Too good to be true

“100% safe!”

People often think about the benefits of treatments and ignore possible harms. But few treatments that work are 100% safe.

People often don’t think about the harmful effects that treatments can have. For example, people often don’t think about the harmful effects of medicines. But most medicines have side effects – unintended effects that are harmful or unpleasant.
Sometimes people don’t think about the harmful effects of treatments because they are sick. They hope that a treatment will help and they ignore that it might be harmful.

BEWARE when someone says that a treatment is “100% safe” or does not say anything about its safety, or you simply “hope that it works”.

REMEMBER: A treatment can be harmful.