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Microwave Sickness and Skin-Writing
by Martin J Clemens
I’ve got a fun experiment for you. Open your web browser or a new tab and navigate to the Google home page. Now enter the search term “is my microwave oven dangerous”. When the results come up – which should be in the neighbourhood of 1.7 million hits – take a close look at each heading that appears in the list. I want you to count (without clicking on them) how many of those headings are answering ‘yes’ to your question, compared to how many are saying ‘no’.
When I tried it, the results were nearly 1:1, and amusingly, they appeared in an alternating pattern, with one claiming microwave ovens are deadly, followed by one claiming they’re perfectly safe, and so on.
The order in which Google chooses to serve them up has no bearing on the topic, of course, but it does highlight the issue. Since you now have that tab full of articles on the subject, you can undertake to inform yourself on the issue, or have a look at what Harvard Medical School has to say on it, or the World Health Organisation, or even the FDA. I’m not inclined to add to that mountain of information and misinformation on the subject, but there are some interesting things that happen when people are exposed to microwave radiation.
There’s a contentious medical condition known as radiofrequency neurasthenia, or microwave sickness (MWS). That second name may have been responsible for at least part of the public’s mistrust of microwave ovens, through a widespread misunderstanding of the science behind it. I say it’s contentious because there are few scientists or doctors who agree on whether it’s real or not, which takes some explaining.
Philosophers stone – selected views from the boat
http://philosophers-stone.co.uk
Source: http://philosophers-stone.co.uk/wordpress/2015/04/microwave-sickness-and-skin-writing/
