--- Bryan Caplan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: "I enthusiastically recommend: Kraus, Malmfors, and Slovic. 1992...."
Sounds like a great article. K, M, & S aren't alone. Here's some stuff from Rothman & Lichter's "Is Environmental Cancer a Political Disease?" published in the book "The Flight From Science and Reason," ed. Gross, Levitt, & Lewis. Scientists surveyed on causes of cancer, risk rated on 1-10 scale: smoking 9.19 chewing tobacco 7.34 asbestos 6.49 second hand smoke** 5.88 fat in diet 5.39 aflatoxin 4.85 low fiber diet 4.83 dioxin 4.74 alcohol 4.59 edb 4.22 radon 4.00 hormone treatment 3.99 ddt 3.83 food addatives/preservatives 3.27 nuclear power plants 2.46 alar 2.18 saccharin 1.64 other sweeteners 1.19 Environmental activists surveyed on the same question: smoking 9.1 dioxin 8.1 asbestos 7.8 edb 7.3 ddt 6.7 pollution 6.6 sunlight 6.3 fat in diet 6.1 food additives 5.3 nuclear plants 4.6 alar 4.1 saccharin 3.7 Note the differences in both the order and the scale. (**How does the scientists ranking of second-hand smoke jibe with Kip Viscusi's work, e.g. catoinstitute.com/pubs/regulation/reg18n3e.html ?) >From another graphic: --U.S. faces a cancer epidemic? 31% of scientists agree; 85% of media sources agree --Cancer-causing agents unsafe at any dose? 28% of scientists agree; 66% of media sources agree --Can base human cancer risks on animal studies? 27% of scientists agree; 50% of media sources agree --Support Delaney clause?** 12% of scientists agree; 25% of media sources agree **The Delaney clause is the 'zero risk' standard that "holds that chemicals and additives must be banned from food and drugs if they are ever shown to cause cancer in any species." Finally, for your amusement, percentage of scientists rating media outlet seven or higher on a zero-to-ten scale of reliability for cancer information: New England Journal of Medicine--72% Journal of the AMA--55% Scientific American--54% New York Times--22% Weekly News Magazines--9% TV News Networks--6% I wonder if that last one has gone down since Fox News got big.... Best to you, jsh __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? HotJobs - Search Thousands of New Jobs http://www.hotjobs.com
