Mass hysteria at starpoint high: though mass hysteria is alive and well in the twenty-first century, it remains an unpopular diagnosis. In the face of compelling evidence to the contrary, it is often denied on emotional grounds as a phenomenon that happens only to others.

From: Skeptical Inquirer | Date: January 1, 2007| Author: Bartholomew, Robert E.; Radford, Benjamin | Copyright information

What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet....

--William Shakespeare

In the twenty-first century, there is a new bogeyman lurking in the same shadowy underworld that was once the domain of ghosts and goblins: mass hysteria. Phantom odors, mystery illnesses, and terrorism scares are undermining science and costing businesses and workers millions of dollars in lost productivity and wages. Known by the more formal (and pol...

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