Myth 28: Children Get Poisoned On Halloween

The story that children far and wide are being poisoned by unwrapped Halloween candy and home-baked Halloween cookies, even that there was ever a razor blade in the apple is the very definition of an urban legend. It is a myth to the extent that NO American child is on record as EVER being seriously hurt by a contaminated Trick-or-Treat bon bon.

Myth 26: “Better Safe Than Sorry” Is Rational Thinking

Wired.com has spoofed the syndrome that many of us concern parents are vulnerable to — access to and believing too much scary information and believing our children are extremely vulnerable to harm. In their June 1, 2009 piece called “Alt Text: Beware Nebulous Internet Disease” starts with this jab, “The infection typically begins when the victim reads about an unusual affliction on a news site or current-events blog. Upon reading, the victim begins to experience one or more symptoms of that disease, typically minor symptoms such as a scratchy throat or slightly reddened area of skin.” – Wired

Myth 25: Social networking sites are crawling with predators

The “Internet Safety Technical Task Force” found that “Although identity deception may occur online, it does not appear to play a large role in criminal cases in which adult sex offenders have been arrested for sex crimes in which they met victims online.” Wait a minute, isn’t that double talk?

Myth 21: Carseats are safer than seatbelts for ages 2+.

Every child who is 1 year old and weighs 20 lbs. is allowed to ride in a front facing car seat (if only because they get too huge to fit rear-facing anymore) and at age 4 and 40 lbs they can graduate to a car booster seat until they turn 8 or until they are 4 ft. 9 inches tall. Endless studies show that carseats and booster seats are safer, safer, safer. But safer than what? And under what circumstances are they safer? Are parents even qualified to install the carseats they buy?

Myth 15: It’s proven that cell phones cause cancer.

Dr. Lennart Hardell of Department of Oncology at the Örebro Medical Centre in Sweden conducted a study in which he reports to have found that long term cell phone use doubles the risk of malignant brain tumors and hearing nerve tumors. He also reported that people under 20 years of age were five times more [...]

Myth 14: Video games encourage violent behavior.

Of 3000 parents surveyed by What They Play: The Parents Guide To Video Games, the majority said that they were more afraid of their children playing video games than seeing porn when away from home. Mitt Romney warned, “Pornography and violence poison our music and movies and TV and video games. The Virginia Tech shooter, [...]

Myth 13: School shootings are an epidemic.

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (in their report “The School Shooter: A Threat Assessment Perspective”) cautions that people should be cynical about news coverage of school shootings. The FBI says that the news coverage of those events are “inherently hasty” and rely on “sources who themselves have incomplete or inaccurate information”. They also say [...]

Myth 10: Baby bottles with BPA are dangerous.

Canada, the first and only country to ban the use of BPA in baby bottles clearly states that “Bisphenol A does not pose a risk to the general population, including adults, teenagers and children.” So, what is all this fuss?