Scared to Death: From BSE to Global Warming: Why Scares are Costing Us the Earth

"This book is both fascinating, authoritative and excellently referenced.

The chapter on 'satanic abuse' nearly had me in tears of rage, such was the sinister and quite outrageous behaviour of those involved.
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~ Written on 2008-04-25

"The content has been reviewed excellently here already - I can't add anything to those reviews.

However, the thing that struck me about the book, which was as compulsive as any I can remember, was the level-headedness with which the facts were revealed. Only knowing a couple of these case studies in any depth (including the 'climate crisis' nonsense), I was shocked at how often basic corroboration of science or proclamations has been missing, and have been particularly concerned at the absence of investigative journalism. (I was delighted that they included the BBC's coverage of Live Earth - I was horrified that the BBC chose its role as that of 'advocate' instead of balanced and challenging news carrier.)

The book carefully avoids seeming like a conspiracy-theorists' manifesto, carefully unpicking the anatomy of scares.

If only this book, instead of An Inconvenient Truth, were to be circulated to all schools in the UK."
~ Written on 2008-03-17

"Like many people, I have been very suspicious of the recent outburst of scares of one sort or another. For instance, was a wooden chopping board really dangerous? I have also been suspicious of the "authorities" and the "science" which lies behind the scares. Well, if you have been concerned about such matters, you must read this book. It takes a cold, hard, look at what happened, what the facts really were and why (as so often happens) emotion replaces logic, those who dissent are silenced one way or another, and a falsehood becomes truth.

Government, politicians and the media do not show up well when the facts are finally brought to light (though there are always some honourable souls who retain their sense of proportion and concern for truth). Most horrific, however, are the casualties of the panics and witch hunts which have taken place - farmers whose lives were blighted by food scares, children and parent who suffered when satanic abuse was invented in the 1990s and many more.

For the authors the scare of all scares is the global warming theory. They believe that it has the characteristics of early scares - little scientific basis, disconfirming evidence is ignored and a bandwagon effect leads to vastly inflated claims. If you agree with them, then you are looking at a disaster as vast amounts of resources are diverted into fruitless efforts to slow climate change when, of course, these reources could have been used productively. Awful. My guess is the authors are right - why would governments suppress scientists who disagree with them if they were confident they were right?

A must read."
~ Written on 2008-03-17

"I cannot impress on you how important it is that you and everyone that you know must read this book. You will be outraged many times before you finish reading and will want to share the contents with all the open minded people that you know. you will want to discuss it and read what other people think about it.You may not want to believe the things that you will read but it is so rigorous in its approach that you will struggle to refute the contents. Scared to death is the most significant book that i have read and it should be compulsory reading for all mps, local councillors and social workers.
Once you understand the sequence of events which lead to a scare, you will be able to listen to the news with more objectivity and possibly recognise that iran is the current scare which george bush is inflicting on the world and the eu will no doubt give him the green light to persue whatever policy that he deems appropriate. Its all in this book, read it *PLEASE* and you will see for yourself.
Having read the other rewiews of this work, i agree with every word that the reviewers have written.
If you read this book, then the question that will linger in your mind as it has in mine, will be..... why have we allowed all of this to happen. "
~ Written on 2008-03-12

".....then try reading the chapter on satanic child abuse when your children are in the same room watching the T.V. I did, and an icy chill went down my spine. Imagine at that point someone came into your house, took your children away, accused you of the most disgusting crimes and gagged any attempt you made to speak out. Orwell, Kafka? No. Cleveland, Rochdale and Nottingham in the Twentieth Century.
This book is not about denial. Booker and North do not try to deny or trivialise AIDS, BSE, smoking related diseases, E coli, Listeria or any of the issues raised. Indeed these are major issues that require a well thought out and appropriate response.
The authors take issue with the scientists who push their own research and exclude any notion that alternate research might show something to the contrary. They round on lazy jounalists who do not research facts for themselves and compete for the most sensational headline.
Mostly however, they condemn politicians who settle on the current orthodoxy and take disproportionate measures, cost millions or even billions to the taxpayer and yet fail to do any good whatsoever (what the authors call 'taking a sledgehammer and missing the nut')
What is most telling is that once the scare has been proved to be groundless, the powers that the authorities have taken for themselves to solve the problem are never given back.
An excellent read, concise and well referenced. A copy should be sent to evey politician bureucrat and pompous town hall official in the land."
~ Written on 2008-02-28