Publicize the likelihood threat will affect us

Almost daily we are informed of some new threat to our health or livelihood. These span the range from terrorist threats, to identity theft, to contaminated vegetables, to assaults on our children. The problem is how to judge the seriousness of a threat. Should we judge each threat as being equally likely to cause us harm or is there a way to consider the relative risks?

Whenever possible, those responsible for issuing or publicizing a threat should be obliged to indicate the likelihood that the threat will harm a given individual. For example, does identity theft affect 1 in every 10 people or 1 in 1,000 people? Then we would have a more reasonable basis to decide what threat is worth worrying about.

Prehistoric people likely worried about very real and dangerous threats on an almost daily basis. Threats presented by predators, epidemics, inadequate food supplies and minimal health care must have weighed heavily on their minds.

Now we live in a society where for the majority, our basic needs are generally met. Since we are relieved of many of the worries that afflicted people in the past, do we fill the void by focusing on threats that have a minimal or nonexistent influence on our lives? Oddly enough, the stress that people suffer by worrying about the latest threats may be more damaging then the threats themselves.

Robert J. Boes

Ely