Scarily good health.

Every few days a new scare story appears in the media e.g. 'Butter is bad for us'. Julian le Grand suggests it may be in the interests of industry to scare us. Jangu Banatvala says vaccine scares are dangerous, as vaccination rates for infectious diseases such as whooping cough have fallen. Liam Donaldson feels media noise may disguise real risks. John McNeill discusses the plague and flu bacillus in history. Laurie Garrett says we live in a dangerous microbial soup and bacteria are becoming resistant to antibiotics. Drug companies are in a race against microbes as cities breed disease, such as Hepatitus A, and microbes are becoming global. Lifestyle scares about fat or mobile phones are individual, but the real threat is from microbes. Roy Porter recommends lots of public campaigns to give good health advice.