> Articles like this make the news because they're fighting the myth that the young and healthy cannot die from it.
Yes, but look at the comments from when I made mine: they were all of the nature of "I bet they had some other problem". Once you've seen this reaction enough it begins to look less like information-seeking and more like denial.
What you're calling denial is an important part of information seeking. When you see an anecdote that contradicts something you believe, you say "either this anecdote or my belief is incomplete". So if you're pretty confident in your belief, it's reasonable to probe the anecdote for potential flaws; it's not a matter of denial but of trying to find the truth.
