Communicating cancer risk in print journalism

The current barrage of information about real and potential cancer risks has created undue fears and misplaced concerns about cancer hazards faced by Americans. Most members of the general public are far more worried about minuscule, hypothetical risks presented by environmental contaminants than about the far greater well-established hazards that they inflict on themselves, for example, through smoking, dietary imbalance, and inactivity. It is the job of the print media to help set the record straight and to help place in perspective the myriad cancer risks that are aired almost weekly in 30-second radio and television broadcasts.