Do We really Know What We Worry About?

The cover story of this week's Time magazine asks "Why We Worry About The Wrong Things?" The printed magazine won't be available till tomorrow, but I got an electronic version of the story from my subscription service. The main point of the article is that we get scared by low probability events while ignoring common dangers in our daily life. The first segment of the article summarizes some of what we fear and what we ignore:

• We agonize over avian flu, but refuse to take vaccine for common flu which kills 36,000 Americans every year;
• We fear the mad cow disease, yet keep consuming foods with high cholesterol, which contributes to heart disease that kills 700,000 people annually;
• We avoid E. coli bacteria contaminated spinach, but fill our shopping carts with fat-sodden French fries and salt-crusted nachos;
• We install filters on our faucets, run air ionizers in our homes and lather ourselves with antibacterial soap; at the same time, 20% of all adults smoke; nearly 20% of drivers and more than 30% of backseat passengers don't use seat belts; two-thirds of us are overweight or obese.

So do we really know what we worry about?