Fighting Chemophobia

Chemophobia is an irrational fear of chemicals. It includes the fear of aluminium in vaccines, methylparaben preservative in cosmetics and formaldehyde residue in shampoo. Since the early 1990s, advances in toxicology have allowed scientists to detect traces of adulterant substances in everyday products - even down to parts per billion concentrations. Toxicological research has shown most of these substances are in such low doses that they pose zero threat to our health. Nonetheless, we get scared. We overreact to harmless, negligible sources of contamination and buy "natural," "organic" and "chemical-free" alternative products at elevated prices because we're psychologically pre-disposed to think they're safer. Consumers are victims of aggressive marketing and misleading labelling from "natural" and "organic" companies, who exploit our psychological quirks to expand their market share. The supposed onslaught of toxic chemicals that special interest groups describe simply isn't happening. Our products are safer than ever, yet people are becoming more scared. Consumers suffer from guilt, anxiety and mental stress of being coaxed into paying a hefty price premium for "natural" skincare products that are neither safer nor more effective than conventional ones. This book explores the history of chemophobia and the recent events that amplified it; and describes how consumers, teachers, doctors, lawmakers and journalists can fight chemophobia by tackling the social issues that underpin it.

Since the early 1990s, advances in toxicology have allowed scientists to detect traces of adulterant substances in everyday products – even down to parts per billion concentrations. We can now detect the presence of harmful ingredients at levels so low that they actually cause no harm. Nonetheless, we get scared. We are now able to overreact to harmless, negligible sources of contamination and flock to ‘natural’, ‘organic’ and ‘chemical-free’ alternative products at elevated prices instead. This urge is driven in part by a set of interesting psychological quirks called the naturalness preference or biophilia. While exposure to many aspects of nature improves our physical and mental wellbeing, marketers are taking advantage of our naturalness preference by selling us ‘organic’ and ‘natural’ products with no functional advantage, sometimes to the detriment of the environment, and that have the unfortunate added effect of peddling a fear of conventional products that do not make such natural connotations. This fear of chemicals, exaggerated by marketers, has led some of us to seek nature in the form of expensive consumer product, which offer almost none of the benefits of spending time outdoors in real nature (which is free of charge). We thus chase nature in the wrong form. We feel guilt, anxiety and mental stress from being coaxed into paying a hefty premium price for "natural" products that are neither safer nor more effective than conventional ones, and forget to appreciate real nature in the process. This book explores the history of chemical fears and the recent events that amplified it. It describes how consumers, teachers, doctors, lawmakers and journalists can help make better connections with the public by telling stories that are more engaging about chemistry and materials science. Written in a sympathetic way, this book explains both sides of the argument for anyone with an interest in science.

Explains how scientists assess the risks and benefits of chemicals, arguing that fear of chemicals poses a risk to public health.

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press's Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. In recent decades, many members of the public have come to see processed food as a problem that needs to be solved by eating "real" food and reforming the food system. But for many food industry professionals, the problem is not processed food or the food system itself, but misperceptions and irrational fears caused by the public's lack of scientific understanding. In her highly original book, Charlotte Biltekoff explores the role that science and scientific authority play in food industry responses to consumer concerns about what we eat and how it is made. As Biltekoff documents, industry efforts to correct public misperceptions through science-based education have consistently misunderstood the public's concerns, which she argues are an expression of politics. This has entrenched "food scientism" in public discourse and seeded a form of antipolitics, with broad consequences. Real Food, Real Facts offers lessons that extend well beyond food choice and will appeal to readers interested in how everyday people come to accept or reject scientific authority in matters of personal health and well-being.

In Crop Chemophobia, Jon Entine and his coauthors examine the 'precautionary principle' that underlies the EU's decision and explore the ban's potential consequences-including environmental degradation, decreased food safety, impaired disease-control efforts, and a hungrier world.