Thursday, May 21, 2015

Clickbaiting Misinformation: Your Wifi Will Kill You - NOT

Clickbaiting Misinformation: Your Wifi Will Kill You - NOT - Hit & Run : Reason.com:
The New York CBS affiliate is running a story about a woman who hooked up wifi in her apartment and began to have headaches, body flushing, and "brain fog." The story is unfortunately at the top of the Drudge Reporttoday.
The first questions might be why did she wait until 2015 to set up wifi and why has she never apparently experienced symptoms while sipping lattes at Starbucks? 
But never mind. 
In any case, the CBS report goes on to cite electromagnetic hypersensivity "researcher" David Carpenter. From CBS:
Dr. David Carpenter, an Environmental Scientist and expert on wi-fi’s effects said the scientific link between wi-fi and health is clearly emerging.
“There is a body of evidence that is strong. it’s not 100 percent understood, but it’s strong evidence that this is a real syndrome that causes real harm to real people,” he said.
Dr. Carpenter said it’s a significant problem for about 5 percent of the population, many of them have no idea that wi-fi is to blame.
“They walk around feeling ill and they don’t know what to do about it,” he said.
Other doctors counter that the evidence connecting wi-fi to illness just isn’t there.
“It’s a psychological phenomenon,” neuropsychologist Dr. William Barr said.
Dr. Barr said some people may have symptoms, but what causes them is something else altogether. He said the power of suggestion may play a role.
Power of suggestion? 
Well, yes. 
For example, this 2013 study in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research reports the amusing results of an experiment in which 150 subjects listened to a TV story about the adverse health effects of wifi. 
The researchers then "exposed" the subjects to a sham wifi signal for 15 minutes.  
More than half the subjects then reported symptoms that they attributed to the sham exposure. 
The higher participants scored on a psychological anxiety scale, the more likely they were to report symptoms....

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