Today's technological know-how provides us with an abundance of safe, affordable food and energy, has produced life-saving pharmaceuticals and allows us an enviable standard of living. Yet many people have come to fear these life-enhancing technologies, blaming them for cancer, birth defects and a whole host of human illnesses and dysfunctions. In particular, five myths have caused concern.

Myth No. 1: There is an epidemic of cancer today caused by modern technology. There are twice as many people now as at the turn of the century, and our population today includes many more older people. The higher the proportion of elderly, the higher the cancer rate will be. However, adjusting for age:

• With a few exceptions - primarily lung cancer and AIDS-related cancers -there has been little overall increase over the past 40 years in either the number of new cases of cancer reported or in the number of cancer deaths.

• The number of deaths caused by many forms of cancer - for example, Hodgkin's disease and cancers of the cervix, uterus, stomach, rectum, testis, bladder and thyroid - has actually decreased.

• Modern screening methods such as mammography create the appearance of a sudden increase in new cancer cases, but there is no corresponding increase in mortality from these forms of cancer.

Myth No. 2: "Chemicals" are bad; "natural" is better. Environmentalist orthodoxy preaches that American health would be vastly improved if we all lived our lives "naturally." This ignores the fact that many "natural" foods contain enough toxins to do serious damage to the human body if ingested in large doses. A whole array of natural substances have been shown to cause cancer in animals and, in some cases, in humans. The argument that chemically processed foods are noxious obscures the fact that toxins are just as much a part of nature.

Myth No. 3: You Can't Be Too Safe. Advocates of the "precautionary principle" call for environmental and health policies based on what might cause harm, even if there is no scientific evidence that a hazard exists. The precautionary principle assumes that no detriment to health results from a regulation targeting an alleged risk, but there can be major health risks associated with the pursuit of purely hypothetical risks. Further, focusing on tiny or hypothetical risks can take time and resources away from real public health dangers.

Myth No. 4: "Mice Are Little Men." There are a myriad of federal and state laws that make this assumption and require the banning of chemicals that at high doses cause cancer in laboratory animals. Animal tests are essential in biomedical research, but mainstream scientists do not accept a single animal cancer test on one species using a high dose of a chemical to be sufficient reason to label the chemical a carcinogen.

Myth No. 5: The Dose Is Not Relevant. This argument ignores a basic premise of the science of toxicology and maintains that if huge doses of something cause health problems, it follows that any dose is dangerous, no matter how small. But even table salt, for example, can kill you if you ingest enough.

Psychiatrists say people have long preferred to blame outside sources, rather than personal lifestyle factors, for their ill health. Further, many of those making unsubstantiated health charges against technology have hidden agendas. But a society that rejects technology out of unfounded fear is putting its future health - and standard of living - in danger.

Source: Elizabeth Whelan, "Toxic Terror: The Truth Behind The Health Scares," Vital Speeches, June 1, 1997.