Public Health 
 
 Half Of Americans Believe In Medical Conspiracy Theories 
 
 i itoggle caption iStockphoto iStockphoto 
 
 Misinformation about health remains widespread and popular. 
 
 Half of Americans subscribe to medical conspiracy theories, with more than one-third of people thinking that the Food and Drug Administration is deliberately keeping natural cures for cancer off the market because of pressure from drug companies, a survey finds. 
 
 Twenty percent of people said that cellphones cause cancer — and that large corporations are keeping health officials from doing anything about it. And another 20 percent think doctors and the government want to vaccinate children despite knowing that vaccines cause autism. 
 
 "One of the things that struck us is that people who embrace these beliefs are not less health conscious," says Eric Oliver, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago who led the study. "They're just less likely to embrace traditional medicine." 
 
 Oliver was studying political conspiracy theories when he realized that quite a few of them involved medical care, including vaccine avoidance and a vote rejecting water fluoridation in Portland, Ore. 
 
 So he asked people what they thought about six common medical conspiracy theories, including the ones about vaccines, cellphones and natural cancer cures. They were the theories most widely supported. 
 
 Three other theories were each supported by 12 percent of people surveyed. They were that the CIA deliberately infected African-Americans with HIV, that genetically modified foods are a conspiracy to reduce population worldwide and that companies use water fluoridation to cover up pollution. 
 
 And though the people who said they believed the conspiracy theories tended to be less educated, poorer and members of minority groups, they aren't conspiracy nuts, Oliver says. And they aren't ignoring their health. Instead, they are normal people trying to make sense of complex issues. 
 
 Corporations and government institutions are complicated organizations with a lot of different motivations. "Public mistrust is understandable," he says. 
 
 People who backed the conspiracy theories were less likely to rely on a family doctor. Instead they looked to family and friends, the Internet and celebrity doctors for their health information. And people who relied on celebrity doctors. such as Dr. Mehmet Oz and Dr. Andrew Weil, were most likely to favor conspiracy, with more than 80 percent agreeing with at least one of the theories. 
 
 "They think they are accessing a more reliable source of health information than what traditional medicine is providing," Oliver told Shots. 
 
 The survey polled 1,351 people online in August and September. The findings were published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine. 
 
 Conspiracy beliefs directly affect how people take care of their health, the survey found. 
 
 People who are firm believers in medical conspiracies are less likely to get regular physicals, at 37 percent compared with 48 percent of participants overall. And they were more likely to buy organic or farm-stand foods, shun flu shots and sunscreen, and use vitamins and herbal supplements. 
 
 That was true even after the researchers adjusted the results to remove any influence caused by people's socioeconomic status or their level of trust overall. 
 
 Interestingly, the pro-conspiracy people came from across the political spectrum, with 35 percent saying they were liberal, compared with 41 percent saying they were conservative. 
 
 "The world is a complicated place," Oliver says. "It's difficult to make sense of it. A lot of these conspiracy theories are intuitively compelling." 

 Flu vaccine drips out of a syringe as a nurse prepares for a patient at a clinic in central London November 22, 2005. - RTR1BGZ1 
 
 NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - About half of American adults believe in at least one medical conspiracy theory, according to new survey results. 
 
 Some conspiracy theories have much more traction than others, however. 
 
 For example, three times as many people believe U.S. regulators prevent people from getting natural cures as believe that a U.S. spy agency infected a large number of African Americans with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). 
 
 J. Eric Oliver, the study's lead author from University of Chicago, said people may believe in conspiracy theories because they're easier to understand than complex medical information. 
 
 "Science in general - medicine in particular - is complicated and cognitively challenging because you have to carry around a lot of uncertainty," Oliver said. 
 
 "To talk about epidemiology and probability theories is difficult to understand as opposed to 'if you put this substance in your body, it's going to be bad,'" he said. 
 
 For the new study, he and his colleague used data from 1,351 adults who answered an online survey between August and September 2013. The data were then weighted to represent the U.S. population. 
 
 The participants read six popular medical conspiracy theories and then indicated whether they had heard of them and whether they agreed or disagreed with them. 
 
 Like the theories about conspiracies to infect African Americans with HIV and to prevent citizens from accessing alternative medicines, the other theories on the list had mistrust of government and large organizations as themes. 
 
 They include the theory that the government knows cell phones cause cancer but does nothing about it, that genetically modified organisms are being used to shrink the world's population, that routine vaccinations cause autism and that water fluoridation is a way for companies to dump dangerous chemicals into the environment. 
 
 Some 49 percent of the survey participants agreed with at least one of the conspiracies. 
 
 In fact, in addition to the 37 percent of respondents who fully agreed that U.S. regulators are suppressing access to natural cures, less than a third were willing to say they actively disagreed with the theory. 
 
 With regard to the theory that childhood vaccines cause psychological disorders like autism and the government knows it, 69 percent had heard the idea, 20 percent agreed with it and 44 percent disagreed. 
 
 The only conspiracy theory with which more than half of the respondents disagreed was that a U.S. spy agency infected a large number of African Americans with HIV. 
 
 The survey results suggest people who believe in medical conspiracy theories may approach their own health differently, the researchers said. 
 
 For example, while 13 percent of people who did not believe in any conspiracies took herbal supplements, 35 percent of those who believed in three or more theories took supplements. 
 
 Overall, the researchers say people who believed in conspiracies were more likely to use alternative medicine and to avoid traditional medicine. 
 
 "Although it is common to disparage adherents of conspiracy theories as a delusional fringe of paranoid cranks, our data suggest that medical conspiracy theories are widely known, broadly endorsed, and highly predictive of many common health behaviors," the researchers write in JAMA Internal Medicine. 
 
 Oliver said the findings may have implications for doctors. 
 
 Instead of viewing patients who believe in conspiracy theories as crazy, he said doctors should realize those patients may be less likely to follow a prescription regimen. 
 
 "It's important to increase information about health and science to the public," he said. "I think scientific thinking is not a very intuitive way to see the world. For people who don't have a lot of education, it's relatively easy to reject the scientific way of thinking about things." 
 
 SOURCE: bit.ly/1lLueQV JAMA Internal Medicine, online March 17, 2014.
– Think a US spy agency has infected black Americans with HIV? Or cell phones cause cancer and the government secretly knows? You're not alone: Roughly half of Americans believe in one or more medical conspiracies, according to a new survey. Two researchers asked 1,351 adults whether they knew or believed in the two theories above, and four others: Powerful forces are using genetically modified organisms to lower the Earth's population Regular vaccines cause autism US regulators prevent Americans from obtaining natural cures Companies dump unhealthy chemicals into the environment via water fluoridation About 49% of participants said they believe at least one of those theories, Reuters reports. Lead author J. Eric Oliver says that's because conspiracy theories are easier to grasp than medical information. But he didn't dismiss the theorists, and noted their interest in alternative medicines—a fact doctors should acknowledge because the conspiracy-theorists may be less likely to follow a prescription. "One of the things that struck us is that people who embrace these beliefs are not less health conscious," Oliver told NPR. "They're just less likely to embrace traditional medicine."