False Alarm: The Truth about the Epidemic of Fear

This man claimed that the people who have been following this and other flus were fear mongers. This week while his child was at a camp that cost 10,000 dollars a child there was a outbreak of the H1N1. He panicked and went against the CDC's advice and prescribed tamiflu for all 350 campers and staff. He had to justify to the CDC why he did it. Not all the children were sick, not even his own child. Just the fact that they might have been exposed sent him into a panic. Instead of using that tamiflu for people that were really ill, it went to a bunch of rich kids. Marc Siegel is the poster child for "do as I say, not as I do".

the first chapter that explains the amygdala over riding the frontal lobes is priceless , but the rest of the book is pablum!

A book that explores true risk to a variety of potential public hazards, from terrorist attacks to pandemic influenze.
Why only three stars? Dr. Siegel confuses actions our society should take based on absolute risk (public health measures) and how individuals should act based on accepted risk. The risks that we gladly assume (such as driving a car) are far different than than the risks we are forced to endure (such as a terrorist attack or radiation exposure from a nuclear power plant), even though the latter risks may be much smaller than the former. The failure to discuss voluntary vs. involuntary assumption of personal risk is a major failing of the book.
I doubt the existence of a dastardly politico-media complex that is out to ruin and/or control our lives that Dr. Siegel seems to suggest. If such a conspiracy were as blatant as he supposes, there should be more evidence. I have no problem with people who choose to believe such. There are numerous examples where the government and media have forgotten their charges in the caer of our society. But I have my doubts about a conspiracy that Dr. Siegel none too subtley hints at.

This book is political punditry done poorly. The doctor should stick 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 think that terrorism is not a real danger because a particular person's probability of being harmed is very small. Granted we have not executed well, but most Americans believe we must take it seriously because these beasts are driven by ideology to destroy our society.

The doctor also decried the U. S. pharmaceutical industry for charging high prices for their products. He completely ignored that fact that the U.S. pharmaceutical companies are the ones with a steady stream 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 fear, he did have a valid point. But the real motive of the book was left-handed political sniping. You know it when Bill Press is impressed.

The nation's media sells fear in almost every aspect of our lives from the next thunderstorm to the war on terror. Dr. Siegel's book is prime reading for the defense of the onslaught of predicated fear. Our nation's military industrial complex was fueled by decades on the fear associated to the "cold war" and how the Soviet Union was going to conquer America. Now, to replace that global fear we are bombarded with fear about terrorism. This superlative book is the antidote for America's new culture of the promotion of fear.