Unfortunately, many people have a poor grasp of the hierarchy of health-related risks, write ACSH’s Dr. Gilbert Ross and former ACSH Trustee Dr. Henry Miller, a Hoover Institution fellow, in an op-ed for Investor’s Business Daily. After citing some frightening health statistics — as that only one-third of mothers plan on vaccinating their kids against the flu, and only 10 percent of patients take their blood pressure-lowering medications as prescribed for more than one year — Drs. Miller and Ross explain why so many people pay no mind to such high-risk behavior while wasting their time worrying about other activities that pose only a negligible risk:
The result is that many people frequently make unwise choices — eschewing drugs that prevent heart attacks or cancer or choosing to expose their kids to the real dangers of childhood viral and bacterial diseases while “protecting” them from imaginary hobglobins such as BPA and pesticide residues in foods.
