Are people scared of science because of specific 'buzz-words'?

You know the words, but here's some examples:

Nuclear (the big one)

Radiation

Radioactive

Specifically for the LHC:

Accelerator

Black-hole

It seems to me that people pick out these buzz-words and then blow the rest of the story out of all proportion. There was an incident about a year ago where a school was told to switch off it's wi-fi after fears that the radiation would cook children's brains. Radiowaves aren't very dangerous, they have very low energy. Microwaves are more dangerous and yet the same people who were terrified of the wi-fi probably use them every day without a second thought.

The other one is Radiation: Most people are TERRIFIED by that word. Anything associated with Radiation should be banned, apparently.

But think how many lives Americium smoke-detectors save...

How many lives are saved because of radiopharmaceuticals (radioactivity used in medicine)...

The Large Hadron Collider had a court-case launched against it because some people blew the black-hole story out of all proportions. First it was a little black hole, then it was going to swallow the planet, then it was going to turn the Universe inside-out. Crazy or what?