This article is from the WebMD Commentary Archive

May 31, 2005 -- Take a trip through WebMD's archive of news articles and you're sure to encounter road signs alerting you to possible dangers ahead -- some slightly worrisome and others downright scary.

Consider, for example, a few recent headlines: "A Nagging Cough May Lead to Depression," "Extra Weight May Age You Faster," "Secondhand Smoke Hurts Heart Like Smoking," and "Bacteria in Hot Tub May Hurt Lungs." The articles, which report research findings, all have the same implicit message: If you're not careful - or perhaps even if you are - some terrible fate may be awaiting you.

Some users say they're fed up with all the gloomy news. "For Pete's sake," asks one, "can't you report on something that doesn't scare the hell out of people?" Another reader, responding to a WebMD article on research suggesting that some infant formulas may cause attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, points out that the study was done in rats and may not be relevant to humans. "I often think you guys sensationalize the news," she says. Yet another user, calling such articles "end of the world prognostications," says they have the unhealthy effect of spreading paranoia.

Certainly, complaints like these aren't limited to WebMD, nor are they new. More than 25 years ago, the late physician and author Lewis Thomas lamented the tendency of media reports to tell us that we are "vulnerable to a host of hostile influences inside and around us, and only precariously alive." Calling such information "propaganda," he wrote that it threatened to turn us into a "nation of healthy hypochondriacs, living gingerly, worrying ourselves half to death."