I agree. We are incredibly bad at understanding risk, and responding appropritely. Social media, TV and newspapers make this worse. We all have our individual beliefs and prejudices ,and we tend to 'mop up' everything that reinforces and supports them . I learned this through 35 years working in the pharmaceutical industry.
I prefer to research for myself before jumping to conclusions based on , at best 'dubious' claims , which are neither reviewed by expert opinion or repeatable.