Wi-Fi scare sees BBC slapped (and barcode me)

Another Monday, another IT Blogwatch: in which we return to last Monday's story about Aunty Beeb's Wi-Fi "radiation" fears. Not to mention how to barcode yourself...

Glenn "WiFi News" Fleishman reminds us what this is all about:

The BBC recently ran a terrible half-hour program on the risks from Wi-Fi to 'the children.' While there's no reason to not study the matter further, the report relied on measurements taken by a lobbyist who also sells tinfoil hats and measurement devices to those afraid of wireless signals. The report also seemed to systematically avoid using the scientific method, instead relying on vagueness and analogy. There's no reliable [evidence] (peer reviewed, etc.) that shows any risk from Wi-Fi, and the cell phones studies performed on real populations (instead of lab conditions with high signal strength and rats and such) show no increased risk for specific cancers.

The Grauniad's Ben Goldacre spits blood:

This show was on the suppressed dangers of radiation from Wi-Fi networks, and how they are harming children. There was no science in it, just some “experiments” they did for themselves, and some conflicting experts. Panorama disagreed with the WHO expert, so he was smeared for not being “independent” enough, and working for a phone company in the past. I don’t do personal smear. But Panorama started it. How independent were they, and the “experiments” they did?
...
In the show, you can see them walking around Norwich with a special “radiation monitor”. Radiation, incidentally, is their favourite word, and they use it 30 times, although Wi-Fi is “radiation” in the same sense that light is. “Ooh its well into the red there,” says reporter Paul Kenyon, holding up the detector (19 minutes in). Gosh that sounds bad. Well into the red on what? ... on “The COM Monitor”, a special piece of detecting equipment designed from scratch and built by none other than Alasdair Philips of Powerwatch, the man who leads the campaign against WiFi ... Panorama did not disclose where this detector came from ... Panorama - quite unnecessarily - took an “electrosmog” pressure group campaigner, let him decide what to measure, how, where, and with what equipment.
...
Panorama were unambiguously scurrilous. They spent a long time covering “electrosensitivity”. There are over 30 double blind studies ... [which] all show that sufferers cannot tell when a source of signal is present or absent (full story and references here).

Nick Farrell adds:

Another expert used in the programme was Olle Johansson who after many years of public assertions and cocksure, blatant warnings of numerous negative health effects allegedly caused by electromagnetic fields was awarded the title "Misleader of the year 2004" by his fellow boffins.

Brod Justice rants:

I've gotta stop reading Ben Goldacres blog because it always sends me off on rants like this one ... it is bullsh** scare mongering paid for by the UK tax payer. Now, don't get me wrong, I would certainly not advise anybody to put their Wi-Fi devices under their baby's cot, and I would not even rule out that there could be some detrimental effects of Wi-Fi, but this program did a disservice to anybody that wants to find out the truth.
...
With the poor level of understanding shown by the Panarama team, you've gotta wonder if they would notice a real dangerous technology if it smacked 'em in the face - and certainly, we will never find out the real reason why these people, that are possibly in very real distress, believe that they are electrosensitive.

The BBC's Paul Kenyon responds:

I do think much of it is unfair criticism of a programme with a very straight forward thesis. The head of the HPA, who is a well-respected and influential scientist calls for a review of WiFi technology in schools because he feels it is being rolled out too rapidly….isnt that worth reporting? ... It is his view that the government has not taken a sufficiently “precautionary approach” in relation to WiFi.
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On the subject of Alasdair Phillips, whatever you think about his views, they didn’t impinge in any way on the programme. All he did was take the readings, not express a view ... Dr Olle Johansson specialises in the field of electrosensitives, and is from the Karolinska Institute and so absolutely worth having in the programme.
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It is the mainstream view, which your readers appear to unanimously support, that there is no evidence of any adverse health effects from this form of radiation. But ... the head of the HPA believes the WHO is incorrect in the message it’s putting out to the world. [This] seems to me to be a legitimate piece of journalism.

Glenn Fleishman decodes Kenyon:

Perhaps the idea that Paris Hilton is a spoiled rich kid who avoids the consequences of her actions until now could be received wisdom and the idea that she’s actually a modern rebel teaching a non-conformist view of the world would be the challenge. But for god’s sake, this is about science with empirical, measurable results.
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Kenyon essentially says, we talked to a few people, and they all sort of vetted each other, so we’re done. An actual documentary would have involved talking to dozens of people and then perhaps showing the opinions from a few.

Let me tell you how journalism works. When I wrote a 2,700-word item on municipal Wi-Fi for The Economist ... I spoke to over two dozen people specifically for the article in addition to hundreds I’d interviewed or had talks with over the two years prior to that. I started out with a set of assumptions, but listened to what people said, and wound up writing an article somewhat different than I thought I was writing. (It’s proved out to be accurate, too, so far.) That’s journalism.
...
Had I been researching this documentary, I would have wanted to find out from several epidemiologists with no horse in this race how credible various claims were about risk based on studies ... I would also have noted that there aren’t two sides to this fence ... I would also have made sure that if I was finding something spectacularly different than what was widely accepted that I could explain the reason why effects weren’t being seen.

Quoth TheRaven64:

The first I heard of this this Panorama episode was when my yoga instructor started quoting bits of it. No matter what happens now, the FUD is out there and will continue to spread, and the rest of us will have to waste a lot of time explaining to people that, no, their WiFi isn't going to eat them. Thanks Auntie.

And Aphrika agrees:

What's sad is that there are people out there that will take this moron's words as gospel truth ... We've already had someone at work give back her laptop and refuse to work at home because it has wi-fi, regardless of the fact you can turn the damn thing off.
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Panorama used to be really bloody good. In fact the UK used to have loads of decent science progs ... Panorama ... has turned from decent investigative journalism into a heap of sh** made by people who have no understanding of what they're talking about, and don't know how to carry out decent science.

But this Anonymous Coward is worried about elecrosensitivity:

I think we should be scared that so many people are immediately jumping onto the "can't possibly be a problem" with wifi thing, completely ignoring the effects on people who ARE affected by wifi. Been there, done that, then tried to disprove a friend's ability to detect wifi access points. Putting her in one room of a house, with two wifi access points about 12ft apart in another room behind opposite ends of a wall, she can pick which one is turned on by the pain she feels, every single time. She can tell if there are none on, the left one is on, the right one is on, or both are on. Do it too long, and she's out of action with a killer headache for hours. Sneak a wifi source into a place she didn't expect to be around one, and she'll tell me where it is within seconds. Take one out of a place she expected one to be and she'll remark on how she can actually go into that place without being in a mental fog.
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Got any other reason she can pick which of two wifi access points are turned on, through a wall, with no hardware but her own head?

To which another Anonymous Coward replies:

Prove it ... in a double-blind [setting] with actual scientists. If she could prove that, it might well be interesting.
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Does she get like this around microwaves, too? There are more things to detect than radio, y'know, and if she was really sensitive to radio waves, I'd expect her to have gone batty long ago given all the broadcasts. So I'm not the least bit convinced that you've isolated the actual problem, sorry.

This 21st Century Peon has slipping pride:

While I still think that the TV Licence is a great way to pay for my TV, and can often produce splendid telly (Life In The Undergrowth, The Day Today, Doctor Who, What The Victorians Did For Us to name but a few), the dragging down of the once-great Corporation to the level of the lowest commercial channels (yes, Reality TV - I'm also talking about you) brings a mournful tear to my eye.

Britain used to make really good documentary shows, too - Dispatches, anyone? Q.E.D.? Channel 4's Equinox, I seem to recall, could also be counted on for a refreshing brain-jiggle. You wouldn't catch 'em making anything like that anymore, of course - not when there's slaggy morons to build into role models.

And check out Wellington Grey's cartoon rendition of the TV show, entitled:

Wi-Fi Routers: Silent, Blinking, DEATH? [click here]

Buffer overflow:

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And finally... HELLO my barcode is 1-40019-74165-9

Richi Jennings is an independent technology and marketing consultant, specializing in email, blogging, Linux, and computer security. A 20 year, cross-functional IT veteran, he is also an analyst at Ferris Research. Contact Richi at blogwatch@richi.co.uk.