Fuck you, newspapers preying on the elderly

“Whatever you do, stop drinking tap water!” my grandma told my mum over the phone a few weeks ago. When asked why, she said that she read in the paper about how ‘they’ found that Australian tap water has something carcinogenic in it. I use the term “newspaper” loosely. Grandma reads The Horizon, an Australian-based, Russian-language rag (in my opinion). Mum didn’t put any stock in it but told me. When I visited my grandma a few days later, here’s the article she showed me (my translation below):

High level of dangerous substances detected in water.

Scientists in Australia warn: women and children should avoid drinking tap water or cooking with it. An analysis showed an increased level of trihalomethanes. This carcinogen forms when organic compounds come into contact with chlorine and presents [a danger] to the population. The substance penetrates the skin, airways and digestive system. To this day, it is not understood what effect trihalomethanes have on in-utero foetal development. It is supposed that the substance increases the risk of cancer of the liver, kidneys, intestines and bladder. It is noteworthy that last wintar (sic), scientists from Umeå University found a substance for treating anxiety in ordinary water, which altered the behaviour of fish. Also, the water contained traces of hormonal contraceptives which changed the sex of fish.

The Brisbane Times

It’s attributed because I believe close to all articles in The Horizon are attributed reprints. It is after all a small newspaper servicing a very small community. Sounds dodgy, right? There are all sorts of red flags, the main one being the question of how this wouldn’t be all over the news, and also why would this be a sudden new discovery about the water supply? Also the fear-mongering’s pretty fierce — science has not conclusively ruled out that the substance will not give you a case of leprous, gangrenous sword-through-bowels!

Since it was sourced, I could find the original article immediately and got more pissed off than I’ve been in ages. Some excerpts below, plus I’ve bolded some “minor” details that The Horizon happened to cut:

Pregnant women in the Queensland town of Kingaroy are urged not to drink tap water because of elevated levels of chemicals known as trihalomethanes.

The local council issued an alert later on Wednesday after routine testing at the Kingaroy water treatment plant detected elevated levels of trihalomethanes, commonly referred to as THMs.

THMs can form naturally when organic matter in water reacts with chlorine used to disinfect drinking supplies and can be absorbed by breathing, swallowing or through the skin.

The council’s infrastructure general manager, Russell Hood, said the water treatment process at the plant was being reviewed.

Scientific studies have yet to show conclusive evidence that THMs are harmful to humans, but South Burnett Regional Council and Queensland Health said pregnant women were asked not to drink town water as a precaution.

Some international studies have shown THMs could cause some forms of cancer in the liver, kidneys, colon, bladder, rectum and reproductive areas of the body.

So the main thing is that this referred to a temporary warning (since lifted) in ONE town! It’s hard to fathom this being anything but a deliberate case of omission to spread panic. The detail is too crucial for a reasonable person to overlook accidentally when summarising the article. The line about lack of conclusive evidence was also cut. Interestingly, they prudishly cut references to the rectum and reproductive organs too and inserted an anti-contraception line. Go figure.

The results were not benign. My mum’s friend also had her Russian-speaking mum tell her not to drink tap water in a panic. Constant health scares probably have a pretty negative effect on general well-being, not to mention that people might stop drinking water. This is a newspaper that is read by immigrant pensioners. Many love the window it provides them into the country where they’ve spent most of their lives. Many have dementia.My grandmother was a chemist before retirement and would never have taken this seriously even ten years ago. But aging, unimaginable chronic pain, chronic depression and the loss of family members and a life partner have all sadly taken their toll and made her vulnerable.

The reason why this is so evil was well-explored by Martin Robbins in a talk against the Daily Mail. Edited transcript of some relevant sections is below.

[Video link]

[17:05]A lot of people say to me: “Martin, why are you so angry at the Daily Mail?” Yes, they are wankers, well done. But there’s also kind of a personal element to this as well. A couple of years ago there were these stories about killer foxes in London. Here’s a photo taken from one of those articles in the Mail. “This fox attacked a man who was carrying his shopping home from the supermarket. The fox attacked him for a period of allegedly 15 mins after which it eventually got away with a loaf of garlic bread.” Foxes, well-known predators of the garlic bread. And this kind of stuff was really big at the time, there were various hoaxes around, there were all sorts of stories coming out that were basically almost entirely bullshit. But this had a real impact on real people.

On Monday, I had to bury my granddad. Now, a couple of years ago we went to his house and he was entering his decline in the last couple of years. We went there in the summer, and all of the windows were bolted shut. The house was absolutely boiling hot and we said: “Granddad, why don’t you open a window? For god’s sakes, you’re boiling here, we’re all sweating.” He didn’t want to because he was afraid that if he did then the foxes would get in and attack him. And that’s an easy kind of thing to laugh at and at the time we did. But this is kind of what the Daily Mail does.

The thing about my granddad is that he was an incredibly intelligent person. When I was a kid and I was growing up, he taught me chess and scrabble. He was a fantastic guy and he was intelligent. But the thing about the Daily Mail, the thing about this kind of journalism, is that it doesn’t matter how well innocculated against it you think you are. Doesn’t matter if you think you’re the sort of person who adverts don’t get to. It doesn’t matter if you don’t think you’re persuaded by this. This stuff is like mercury in fish. It kind of drips, drips, drips down and eventually starts to infest people and infect people and give them a really disturbed view of the world. And for vulnerable people, for elderly people, for people who often don’t leave the house very often, papers like the Daily Mail are the only window that they have on the world.

A year or so ago, mum asked my granddad: “Would you like to be young again now?”. And he said: “No I wouldn’t, not at all”. I said: “Why the fuck not?”. And he said: “I don’t like the way that the world’s gotten.” And I was thinking: “Jesus granddad, when you were my age, WWII had just finished, and we were facing nuclear annihilation and the cold war and you’re saying that NOW is worse?” And that is the effect that the Daily Mail had on him over the 30 years that he read it daily. It convinced him that the world was a shit place and it was getting shitter.

And that kind of brings me, you know I was thinking, what would I like to say to Paul Dacre, what would I like to say to his kind, in terms of the impact that they have on people’s lives and the answer is FUCK YOU.

 

Fuck you to all predatory journalism.

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