KEEPING people in the dark about bioterror attacks is more likely to spark
panic than telling them what’s going on. When told the truth about a disaster,
people tend to remain calm and organise themselves to help others, experts in
risk communication say.
After the recent anthrax attacks in the US, public health officials were so
anxious to avert panic that they withheld information and distorted what they
did release. They felt that people couldn’t be trusted with the truth, says
Thomas Glass, an epidemiologist and social scientist at Johns Hopkins University
in Baltimore.
But that makes panic more likely,…
