Did you know that when you travel in an airplane, your body gets pressurized, and the compression causes your organs to shrink? No? That’s because it’s not true.
Despite the claim’s utter bogusness, food blogger Vani Hari, aka “Food Babe,” felt inspired to share it in a post about air travel, which she has since taken down. It was accompanied by other flight-related myths: “The air you are breathing on an airplane is recycled from directly outside of your window” and “The air that is pumped in isn’t pure oxygen either; it’s mixed with nitrogen, sometimes almost at 50 percent”—it’s unclear whether she thinks the air we normally breathe is “purely oxygen.”
After the impure air “factoid,” follows a statement designed to gain the trust of the readers, making them think she’s on their side, and the airlines are greedy capitalists, unconcerned with their health. She writes, “To pump a greater amount of oxygen in costs money in terms of fuel and the airlines know this!”
Of course, she’s got just the information you need to protect yourself from nefarious airlines, GMOs, dangerous chemicals in your food and so on, which she will share with you if you’ll just subscribe to her blog; while you’re at it, buy a copy of her new book!
Hari claims her blog has more than three million readers worldwide, so it would seem her scare tactics work well for driving readership. But her ignorant, unscientific and unfounded claims are more than a mere nuisance. They’re dangerous.
A friend of mine, a new mother, recently shared on Facebook a post, “Shocking: Why are doctors recommending this toxic drink?” from Hari’s site. The post suggested “Glucola,” a drink given to pregnant women to test for gestational diabetes, contained toxic chemicals.
It didn’t take long for me to find blog posts by two separate obstetricians—you know, those people who are actually qualified to give medical advice to pregnant women—debunking Hari’s claim.
Hari is not a doctor, which she readily admits in a disclaimer on her website, followed by a renunciation of any responsibility should you choose to follow her advice. And that’s the problem with pseudo-experts such as Hari. She’s free to make whatever unsubstantiated, panic-inducing claims she likes, as she faces no consequences—unlike a qualified doctor—if her bad advice causes harm.
An Internet hoax starting in the 1990s warned of the dangers of “dihydrogen monoxide.” The claims on dhmo.org sound eerily similar to those on the FoodBabe site:
“Yes, you should be concerned about DHMO! Although the U.S. Government and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) do not classify Dihydrogen Monoxide as a toxic or carcinogenic substance (as it does with better known chemicals such as hydrochloric acid and benzene), DHMO is a constituent of many known toxic substances, diseases and disease-causing agents, environmental hazards and can even be lethal to humans in quantities as small as a thimbleful.”
All of those things are technically true about DHMO, but if you haven’t figured it out already, “dihydrogen monoxide” is just a funny way of saying “H2O”—water.
This hoax came to public attention, however, when a high school student convinced 43 out of 50 of his classmates to sign a petition to ban the substance. The prank has been repeated throughout the years, always with the same result.
Learn to approach information with a healthy dose of skepticism, particularly for information on the Internet. Don’t take anything at face value. Instead, stop and ask yourself, “Does this make sense?” Spend time learning about the source—is he or she an expert? What does this person have to gain by sharing this information? What, if anything, does the source stand to lose if wrong? It is important to find opposing viewpoints.
Skepticism and rational thought take work. They take time. But without skepticism all we’re left with is unfounded, harmful beliefs, driven into us through fear by people who can’t be bothered with the truth.
