Tainted Truth By Cynthia Crossen Summary

547 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: How much do the media influence public beliefs sociology essay

This book by Cynthia Crossen entitled “Tainted Truth” is the most intriguing book I have read all year. This novel will challenge you mentally and introduce you to information that is currently going on around you in your everyday life. It is always good to learn what is going on in your society and how it is affecting you. Cynthia Crossen is a reporter for the wall street journal and she questions us based on the information and statistics we see in our society. As American citizens a strong part of our lives is dealing with the media, politics and research around us. Therefore these sources have an effect on our decisions in life, how we look at things and how we think. Nonetheless where do these sources come from? Who owns them? In good reason it is understandable that those …show more content…

With information in the hands of these companies and other groups they have turned information into a business. The owners of the research use this to their advantage by buying or selling research and allowing research to be presented in the best way they found fit. This point stood out to me because I see this going on in my life all the time. When I look at Fergusson, the Donald Trump campaign and different news stations, the owners of where the information is coming from I wonder what is the truth. I frequently get confused on what am I supposed to believe and Cynthia points this out to me in detail. If you like it or not the media is affecting us all from the television to ads and she describes how us as American citizens can be deceived accordingly. The scientist however do not necessarily know how their research is being used because they are neutral in this case, the companies are the ones who decide how statistics and facts may be used. Groups who own products such as rice can say how rice can lower cholesterol but will they say the negatives accordingly? Nowadays we see ads everywhere we go and many americans can be

Show More
Related

  • Ashes By Susan Beth Pfeffer Summary

    573 Words  | 2 Pages

    The clock is counting down until mom gets home what is she supposed to do… previously in the short story “Ashes” by Susan Beth Pfeffer Ashleigh or “Ashes” is the daughter of her divorced parents, her mom being the “non-dreamer” kind of person while her dad is a goofy fun loving kind of person. Later on in the passage Ash has to chooses whether to take $200 from her mom’s emergency money to give to her dad for a financial problem. Ashley did take the money because, she seemed very loyal to her dad, she wanted her dad to be able to pay off his financial problems, and she trusted her dad.

    Read More

  • Pharmaceutical Business: Creating disease or Curing?

    733 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Melody Peterson’s “Our Daily Meds” , the history of marketing and advertising in the pharmaceutical industry is explored. The first chapter of the book, entitled “Creating disease”, focuses on how major pharmaceutical companies successfully create new ailments that members of the public believe exist. According to Peterson, the success that these drug manufacturers have experienced can be attributed to the malleability of disease, the use of influencial people to promote new drugs and the efficient usage of media outlets.

    Read More

  • Our Secret By Susan Griffin Summary

    1880 Words  | 4 Pages

    Marie Beatrice Umutesi, the author of Surviving the Slaughter: The Ordeal of a Rwandan Refugee in Zaire, and Susan Griffin, the author of “Our Secret”, are two females who explore the world around them and express their thoughts through their writing. Both women try to answer their own questions that have occurred to them, and these questions emerge throughout their works of literature. One such question is, “But is one ever really free of the fates of others?” (Griffin 235). Whereas, Umutesi asks, “What had led us to this extremity? What are the reasons behind the tragedy of the Rwandan refugees, whose existence has been forgotten and denied by the international community?” (4). However, these questions remain unanswered.

    Read More

  • Commentary On Kendrick's Doctor Data Chapter 1 Summary

    524 Words  | 2 Pages

    Kendrick’s Doctoring Data, is an extremely engaging, and thought-provoking book in which he makes a lot of compelling arguments about medicine in general. It left me puzzled with just about any scientific claims that have been made so far. Most importantly, Kendrick looks into depth at both the medical and pharmaceutical research leaving me to question the motivations behind the manipulation, and the use of dirty tricks by pharmaceutical companies would practice to convince their audiences into thinking that their products are the best. In addition, I was confused with what the morality behind medical establishment in the United States are. Are they valuing money more than lives? How did money become so involved? What can we, as patients, do to solve this problem? What can doctors do to solve this problem? How do we advertise information to consumers of healthcare to be aware of the bias and gamesmanship of medical research? On the other hand, I dispute Kendrick’s explanations of medical research. Kendrick made an argument that one of the core reasons behind why researches conducted are

    Read More

  • Summary Of Devil In The Details By Jennifer Traig

    479 Words  | 1 Pages

    Devil in the Details by Jennifer Traig touches upon points in her life focus on her internal and external struggles with obsessive-compulsive disorder and anorexia as they affected her and her circle of relatives through her adolescents and young adulthood. Traig's descriptions of junior high food issues, family embarrassment, and faculty clique politics elicit her main idea to readers sharing this frame of reference. She even illustrates her early theory of obsessive-compulsive disorder in terms anybody can recognize: She compares it to television witches Jeannie, Samantha, and Sabrina, whose tics and twitches "could resolve any problem."

    Read More

  • Marked Women Deborah Tannen Summary

    1543 Words  | 4 Pages

    The term equality has been around for thousands of years from types of governments to racial equality, but there never has been clear equality between men and women. Men say that males and females are treated equally, but in reality men are judged less while women are judged everywhere and on everything, from what they wear, to their hairstyles and makeup. Gloria Steinem once said, “A gender-equal society would be one where the word ‘gender’ does not exist: where everyone can be themselves.” The author of “Marked Women”, Deborah Tannen would partially agree with Gloria Steinem that if the word gender did not exist it would help in having a gender equal society but would say that even women judge other women and would support her argument using

    Read More

  • Fear and Manipulation in Arthur Miller's The Crucible

    1015 Words  | 3 Pages

    Elizabeth Proctor, Abigail Williams and Mary Warren helps recapitulate how powerful manipulation has over the average human being as it can do a lot of damage and cause anyone to be forced to do things that they commonly wouldn’t do. To help prove the old saying “sticks and stones make break my bones, but will never hurt me” is wrong is an excellent way to bring up the power of manipulation because in an instant of a short transfer of words over top a bounty that may lay on top of your head, even you could be lead to do things that you never thought you would do, just to protect what you have established.

    Read More

  • Shawn Achor's The Scarlet Letter

    384 Words  | 1 Pages

    In the TED Talk, Shawn Achor shows us the advantages of being happy and how positive emotions can lead to a better output performance; however, in the novel The Scarlet Letter the main character Hester Prynne willingly makes herself unhappy to cleanse herself of the sins she has committed. Hester has convinced herself that if she stays long enough and endures the torture of her daily shame that eventually she would become more saintlike and possibly gain a better sense of happiness. Achor’s philosophy was to encourage people to do what they have a passion for in order to bring forth job performance and to build a sense of happiness in present time. Hester’s main passion in life was her needlework because it soothed her and allowed for her to

    Read More

  • Argumentative Essay On Electronic Cigarettes

    1356 Words  | 3 Pages

    Living in a world where many prefer to believe what is shown to them, rather than doing some of their own research, can lead to consequences. (Figure 1) Some people believe electronic cigarettes are a safer and healthier alternative to the actual cigarette because of how they are advertised. “Because they [e-cigs] deliver nicotine without burning tobacco, e-cigarettes are purported to be safer and less toxic than conventional cigarettes. Despite these claims, there’s still no real data on the effects of e-cigarettes (positive or negative), yet marketing materials still bill them as a healthy choice” (Worthington emphasis mine). Drug advertisements normally show the beneficial side of

    Read More

  • Junk Science by Lee Ann Fisher Baron

    1609 Words  | 4 Pages

    In Lee Ann Fisher Baron’s “Junk Science,” she claims that the “food industry with the help of federal regulators” sometimes use “[a science that] bypasses [the] system of peer review. Presented directly to the public by…‘experts’ or ‘activists,’ often with little or no supporting evidence, this ‘junk science’ undermines the ability…[for] everyday consumers to make rational decisions” (921). Yet Americans still have a lot of faith in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). According to a 2013 Pew Research study, 65% of Americans are “very favorable” or “mostly favorable” of the FDA. When it comes to what people put in their bodies, the FDA has a moral obligation to be truthful and transparent. The bottom line of the FDA’s myriad of responsibilities is to help protect the health of Americans. Deciding what to eat is a critical part of living healthily, and consumers must be able to trust that this massive government agency is informing them properly of the contents of food. While the FDA does an excellent job in many areas, it has flaws in other areas. One of its flaws is allowing the food industry to print food labels that are deceptive, unclear, or simply not true (known as misbranding). This is quite the hot topic because a Google search for “Should I trust food labels” returns well over 20 million results, many of which are blog posts from online writers begging their readers not to trust food labels. HowStuffWorks, a division of Discovery Communications, published an online article whose author claims that “[the food industry] will put what they want on labels. They know the game….” While the food industry is partially at blame for misbranding, the FDA is allowing it to happen. If a mother tells her children that it is oka...

    Read More

  • Words Left Unspoken By Leah Cohen Summary

    296 Words  | 1 Pages

    Cohen’s grandfather, despite being unable to hear and speak, lived a pleasant life filled with compassion, happiness, and humor throughout. Because Cohen could not communicate verbally with her grandfather, it appears that in the past, Cohen may have viewed his deafness as an inconvenience. In “Words Left Unspoken,” Leah Cohen, with sensory imagery conveys the successful methods her deaf grandfather utilized to communicate and the lingering regret she has over her inability to speak to him before his death.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Slate Magazine

    345 Words  | 1 Pages

    In the United States, there is no shortage of news sources. Be that as it may, these sources are not considered equals. Some of these sources are considered to contain quality informative content, while others are notorious for containing only “fluff.” Since the creation of Slate Magazine in 1996, their website’s reliability has been questionable to many because of their unique presentation of news stories. In other words, critics of Slate argue Slate is not a real source of news because its condensed, constant, and partial coverage. However, after conducting extensive research on Slate Magazine, I believe it is an excellent news source if used for its intended purpose of offering the public analysis and commentary on current events in a

    Read More

  • Merck Essay

    710 Words  | 2 Pages

    The rights to protect the public were brutal to public trust provided that the leaders of Merck and the FDA abused their powers to gain social control by deliberately marketing a deadly drug (Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, Jacobs, & Fleishman, 2000; Smith, 2007). The leaders involved that of FDA commissioners received data from Merck regarding Rofecoxib also known as Vioxx about the health risks, yet failed to release

    Read More

  • Opinion: Search of Knowledge

    1088 Words  | 3 Pages

    Most research is funded by government agencies, pharmaceutical companies, or other well established entities, so at the very least, personal interest is at the core of every grant given or research project commissioned. In the scenario about to be given, I will showcase how personal interest can not only hinder the search for knowledge, but nearly crush the endeavor before it begins. Let's say “El Dorado Cigarettes” funds “United Front Tobacco Research” for research and proof that ...

    Read More

  • Analysis of the Movie, The Insider

    1442 Words  | 3 Pages

    source. Too often today, media is spoon fed by corporations. Media has a responsibility to objectivity that can be important in keeping businesses honest. But, it’s really up to media to maintain that objectivity.

    Read More

More about Tainted Truth By Cynthia Crossen Summary

Open Document