Chemophobia is about nothing more than familiarity. What we are familiar with we accept and are comfortable with, what we are unfamiliar with we are more likely to be afraid of. News organizations play this up all the time, because playing on fear of the unusual is an easy way to gain ratings (especially in a modern world where anything unusual that happens anywhere on Earth can be fodder for a local news broadcast).
For example, imagine you hear a story of someone having died in an arson fire, the news will probably have little impact on you, you may not even feel anything other than a small degree of sadness. Now imagine that you hear another news story, except this one is about how someone tampered with someone else's toothpaste and snuck in eggs of a parasite which then hatched and grew in the victim's intestines for a day and eventually led to the death of the victim. You'd almost certainly pay attention to that story, and you'd probably have strong feelings about it too. And you'd also likely feel a little wary whenever you brushed your teeth or bought toothpaste. You'd almost certainly never feel wary or in fear of arson while living in your apartment though, and you probably wouldn't think about how horrible dying from fire could be. However, in the US the risk of dying from arson is far, far higher than dying from intestinal worms. However, in some parts of the world the latter would be far more common and familiar.
Just because something is common and familiar doesn't mean it's safe, and the inverse is true as well.
Chemophobia is about nothing more than familiarity. What we are familiar with we accept and are comfortable with, what we are unfamiliar with we are more likely to be afraid of. News organizations play this up all the time, because playing on fear of the unusual is an easy way to gain ratings (especially in a modern world where anything unusual that happens anywhere on Earth can be fodder for a local news broadcast).
For example, imagine you hear a story of someone having died in an arson fire, the news will probably have little impact on you, you may not even feel anything other than a small degree of sadness. Now imagine that you hear another news story, except this one is about how someone tampered with someone else's toothpaste and snuck in eggs of a parasite which then hatched and grew in the victim's intestines for a day and eventually led to the death of the victim. You'd almost certainly pay attention to that story, and you'd probably have strong feelings about it too. And you'd also likely feel a little wary whenever you brushed your teeth or bought toothpaste. You'd almost certainly never feel wary or in fear of arson while living in your apartment though, and you probably wouldn't think about how horrible dying from fire could be. However, in the US the risk of dying from arson is far, far higher than dying from intestinal worms. However, in some parts of the world the latter would be far more common and familiar.
Just because something is common and familiar doesn't mean it's safe, and the inverse is true as well.