Comments on: Short and Sour–Politics & Fear Trump Evidence http://skeptvet.com/Blog/2009/12/short-and-sour-politics-fear-trump-evidence/ A Vet Takes a Science-Based Look at Complementary and Alternative Medicine Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:51:23 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Bartimaeus http://skeptvet.com/Blog/2009/12/short-and-sour-politics-fear-trump-evidence/comment-page-1/#comment-338 Bartimaeus Sun, 20 Dec 2009 22:30:45 +0000 http://skeptvet.com/Blog/?p=281#comment-338 I was struck by how many of the comments on the USPSTF guidelines that I heard on the radio and TV news and locally followed the form of "my family has a high incidence of breast cancer and these guidelines are a death sentence!". Despite the fact that the guidelines specifically said they were for people with average or low risk, not those with higher risks. Some of that was probably political fear-mongering, but others seemed to be people's honest feelings about the guidelines, even though they were a gross misinterpretation. Unfortunately the complexity and nuance of these things are very difficult to communicate to many people. I was struck by how many of the comments on the USPSTF guidelines that I heard on the radio and TV news and locally followed the form of “my family has a high incidence of breast cancer and these guidelines are a death sentence!”. Despite the fact that the guidelines specifically said they were for people with average or low risk, not those with higher risks.

Some of that was probably political fear-mongering, but others seemed to be people’s honest feelings about the guidelines, even though they were a gross misinterpretation. Unfortunately the complexity and nuance of these things are very difficult to communicate to many people.

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