False Alarm: The Truth About the Epidemic of Fear
Fake Alarm: The Truth About the Epidemic of Dread Books
Product Description
Life today for citizens of the developed world is safer, simpler, and healthier than for any other people in history thanks to modern medicine, science, technology, and intelligence. So why is an epidemic of dread sweeping America? The resolution, according to nationally celebrated health commentator Dr. Marc Siegel, is that we live in an artificially made culture of dread. In Fake Alarm, Siegel identifies three major catalysts of the culture of dread—government, the media, and huge pharma. With fascinating, blow-by-blow analyses of the most sensational fake alarms of the past few years, he shows how these fearmongers manipulate our most primitive instincts—often without our even realizing it. Fake Alarm shows us how to look behind the hype and hysteria, inoculate ourselves hostile to dread tactics, and develop the emotional and intellectual skills needed to take back our lives.
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On July 10, 2001, a former member of our august intelligence community, Larry Johnson, wrote an editorial piece in the New York Times telling us that fears about terrorist attacks were way exaggerated. Johnson cited all kinds of statistics to basically call anyone who feared a terrorist attack in the USA a fool. I am sure this was fantastic comfort to the 3,000 people who went to work in the NY World Trade focal top two months later and had a choice of jumping to their deaths or burning to death before the towers fell on the pulverized remains of the terrorists who had hijacked the aircraft used to kill more American civilians than had ever occurred before in the nation’s history.
Now we have a medical doctor, Marc Siegel, telling us the same thing in 200 pages of nonsense.
Siegel does not use the Dr. title, wisely, in giving his advice, since he would probably never be able to do medicine again once the law suits ongoing after the next terrorist attack, but this is really a very asinine book.
Siegel is aptly in his recitation of statistics in reminding us that we have a better opportunity of being killed in a car crash than a terrorist attack, so far. And he is right in pointing out the sensationalism rampant in the liberal media when it over hypes tales about SARS, etc. But his political agenda convolutes reasoning in a very perilous world, where terrorism has replaced historical methods of warfare, just as nitrates replaced bows and arrows as weapons of destruction decades ago.
Thankfully this book is a one hour read at best, but get your lawyer ready to make you some money after the next terrorist attack and you can convince a jury that you believed this nonsense and didn’t dread jihadist lunatics after reading Siegel’s shallow and ridiculous book.
Rating: 1 / 5
I suggest after reading this book – or even better, before you spend your money on this book – you spend a few hours investigating for yourself the past pandemics of 1918, 1957 & 1968 and the impact on society when the viruses were ignored or worse, covered up. Additionally, read for yourself what scientists are saying about H5N1. Read what Dr. Michael T. Osterholm, Director of CIDRAP, Focal top for Infectious Disease Research (CIDRAP.com), the Centers for Disease Control (cdc.gov), Dr. David Nabarro, U.N. Secretary General-appointed Senior UN system Co-ordinator for Avian and Human Bug and Senior Analyst for The World Health Organization, Michael Levitt, Director of the Dept. of Health & Human Services of the US Government and The World Health Organization (among many, many others) are saying about H5N1. These are the sources you should be following for in rank on a virus that is literally sweeping across the globe in record speed.
Marc Siegel’s book is simply uninformed and worse, it is perilous as many will read what he has to say and judge it because that is what they WANT to judge. The evidence proves him incorrect, not this review of his book. I highly encourage you to research this on your own before you waste your time with this misinformation.
I will not exchange your mind about this book, about the highly virulent H5N1 nor about the need to prepare you and your family for a possible pandemic. How many of you have Car Insurance? Fire Insurance? Homeowners Insurance? You have it not because you anticipate an accident, a fire or natural disaster but because you know they can happen and want to take precautionary measures to protect yourself and your loved ones. Hopefully you will go and research this for yourselves and place the money hungry opportunists to themselves.
Here are 5 highly credible websites to start you off on your research:
CIDRAP.com
cdc.goc
pandemicflu.gov
who.org
fluwikie.com
Rating: 1 / 5
This book is political punditry done poorly. The doctor should stab to medicine, and try to do a better job there.
Instead, he ventured into politics and criticized the Bush administration for fighting terrorism. The left, and in particular the elite media, might reckon that terrorism is not a real danger because a particular person’s probability of being harmed is very small. Contracted we have not executed well, but most Americans judge we must take it sincerely because these beasts are driven by ideology to ruin our society.
The doctor also decried the U. S. pharmaceutical industry for charging high prices for their products. He absolutely ignored that fact that the U.S. pharmaceutical companies are the ones with a steady spill of new drugs because they have the financial incentive to investing in research and development. The Europeans and Canadians are getting a free ride by their governmental price control. If we did what these governments do and force our drug companies to sell at low prices, no one will invest in developing new drugs.
When the doctor stuck to the theme of the elite media exaggerating dread, he did have a valid top. But the real motive of the book was left-handed political sniping. You know it when Bill Press is impressed.
Rating: 2 / 5
There is a modest quantity of excellent in rank here, detailing how people tend to be poor analyzers of risks to themselves. But much of it is common sense, and most of the rest you may possibly dig up yourself with a few Google searches.
Siegel’s real purpose in publishing this book becomes clear a link chapters in. He launches into a steady barrage of criticism of the Bush administration, Republican politicians, and huge business.
Now, there is bounty of legitimate criticism that can be leveled at the aforementioned. But for proper perspective, it needs to be balanced by acknowledging that fearmongering is a bipartisan pursuit. But Siegel absolutely ignores the various bogeymen of the left, which are even more egregious examples of irrational fearmongering.
Every link years the environmental movement launches a new scare campaign de jour. Alar, dioxin, power lines, irradiated food, ozone depletion, secondhand smoke–all of them either absolutely debunked or shown to be manageable risks. But not a whisper from Siegel about any of them. The AIDS epidemic in America was oversold with junk science, at one top Donna Shalala warning that there may be “no Americans left”. But Siegel cites AIDS as an example of a risk that is UNDER-reported. And of course, he has to get in his digs at the NRA, taking a purely supporter position on the come forth of gun ownership and dabbling in some fearmongering of his own.
After dozens of pages bashing Bush, and pausing to gush praise upon Al Gore, the book settles into routine discussions of bird flu, SARS, etc., though he takes one more shot at Bush later in the book (rehashing the WMD debate). By the end of this book, your attitude toward the book will depend upon your political persuasion. If you are a Democratic sympathizer, you’ll probably give the book a thumbs up, being vaguely aware that it was written by a fellow tourist (so casting a glow upon the entire work). If you are in the GOP camp, you probably tossed the book away in disgust long before the end. If you’re not political, you’ll be bored out of your skull.
For a genuine hard-hitting look at the culture of junk science and fearmongering, the works of Michael Fumento are highly not compulsory.
Rating: 2 / 5
This author will be on the Coast2Coast radio show tonight 10/13/05 at 10PM PT. I will do a review at that time. Yes, I’ve read the book, but I need to question him some questions before I rate this one folks. This is one of those books that will stir you up, make you question questions, and allow you to accept the answers. My review will be posted after the George Noory interview…
Rating: 5 / 5