefruit would put a person more at risk for breast cancer, guess I won't be eating many of these any more.
-April Woolard (WHS)
I used to eat grapefruits about 2 times a week, until I started hearing negative comments about them. Alot of foods have something bad that people will link to something
Kendra Wooden
I found this article very interesting. It shows how the media knows women are paranoid about breast cancer and they take advantage of it. Also i love how it breaks down the statistics to show that some statistics are not as bad as they seem.
Susan Braddy(WHS)
My girlfriend grandmother fell ill with breast cancer, and it eventually took her life. My girlfriend's life was changed dramatically, she reads all the articles about breast cancer awareness and prevention. She is determined to catch it in herself early on and be prepared. The article does a good job pointing out bias and exageration in the media, but it should be pointed out that a 1 in a 1,000 chance, is still a chance. Knowledge is power.
Doug Jones
Well I guess the way the world is today everything causes some kind of cancer. But Im not going to stop eating everything I do just because someone THINKS it causes cancer. Just because someone else got cancer doesn't mean they got it from that one particular thing.
Casey Pilgreen
To me this article show how people would rather scare us into trying to being healthy with statistics than actually giving us information helpful to us.
*being an Icelandic flight attendant: 410%
* using an electric blanket: 630% (but only if you are a black woman who used it for more than 10 years but less than six months in a given year).
I mean seriously? Those are legitimate statistics? So, it kinda looks like you can make a statistic out of pretty much anything. I think I will keep on eating my grapefruit.
Jamie Rieg
You will never know when it will happen. the media is horrible. Scary thought that all that stuff that is supposed to help you doesn't. i think everyone should just go all natural and just see waht happens.
Unfortunetly, we do not know as much about cancer as we need too. It seems as if everything has been linked to some sort of cancer. Whether it be grapefruit, ciggarettes, or deoderant, the best thing we can do is to take care of ourselves.
Brandy kinion
I think a few of these statistics may be a bit far fetched. But its a good thing I don't like grapefruit anyway. ;)
Emily Smith SHS
So many articles like this just seem to cause fear in people when really it may need be the same for you as the person before you. I think it may be a little far fetched to believe some of the statistics put forward.
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