In a new study, researchers have found that half of American adults will find at least one health study to be a conspiracy.
According to Reuters, some conspiracy theories take off much more than others, but that one for every two American adults buy into at least one health conspiracy theory.
Study lead author J. Eric Oliver, of the University of Chicago, said sometimes people buy into conspiracies because they are more interesting and easier to understand. On the other hand there are complex medical details and information that may not affect a majority of Americans.
"Science in general - medicine in particular - is complicated and cognitively challenging because you have to carry around a lot of uncertainty," Oliver told Reuters Health. "To talk about epidemiology and probability theories is difficult to understand as opposed to 'if you put this substance in your body, it's going to be bad.'"
Oliver's study was published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.
One of the most famous health conspiracy theories (and one of the most famous of any conspiracy) is the one that claims the U.S. government intentionally infected a large number of African Americans with HIV, the virus that leads to AIDS.
For his study, Oliver used survey data from 1,351 American adults weighted to represent the entire U.S. population. The survey was conducted between August and September of 2013.
A main theme from those who bought into conspiracy theories was that people tend not to trust data provided by the government or large corporations. Each participant was given six conspiracy theories and was asked whether or not they heard of it and whether or not they believed it.
49 percent of the survey respondents indicated they believed at least one conspiracy theory. Those who believed at least three are more likely to think against the grain for even the most basic health precautions. For example, the more conspiracy theories one believes, the more likely they are not to get a flu shot or use sunscreen.
Oliver told USA Today these kind of people are more likely to explore alternative medicines and treatments. These kind of people have also contacted him directly after the study was published, offering their own theories.
"What we take away from that is that people who embrace these conspiracies are very suspicious of traditional evidence-based medicine," he said. "My inbox this morning was flooded."
