Terence Hines - Pseudoscience and the Paranormal

In recent years, examples of mass hysteria such as that reported by Small and Borus (1983) have become more common. Jones et al. (2000) recently reported a case that sent one hundred people to a hospital emergency room. Such cases have become so common that the term sick building syndrome (SBS) has been coined to refer to such incidents. The term is unfortunate in that it implies that there is really something wrong with the buildings involved, when what is usually going on is a sort of temporary mass hypochondria (TMH). What happens in these cases is similar to what happened in the Seattle window-pitting case. One person notices something that, while generally unnoticed, is in reality very common. He points it out to another person, and so on, and so on, and pretty soon one has a case of mass hysteria. In cases of TMH, what probably triggers the event is one or two individuals becoming consciously aware of minor discomforts that we all have almost all the time but are usually unconcerned about. For example, as I sit here typing at my computer, I notice that I have a minor tummy ache, and also a very slight sore throat. At any given time, if you search through your body, as it were, you can find minor aches, pains, tickles, and the like that, quite properly, are usually simply ignored and dismissed as unimportant. The hypochondriac, however, focuses on these little aches and pains and starts to worry about them: “My God, maybe that sore throat is a sign of cancer!” This thought, of course, creates considerable anxiety, which in and of itself creates other symptoms such as a racing heart, upset stomach, sweating, and perhaps a slight fever. Off to the doctor runs our anxious hypochondriac, convinced, now that he can actually feel the cancerous tumor growing in his throat. The physician does the appropriate tests, and finds nothing. Is the hypochondriac relieved? Not in the slightest! The “symptoms” are still present, so the tests must have missed the cancer. The anxiety continues, as does the belief that the person really does have cancer (or some other awful disease). Further testing that reveals nothing does not relieve the anxiety or change the belief that something terrible is wrong. The hypochondriac can always argue that the tumor (or whatever) is too small to show up on any test, or that it is some new, dreadful type of disorder that modern medicine cannot identify. Note that such an argument is nonfalsifiable.

A similar dynamic probably underlies cases of TMH. One or two people, for whatever reason, notice those minor little aches and pains we all have most of the time. Noticing these, they may mention them to fellow workers (or fellow students), who naturally discover that they, too, are suffering from some sort of minor ache or pain. And so the contagion spreads until numerous individuals are convinced that something is wrong. Worry about this unknown something then generates considerable anxiety, which, as noted above, can lead to real physical effects, including nausea and vomiting. These often observable effects further convince the people involved that there really is something wrong. Some sort of toxic effect of an unknown chemical is usually blamed. Typically, when a careful examination of the building involved is carried out, nothing untoward is found.

An interesting study by Corn (1991, cited in Barrett and Gots 1998, p. 76) supports the above analysis of the cause of TMH. Two groups of workers in two different buildings were compared using a questionnaire regarding physical symptoms they experienced while at work. Workers in one building had complained about health problems, while those in the other building had not. Yet workers in both groups reported the same symptoms on the questionnaire. As would be expected if workers in the building who had complained about health problems were simply more aware of their minor symptoms, more of them complained than did those in the other building. Similarly, Nelson et al. (1995) found that nearly half of the workers in buildings in no way thought to suffer from sick building syndrome reported some sort of symptom or symptoms when asked. Barrett and Gots conclude that “the symptoms associated with SBS are common complaints found in the population-at-large” (p. 77).

Some research has been done to show that individuals that are more susceptible to TMH differ from those who are less susceptible. Small and Nicholi (1982) found that elementary schoolchildren who were admitted to a hospital following an episode of TMH were more likely than nonhospitalized children to have divorced parents or to have had a family member die. Small et al. (1991) examined sixth to twelfth graders and also found that a history of “previous grief” predicted, to some extent, the severity of symptoms evidenced during an outbreak of TMH. However, the variable that best predicted whether a child would fall ill was observing a friend with symptoms.

None of the above is to say that buildings never cause real sickness. The classic case is that of the hotel in Philadelphia in which Legionnaires’ disease first broke out in 1976. Many people attending a convention of the American Legion fell ill, and more than twenty-five died. But these individuals obviously had more serious symptoms (death is usually considered a pretty serious symptom!) than the usual runny nose and irritated eyes found in SBS.

In the cases described above, the hysteria was usually limited to a rather circumscribed geographical area and/or a rather small group of people. But in the past ten to fifteen years, a somewhat different type of mass hysteria has become more common. In these cases, millions of people across the country become convinced that some agent, usually found in the environment, is causing or has the potential to cause various sorts of dire health problems. These beliefs are unfounded, but considerable effort is often wasted in doing further research on the topic. Several factors work to inflame and maintain the public’s fear in these cases. The media, realizing that a good scare story is an excellent way to increase sales and boost ratings, highlights the most extreme and anxiety-provoking claims. There can be little doubt that had the Seattle window-pitting episode taken place in, say, 1995, the media coverage would have ensured that the panic spread nationwide. Special interest groups, such as lawyers seeing profits from liability suits, work to highlight and keep alive public anxiety. The end result is a great deal of wasted time and money and a needlessly terrified public. In the following sections, several classic examples of this type of mass hysteria will be discussed. Included are claims that asbestos causes lung cancer in the general population, that microwave radiation and power lines cause cancer, that silicone breast implants cause immunological disease, that polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in the environment are an important risk factor for birth defects, and that cellular phones cause brain cancer.

Probably the first example of a nationwide panic or national mass hysteria concerned the alleged ability of very low levels of exposure to asbestos to cause lung cancer. Asbestos is not man-made, but a group of slightly different naturally occurring compounds that have the highly desirable properties of being unable to burn, heat resistant, and strong. Thus, in the past asbestos was widely used in construction as insulation, among other uses. In the 1970s it became clear that workers (i.e., asbestos miners) whose jobs had exposed them years earlier to high levels of asbestos were at a greatly increased risk for lung cancer (Whalen 1993). At about the same time, Whalen noted, houses, schools, and other buildings in which asbestos materials had been used were starting to deteriorate. This coincidence led to fear that exposure to tiny “nonoccupational” levels of asbestos might also cause lung cancer. The level of such exposure was thousands of times less than that seen in occupational exposure. This fear led to the development of a huge asbestos abatement industry, which offered to remove asbestos-laden materials from buildings and replace them with “clean” building materials. The industry made outlandish claims, including that “a single asbestos fiber can kill you” (p. 263). Such claims were certainly not based on any scientific evidence and were clearly designed to further the panic and increase profits. The panic was further fueled by the Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act (AFIERA), which required that schools be inspected for asbestos and, if any was found, students’ parents be notified. Mossman et al. (1990) put the estimated cost of asbestos abatement at between $53 and $150 billion.