Hyping Health Risks: Environmental Hazards in Daily Life and the Science of Epidemiology (Hardcover)

by Professor Geoffrey C Kabat (Author)
Key Phrases: excess odds ratio, radon policy, spousal smoking, Long Island, United States, American Cancer Society (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
Hyping Health Risks provides a valuable counterpoint to the confusion and paranoia that seems to grow proportionate to the constant barrage of health risk studies. Examining four of the most persistent and controversial issues in public health, Kabat's lucid and well-written book gives the lay reader all the basic concepts and epidemiological tools she needs to understand the available evidence. His presentation allows us to better discriminate between what matters to our health and what matters to the 'hypers'-a wide array of stakeholders, some well-intentioned, some much less so. -- Ernest Drucker, Montefiore Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Geoffrey C. Kabat, a respected epidemiologist, provides an insider's account of how a number of ostensible health hazards have been blown out of proportion. While we face a daily barrage of health scares, Kabat cuts through the confusion and provides a lucid and rigorous rationale for rejecting much of the fear culture that permeates our society. -- Shelly Ungar, University of Toronto

With clarity and dispassion, Geoffrey C. Kabat challenges widespread beliefs that secondhand smoke, low levels of radon, and other ostensible environmental nemeses are certain killers. In making his case, Kabat draws extensively on scientific evidence while shunning rhetoric and political posturing. The result is an admirable search for scientific truth amid a sea of conflicting and often uninformed opinions. -- Leonard Cole, Rutgers University

Review
Geoffrey C. Kabat, a respected epidemiologist, provides an insider's account of how a number of ostensible health hazards have been blown out of proportion. While we face a daily barrage of health scares, Kabat cuts through the confusion and provides a lucid and rigorous rationale for rejecting much of the fear culture that permeates our society.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Columbia University Press; 1 edition (June 10, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0231141483
• ISBN-13: 978-0231141482
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #112,871 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Artificial Hyping of Risks, September 18, 2008

By	Gordon S. Hassing "Gordon Hassing" (Hilton Head Island, SC) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Professor Kabat does an excellent job in describing how a combination of zealous regulators, activists, and media can combine to magnify "alarming" results of preliminary, usually inadequate or poorly done studies. Once these headlines are in the public psyche, it can take years, even decades, of further, expensive studies to demonstrate the early alarms were false. Meanwhile, many are scared, and billions of dollars are spent to "fix" or "avoid" the so-called problem.

Four examples are explored in detail, complete with literature references. They are: a) environmental chemicals can cause breast cancer, b) electromagnetic fields (mostly from power lines) can cause various cancers, c)radon gas in homes can cause lung cancer, and d)the (lack of)effects of second-hand smoke. The discussions are thorough and convincing. In addition, Professor Kabat has a chapter describing the science of epidemiology, and points out the usefulness as well as the weakness of the technique.

This is an excellent read for both the layman and the professional in the field.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Truthful epidemiology is not always politically correct, September 23, 2008

By	maurice levois - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Kabat's book should be required reading for all public health graduate students and single-issue health activists. From the office of the Surgeon General to city hall, advocacy has frequently supplanted sound science in the service of "good public health policy". The hallmark of advocacy triumphing over science is a selective and result oriented use of data, starting with the institutions that fund the studies. It is currently heresy to challenge the science behind ETS research and regulation. You cannot get a study approved that challenges the validity of the questionnaires and other proxy measures used to characterize ETS exposure, or openly seeks to challenge inadequate measures of bias and confounding. As a consequence, a mountain of research money is being spent piling on more biased studies conducted by advocates. It's not a conspiracy. It is what political correctness does to public health. We need more public health heretics like Kabat.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully done!, January 28, 2009

By	Michael J. Mcfadden (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Dr. Kabat's analysis of how the media presents scientific studies and how the public is easily fooled into fear by perceptions that the "cause of the day" represents a real and imminent threat to their lives is beautifully done.

Dr. Kabat avoids the easy road of political polemic and presents his work in a style that's rigorous and above attack. I spend an inordinate amount of time researching current news and opinions regarding one of the subjects he treats (the "secondhand smoke scare" issue) and have observed that the critics who might normally be expected to attack a work like this are simply dead silent: they have no substantive criticisms to offer and the style of his work doesn't lend itself well to simple silly mudslinging. And while he treats each of several different problems independently within their own sections of the book, he does a beautiful job of couching those analyses within a larger themed structure that draws a compelling picture of a need for a wide reassessment of how scientific research is done and presented to the public in today's world of headline-hungry media.

The approach and style is more formal than some other books in the same area (My own work, while sticking tightly to a high standard of accuracy, tends to be a bit more polemic than Kabat's.) and the font size could have been just a bit larger (Hey, I'm being picky here, but once you get over 40 or so you appreciate bigger fonts!) but the content is absolutely stellar and I have no hesitation at all in giving both the book and Dr. Kabat a five star review. It's difficult for a scientist or researcher in today's competitive grant-seeking market to step outside the "popular" approach to research that simply accepts the strictures of rubber stamping the politically correct views that control the pursestrings, but Kabat evidently has more integrity than most who are out there and as you read "Hyping..." I think you'll agree he has what it takes to back up his stand.

It's just sad that there aren't more professionals with similar courage.

Michael J. McFadden
Author of Dissecting Antismokers' Brains