…someday. That’s an irrefutable truth. The risk of death is an oft debated topic on any number of fronts. These days, it seems like every time we open a newspaper, read a blog, or listen to a talk show, a new study has come out detailing a food borne health risk, food to fight cancer, or another cancer-causing substance. I’m not a scientist by any stretch of the imagination, but based on my line of work I find myself answering more and more questions about the food issues of the day, and what the real risks are. Is there a risk? Based on the headlines, it would seem so.
As communications professionals our job is exactly that. To communicate. All too often of late, it seems our job is to communicate risk (or indeed, lack of it) around the latest issue of the day. To look behind the headlines in order to understand real risk as opposed to statements that often amount to little more than scare tactics. We all know headlines sell newspapers. And good titles make it more likely someone will read further (see above – I thought about it for awhile). But, does this accurately represent whether we are at risk for many of the issues that arise today?
In the last year we’ve seen headlines devoted to a number of food related issues: listeria, H1N1, BPA, salmonella, bad fat, good fats, the list goes on. As a firm we’ve worked on a number of these issues for our clients, and it’s become an increasingly tough situation. In an age where many people rely on talk shows, blogs and television for health information, how do we separate the real risks from the perceived?
Our government banned BPA in 2008 in baby bottles and was the first country to do so. This lead to widespread paranoia with product being pulled off shelves, parents worried about harming their children and numerous media stories around the world, some laudatory, some not. Some states in the US followed suit and the FDA is expected to rule on whether BPA is safe for use in food packaging on Monday, November 30. But nowhere that I found, was there a reasoned discussion of the risk. There were a lot of statements about “possible risk” and Tony Clement (Health Minister at the time) concluded “It’s better to be safe, than sorry”. That may well be true, unless the worry of possible risk for all these issues becomes more of a problem than a solution. Unfortunately, what is rarely communicated is the research itself. What amounts were consumed to achieve these results? In what setting and by whom? Or, more specifically, what is the average human’s risk based on normal consumption as part of a healthy diet.
The information is out there – it just takes a bit of digging. Is there any hope that the science community, the government, and the media, will move forward communicating actual possible and probable risk rather than just the crisis of the day? I hope so. I intend to keep lobbying for it!
