Consequence neutrality

["Bjorn Cedervall" <bcradsafers@HOTMAIL.COM>]

This is about the problem with sensational mass media - I just learned a new 

concept that some journalists stick to: "consequence neutrality". The 

relation to unnecessary scary radiation head lines will be obvious.



My lesson began last week - we had some headlines saying that "babies can 

get cancer" from some chemical in the nipple of feeding bottles. I forwarded 

this to a professor in toxicology and wrote "today's cancer scare" in the 

subject line. I have no idea where any risk numbers are -it is not the point 

here - but this professor responded by referring to another alarm that we 

had three years ago - some carcinogen had been detected at very low levels 

in the cleaning wipes (I am uncertain about the English term here) for 

babies - some cloth material I believe. Again the headlines read "Your baby 

can get cancer".



The professor had done the toxicology/carcinogenesis calculations and came 

down to that if you ate 15 000 of these wipes you would be at some hygenic 

standard/limit - assuming a straight line down to the origin I guess (lets 

not discuss that part again!).



Next I discussed this with a journalist who is communicating research in 

medicine and science. She explained that many of her collegues refer to 

their "consequence neutrality" (and she said - "I don't share this view at 

all"). This means that these journalists (or other writers in sensational 

media etc) insist on the right of remaining "neutral" regardless of the 

potential size (consequence) of the problem - chemical, radiation, 

whatever,.... Not surprisingly these mass media people understand what they 

are doing using the word "can" (cause this or that). Where is the ethics in 

all this? It is easy for most Radsafers to see shat kinds of comments one 

may make regarding priorites with limited resources etc.



A couple of bottom line questions must be: Is there any way of reaching the 

journalist schools? Writing in their own journals (!) or reach this at its 

root by some other means? The fear causing headlines seem to be there for 

ever with the waste of resources as a consequence (there is that word 

again...).



Take the EMF controversy as a parallel to these examples relating to 

chemical substances. Either the risk is non-existant or there is a risk but 

so low that it cannot even be detected. Headlines: "Magnetic fields can 

cause cancer" (vacuum cleaners, electric shavers,...the list is endless to 

exploit for selling newspapers).



My personal reflections only,



Bjorn Cedervall    bcradsafers@hotmail.com

http://www.geocities.com/bjorn_cedervall/





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