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Chemophobia literally means “fear of chemicals” and may be used in various ways. It is most often used to describe the assumption that “chemicals” are bad and “natural” things are good.
The most usual use of the term “chemophobia” is analogous to “homophobia”—a prejudice against something rather than an irrational fear. See nonclinical uses of “phobia” and prejudices described as phobias. In this sense, chemophobia is akin to technophobia.
Some[2] define chemophobia as a full-blown psychological phobia—a “specific phobia”—but most mainstream sources such as the Oxford Dictionary of Psychology do not recognise chemophobia as a psychological condition. Websites that use the specific phobia definition (such as this) typically sell cures for a very wide range of specific phobias and seem to include “chemophobia” simply to enlarge the range of conditions they claim to treat. The National Institute of Health does not list chemophobia as a rare condition.[3]
Another definition of chemophobia is that it is a concern about learning chemistry as an academic subject.[4]
Research[5] shows that people are primarily afraid that “chemicals” will cause cancer and that they are reassured when they learn how rigorously pesticides are tested and the unfeasibly high levels of pesticides a human would need to accumulate before coming to harm.
A contributory factor to chemophobia is due to increasing sensitivity of analytical techniques that can now detect extremely low levels of chemicals. The levels are so low as to be harmless, but the media report the fact that the chemical can be detected in such-and-such a place and that it is harmful. What is unreported is the levels that cause harm and the levels at which it was detected.
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