A health scare can be broadly defined as a social phenomenon whereby the public at large comes to fear some threat to health, based on suppositions which are nearly always not well-founded.
[1] In 2009, an ABC News article listed "The Top 10 Health Scares of the Decade":[2] "Some of these threats turned out to be almost nonexistent.
Others were arguably overblown.
Some caused widespread harm."
They listed the following scares: