Health chief condemns `alarmist' Branson scaremon

PEOPLE ARE being misled about the true risks to their health by the growth of medical "scare" stories since the BSE crisis, according to the Government's chief medical officer.

Professor Liam Donaldson, who was appointed Britain's most senior doctor last September, criticised the Virgin boss Richard Branson for stoking anxiety about mobile phones by announcing that Virgin employees would be provided with protective devices.

He said Mr Branson's move was an example of the loss of trust in science since the Government's forced admission in 1996 that its reassurances on the safety of beef were wrong.

"Branson was interviewed on the radio and the interviewer said: `Surely there's no evidence' [for the damaging effects of mobile phones]. Branson replied it had taken the government years to recognise the risks of beef and it was only a matter of time before the same happened with mobile phones.

"That is typical of the attitude I am talking about. Without BSE people might take a more trusting approach."

Professor Donaldson, who has overall responsibility for the nation's health, is to give a talk tomorrow to a meeting of the Health and Medical Public Relations Association, entitled "Miracle cures and medical scare stories", in which he will highlight four areas where he believes the public has been misled.

These are the communication of risk, the difference between a cause and an association, judging whether a treatment confers benefit and the reporting of error, such as those which have occurred in screening programmes. "I am loath to criticise the press because on occasion they have been responsible for bringing important health issues to public attention. But health scares sell newspapers and I think these basic principles are not well understood."

Professor Donaldson said making clear the difference between a cause and an association was one of the most difficult. In 1994 he was involved, as professor of epidemiology at the University of Newcastle, in a study of children born with missing limbs in Hartlepool. Several such clusters had been observed around the country and some believed the deformities were caused by living near the sea.

"That was a classic situation. Someone made an observation, it was picked up by the media, a pressure group was formed and there was a public outcry. Our study examined several clusters round the coast and found no link."

The media loved stories, such as the flesh-eating bug of the early 1990s, where the disease was rare, life-threatening and there might be someone to blame, even though the risks were far lower than from, say, smoking.