Risky media sensationalizations and my African death risk

13th February 2010

What do risky media sensationalizations and my African death risk have in common? They are the remaining mental imprints of the two lectures I have attended so far in the Darwin Risk series at the University of Cambridge. In the first lecture titled, “Trying to quantify our uncertainty” by Professor David Spiegelhalter, I learnt a wonderfully horrid word – “micromorts” – meaning a unit of risk measuring a one in a million probability of death. In the second on Science and the Media, Dr Ben Goldacre gave a very captivating presentation on how health risk reporting can be sensationalized in the media.  As always I try to relate this to Malawi, where I am from. Read more at My BMJ Blog