Over at the
, science writer George Johnson has no kind words for the Santa Fe New Mexican's continued (mis)handling of a story that's gotten national attention: That is, the claims of this city's vocal and surprisingly influential anti-wi-fi lobby.
In
today, Tom Sharpe, in his usual style, digs up some good detail. For instance, that wi-fi foe Bill Bruno—last seen ranting and waving a copy of GQ at a City Council meeting—"sometimes wears a
silver-coating nylon veil to protect his brain
from wireless signals."
But, as Johnson writes, Sharpe and his editors have
completely ignored their responsibility to the truth
.
I'll go one step farther and say that with its half-assed reporting, the New Mex risks
spreading hysteria
. The likely consequences could be that
some con men get rich, while some sick people get sicker
, believing their symptoms are best explained by "electrosensitivity." (The latter, at least, has already happened in Santa Fe.
I reported on such a case last year
.)
Sharpe also reports that "the [anti-wi-fi] movement's most valuable ally" may be the influential Sallie Bingham, who in a recent letter
SFR's Zane Fischer as "
," and faulted the paper for ignoring the "quantity of
reputable scientific research
regarding the health hazards of cell towers." (As though cell towers = cell phones = wi-fi transmitters. More on that later.)
To his credit, Johnson already picked apart some of "the movement's" favorite research in a
. And despite grumbles from some in "the movement" about SFR's
lack of homework
on the dangers of wi-fi, this newspaper is evidently the only media outlet in Santa Fe, aside from Johnson's site, that has bothered to do any background research at all. Overwhelmingly, that research shows "the movement"
makes unsupported claims
.
Here are links to a couple of reports on "electrical hypersensitivity" that may be helpful to anyone who's been confused by the New Mex' reporting—including, apparently, the New Mex' own editors.
The first (
) is a study by Stacy Eltiti at the University of Essex (UK) Department of Psychology: "
Does Short-Term Exposure to Mobile Phone Base Station Signals Increase Symptoms in Individuals who Report Sensitivity to Electromagnetic Fields?
A Double-Blind Randomised Provocation Study."
Eltiti tested 56 self-reported sensitive people, and a control group of 120 ordinary (non-sensitive) folks, to see if they could tell whether a radio frequency/electromagnetic field generator was switched on or off.
They couldn't
—even when the field was
many times stronger
than one created by a wi-fi node.
She goes on,
In other words,
something
is wrong with people who think they're electrosensitive—
but it's almost certainly not a result of their bombardment by wireless signals
.
The second (
) comes from the European Commission's Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks, which has been studying this issue for a decade or more. Based on a review of research around the world, the Committee's 2007 report on "Possible effects of Electromagnetic Fields (EMF) on Human Health" found the following:
A 2009 update to the report (
) said that none of the research conducted in the intervening two years suggested those conclusions be changed.
For even more reading, check out the proceedings of the World Health Organization's 2004 "International Seminar and Working Group meeting on EMF Hypersensitivity,"
.
, from the WHO:
And, finally, here is a nice primer by the Federal Communications Commission on what electromagnetic fields are and how they work (
).
