About half of American adults believe in at least one medical conspiracy theory, according to new survey.
Three times as many people believe U.S. regulators prevent people from getting natural cures as believe that a U.S. spy agency infected a large number of African Americans with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). 37 percent of respondents who fully agreed that U.S. regulators are suppressing access to natural cures, less than a third were willing to say they actively disagreed with the theory. Other theories in the study were that the government knows cell phones cause cancer but does nothing about it, that genetically modified organisms are being used to shrink the world's population, that routine vaccinations cause autism and that water fluoridation is a way for companies to dump dangerous chemicals into the environment. With regard to the theory that childhood vaccines cause psychological disorders like autism and the government knows it, 69 percent had heard the idea, 20 percent agreed with it and 44 percent disagreed. The only conspiracy theory with which more than half of the respondents disagreed was that a U.S. spy agency infected a large number of African Americans with HIV.
Some 49 percent of the survey participants agreed with at least one of the conspiracies.
J. Eric Oliver, the study's lead author from University of Chicago, said people may believe in conspiracy theories because they're easier to understand than complex medical information:
"Science in general - medicine in particular - is complicated and cognitively challenging because you have to carry around a lot of uncertainty," Oliver said. "To talk about epidemiology and probability theories is difficult to understand as opposed to 'if you put this substance in your body, it's going to be bad,'" he said.
"Although it is common to disparage adherents of conspiracy theories as a delusional fringe of paranoid cranks, our data suggest that medical conspiracy theories are widely known, broadly endorsed, and highly predictive of many common health behaviors," the researchers write in JAMA Internal Medicine.
Three times as many people believe U.S. regulators prevent people from getting natural cures as believe that a U.S. spy agency infected a large number of African Americans with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). 37 percent of respondents who fully agreed that U.S. regulators are suppressing access to natural cures, less than a third were willing to say they actively disagreed with the theory. Other theories in the study were that the government knows cell phones cause cancer but does nothing about it, that genetically modified organisms are being used to shrink the world's population, that routine vaccinations cause autism and that water fluoridation is a way for companies to dump dangerous chemicals into the environment. With regard to the theory that childhood vaccines cause psychological disorders like autism and the government knows it, 69 percent had heard the idea, 20 percent agreed with it and 44 percent disagreed. The only conspiracy theory with which more than half of the respondents disagreed was that a U.S. spy agency infected a large number of African Americans with HIV.
Some 49 percent of the survey participants agreed with at least one of the conspiracies.
J. Eric Oliver, the study's lead author from University of Chicago, said people may believe in conspiracy theories because they're easier to understand than complex medical information:
"Science in general - medicine in particular - is complicated and cognitively challenging because you have to carry around a lot of uncertainty," Oliver said. "To talk about epidemiology and probability theories is difficult to understand as opposed to 'if you put this substance in your body, it's going to be bad,'" he said.
"Although it is common to disparage adherents of conspiracy theories as a delusional fringe of paranoid cranks, our data suggest that medical conspiracy theories are widely known, broadly endorsed, and highly predictive of many common health behaviors," the researchers write in JAMA Internal Medicine.
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