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Chelation as a metaphor for the effective fight against chemophobia

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Abstract

The existence of chemophobia, a long lasting and persistent irrational fear of chemistry and chemical substances, affects not only chemists in their mission to help humanity, but also has grave consequences for the lives of non-chemists. This paper demonstrates the impacts of chemophobia on humanity and chemistry on the basis of recent events and cases. The core part of the article encourages chemists to become proactive communicators using the principles that chemists have discovered in the past as effective ways to combat diseases. We recommend choosing the principle of chelation as a metaphor for the effective fight against chemophobia and we demonstrate this principle using revived storytelling, which can attract the attention of students as well as adults to chemistry and its benefits for humanity.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to project Progress Q46 of Charles University for financial support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Teaching and Didactics of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic

    Radek Chalupa

  2. RCC Europe, Ltd, Prague, Czech Republic

    Radek Chalupa

  3. Department of Analytical Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic

    Karel Nesměrák

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  1. Radek Chalupa
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  2. Karel Nesměrák
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Correspondence to Radek Chalupa.

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Chalupa, R., Nesměrák, K. Chelation as a metaphor for the effective fight against chemophobia. Monatsh Chem 150, 1585–1592 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00706-019-02453-z

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