Lions and Tigers and WiFi….Oh My !!!

Well here we go again with the latest hysteria over portions of the electromagnetic spectrum.

WiFi signals. Trial lawyers around the country must be drooling and pitching pup-tents over this nonsense.

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — From using cell phones and computers to watching movies online, wireless technology has made life easier. But now, some say there is a serious downside. As CBS2’s Maurice Dubois explained, there are those who claim that exposure to Wi-Fi is making people sick, and some people don’t even know it.

Fuck me, I’ve got an ingrown toenail and it just must be the WiFi in this building. That’s it, I’m suing someone for eleventee million dollars, dammit !!!

“Brain fog. That’s my worst problem. A brain fog,” Suzanne Hoyt said. Hoyt said that nothing prepared her for the rush of symptoms that she suddenly developed. “Headaches, perspiration, pain in my jaws and my heart. It’s like physical expansion of the heart,” she said.

Brain fog, ’nuff said there Suzanne. I completely and utterly agree that you indeed suffer from that malady.

I do recall from my medic days the heart routinely expands and then contracts. Failure to maintain this cycle is rather unfortunate for the life-form surrounding it.

Hoyt said it all started when she installed Wi-Fi throughout her apartment.

“I started to be very uncomfortable, and I didn’t know what it was,” she said. With Wi-Fi everywhere, from parks to restaurants and taxis it turns out Hoyt is not alone. “It was like a deep burning sensation in my face, in my nose, my jaw, it was like a deep burning sensation,” she said.

Why does my rotten brain think she has an unmentioned body part that also has a deep burning sensation that can be treated with miconazole? They destroy their very premise right in that paragraph. WiFi is indeed everywhere, some metropolitan areas are even installing outdoor coverage with open networks, the signals are massively pervasive. Let’s give this some rational thought, a concept entirely lost later in the article. Since WiFi is extremely prolific why would installation of it in her apartment all of a sudden make her “ill”, after all she’s no doubt been exposed to those signals for years from other sources. ??

Perhaps we should now hear from an expert, maybe a Doctor even.

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. It’s called Wi-Fi sensitivity, and doctors say it’s a very real condition with serious consequences. “They walk around feeling ill and they don’t know what to do about it,” he said. [Emph mine-JB]

I did sorta, kinda notice that the good Doctor has his phD in Environmental Science and not medicine. He said an “emerging body of evidence” but has it been actually documented using legitimate scientific method, accurate statistical analysis, peer review and publication by MEDICAL DOCTORS or is this new threat to the planet our next Globull Wormening Crisis Climate Change Crisis, that threatens the entire human race? Don’t you just love it when someone with a degree in anything, throws out an anecdotal reference couched as “science” and the lame-stream media jumps on it like the 600 lb. Dude at a free buffet.

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.

Bingo !!! We have a self-defeating article here. Sheesh, this report is self-fisking, but it was too comical to pass up. The real doctors attribute it to what most of us would call hypochondria, but Dr. Barr was being quite the gentleman by not using that term. The fact is, the “is causing this” isn’t there a t’all. Some people like our friend Suzanne here, likely (IMHO) have motivations that might be more financial in origin than psychological. Whoda’ thunk it? It just couldn’t be that could it?

“They essentially establish a belief that something has the potential to cause a symptom, and then when they come in contact with the cause they develop those symptoms,” he explained.

Hoyt said it’s real and she is hopeful that her life will someday return to normal.

Perhaps she would benefit from large doses of Haloperidol, Lithium and some Venlafaxine thrown in for good measure. (Look ’em up yourselves pups). A lengthy stay in a special medical facility might be of benefit too. Then again, it might be easier with our favorite rope and tree maneuver on See-BS reporters named Maurice, having slow news days and looking for the latest “scary-shit” stories from nutjobs on the subway. Does anyone reading this fail to notice that last sentence? How does the alleged “sufferer” know they come into contact with an unknown cause, unless someone or something alerts them to it?

“We are going to find another solution. It should be safer. There must be a better way,” she said.

The “safer solution” Suzanne, would have been if your folks had practiced birth control more frequently.

We had a similar debate a number of years ago over people that live near high-voltage transmission lines becoming ill. The electric industry spent tens of millions of dollars studying the allegation by outside scientists and doctors. The result was that there were absolutely no demonstrable health impacts due to residing near the lines. The magnetic fields surrounding even the highest voltage transmission lines is only present a foot or so from the line itself. The media failed to notice this determination entirely as expected. Also, I remember the cell phones cause brain cancer “issue” that quietly died. The execrable Dr. Howard Sternglass conducted a study of alleged radiation effects near the Millstone Unit 1 Power Plant back in the late 60s as I recall. Sternglass published his results with nary a peer review or analysis of the statistics he used. He “concluded” that the plant was responsible for a 40% increase in cancer among infants living nearby. There were some serious issues with his study after the NRC and other Health Physicists examined his report. Sternglass had “cherry picked” his sampling. Putting it into layman’s terms would be like this:

Let’s pretend that you live on a street that has 20 homes and 100 people live in those homes. The American Cancer Society published and verified statistics that estimate that 1 in 4 males and 1 in 5 females die from all cancers annually for all ages. Here’s the hard copy: The “The Lifetime Probability of Developing and Dying from Cancer, 2008-2010”. Now back to our little community and keeping in mind these cancer mortalities are merely probabilities. Let’s say in our neighborhood that in one year 3 people die from cancer. Conservatively speaking, for that year the community experienced less than the probable rates of cancer. The next year 4 people die from cancer. Is that statistically significant?…No, the rate is exactly at the probability for males, but if I wanted to be dishonest I could say that the cancer rate for that community increased by 33%. Sounds scary doesn’t it? With statistics sample size is critical. In this illustration, I picked a sample size that was mathematically insignificant, and that is “cherry picking statistics”, yet with dishonest intent and a willing media, it could touch off a major panic. This is what Sternglass did, and he made a LOT of dineros on the lecture circuit about this infamous study until millions were spent on a legitimate study proving absolutely no increase in cancer rates in the population surrounding the plant. Simply put, the shit-bag wanted to have his 15 minutes of fame and rake in some cash before his dishonesty came to light. Unfortunately many people were unable to allay their fears even after the “study” was utterly dismantled and proven false beyond any reasonable doubt.

I gotta wrap this up and make a trip to the Loo, it’s gotta be the cuz’ of the Dude walking down the street on his Bluetooth….ahh nuts, I just thought of the next “We’re all gonna die” scenario. Where’s a journaljizmer when you need one?

Bluetooth in the Loo Blues . It has a nice ring to it, eh?

-Carry On

JB, lost in the deep blue ocean called New England…dammit