Do not believe everything that you're told

The new ventilation systems in planes capture 99 percent of bacteria and viruses. If you get sick after flying, you probably caught some from your fellow passengers the old-fashioned way -- by touching something they touched.

Test after test shows that in most areas of the country, tap water is as healthy -- and tastes as good as -- bottled water, which costs 500 times more than the stuff from the tap. But it does come in a pretty bottle.

Some people are born with brains predisposed to be happy, according to the scientific research.

All this comes from a new book, "Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity," by John Stossel, a veteran reporter on ABC's "20/20" newsmagazine.

Stossel attempts to approach his subjects the way reporters are supposed to -- with skepticism. He does not accept conventional wisdom or the standard media pieties, many of them liberal.

While some topics are non-political (Can you safely swim right after eating? The answer is yes.), many involve accepted ways of thinking that are based more on ideology than science. Stossel skewers both the left and right, but more often the left.

Stossel specializes in two areas: science and economics, areas he says most of the media are "dismal" at reporting intelligently. He'll get little argument from me, with the exception of certain specialized publications and reporters trained in those areas.

Let's take one example from the book that explodes a popular sentiment: drug prices.

Stossel states the "myth": "Drug companies are evil price gougers. But, he says the truth is, "The higher the price of drugs, the more good drugs we get."

"The Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development," writes Stossel, "says the average cost of developing a new drug is a staggering $802 million.

Then, even when a new drug is approved, odds are that will never turn a profit. Less than a third of marketed drugs have enough commercial success to recover the cost of their research and development."

It takes courage to say anything good about drug companies (Stossel also knocks them for some of their marketing techniques), but he takes joy in upsetting commonly held beliefs, especially those based on various forms of demagoguery, feel-good politics and, as he says, "downright stupidity."

Just because a business is big and makes a lot of money doesn't make it bad. We are a capitalistic system and, as Stossel points out, it has done a lot of good for a vast majority of us. Many millions of would be sicker than we are, or die younger, without the wonder drugs of the last few decades, for example.

Stossel examines myths by coming up with scientific studies, original reporting and other data. Of course, the danger there is he selects some studies and not others, that the studies he cites have been disputed or that the book could be out of the date, even though it was published this year.

That's the case with his comments on the dangers of second-hand smoke, which he says have been overstated. But that was before last week's report from the U.S. surgeon general.

One way to test a book like this is to see if you have some personal experience or knowledge of any of the topics. That was the case for me with his report on the near-impossibility of getting rid of bad teachers.

He cites the process in New York city, where the best they can do with teachers that are incompetent, violent or sex offenders is to put them in what is called a "rubber room," a segregated space where they do no work all day while still getting full pay because the process for dismissal takes years.

My son taught in New York City for two years and told me the exact same thing, which leads me to believe that Stossel has done his homework.

There are two reasons for reading this book. The first is for the information, some of which won't surprise you and some will, such as there's nothing medically wrong with marrying your cousin (Albert Einstein's parents, among other, have done it.)

The other reason is to learn a bigger lesson than who's right in the men vs. women bad driving debate (men are worse, says Stossel's research). The bigger lesson is this: Don't believe everything you read. Don't believe everything you're told. And, especially, don't believe everything you already believe.

John Christie is publisher of the Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel. His e-mail is jchristie@centralmaine.com.

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