WiFi is bad for you
No, she's not a bee keeper.Apparently this rather fetching head gear is a Faraday cage intended to keep electromagnetic radiation away from the wearer's head.
She's allergic to WiFi, you see.
And then there's this over at the Beeb (which august body had previously published Bill Thompson's article warning that the health risks of WiFi had been overstated).
Computers with wireless internet should not be placed on children's laps, says the head of the government's committee on mobile phone safety research.
Professor Lawrie Challis told the Daily Telegraph children using wi-fi networks should be monitored until research into potential health risks is completed.
And let's not forget to mention that site, www.electromagneticradiationblues.com, mentioned in comments on my earlier piece on WiFi safety.
This all amounts to a substantial body of evidence to suggest that my (and Bill Thompson's) earlier take on the matter was mistaken - WiFi really is bad for you.
Except for one factor, that is. Where exactly is all the evidence?
The scientific case for electrosensitivity (ES) is threadbare. The World Health Organisation's position is that "there is no scientific basis to link ES symptoms to EMR exposure.
"Further, ES is not a medical diagnosis, nor is it clear that it represents a single medical problem."
This week, Professor David Coggan, a member of the Health Protection Agency's advisory group on non-ionising radiation, told BBC's Newsnight: "There is quite a lot of evidence now accumulated on mobile phones and health - and the balance of evidence overall doesn't point to problems.
"There's still uncertainty and there still needs to be further research, but so far we don't have a concern.
"And on that basis, the concern about Wi-Fi is much lower on the scale than, say, that about pan-global influenza."
There's typical scientific understatement.
You can't prove absolutely the absence of a phenomenon - you can only seek out statistical evidence to suggest cause and effect, then develop and test hypotheses regarding the mechanism at work.
There's none of the former in the case of electrosensitivity and there are no working or credible hypotheses regarding a mechanism either.
Right. I'm off now to tend the bees.
Category: Misc
Technorati: WiFi Safety
1. stan Mrak07/05/2007 14:33:46
Homepage: http://www.electromagneticradiationblues.com
"A lie repeated a thousand times is just marketing at work." What an appropriate prelude. Your blog is a fabulous demonstration. The lies about cell phones have been repeated at least that many times.
2. Chris Linfoot07/05/2007 21:49:12
Stan - we'll just have to agree to differ. From my perspective I see plenty of lies about cell phones. Just not the ones you see.
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