The consequences of fear

Abstract

The cartoon character Charlie Brown once said “I've developed a new philosophy… I only dread one day at a time.” If only this were true for many of us in the real world. From transgenic food to industrial chemicals, from radiation to mobile phone towers, the new technologies of our modern world have offered us wonderful new benefits, which also pose a host of new risks. Some of these risks are physically real. Many are only phantoms of our perceptions. Both contribute to an undeniably real sense of worry and apprehension that extends far beyond the next 24 hours. > …the hazards of risk misperception may be more significant than any of the individual risks about which we fret Toxicologists, epidemiologists and risk experts study the physical perils one hazard at a time. But the cumulative load of modern threats may be creating an even greater risk that is largely overlooked: the risk that arises from misperceiving risks as higher or lower than they actually are. As a result of some of the decisions we make when we are fearful, some of the choices we make when we are not fearful enough, and because of the ways our bodies react to chronically elevated levels of stress, the hazards of risk misperception may be more significant than any of the individual risks about which we fret. So those who study risk in the name of promoting public health would do well to accept that our perceptions, irrational as they may seem, are real, although we live in a far safer world than just a few generations ago and many of the risks people worry about are small or non‐existent. A more comprehensive risk analysis approach must recognize that these fears pose an actual danger that needs to be understood, accounted for in …