Posted: 29th May, 2007 By: MarkJ
Last weeks Panorama (BBC1 TV) program covering
Wi-Fi radiation fears (
here) drew a lot of criticism and its since emerged that the shows own investigation may have been fatally flawed.
Reportedly one school even had to boot Panorama's team off its premises for bad science:
This show was on the suppressed dangers of radiation from wi-fi networks. The show had panorama hack carrying a detector around a school which showed that 'radiation' was in red for most of the time. What Panorama didn't tell you was that its detector was built from scratch and built by Alasdair Philips of Powerwatch, the man who leads the campaign against wi-fi. He decided how much radiation it would take to send his machine into the red zone.
Panaroma failed to reveal that were Philips, who makes £175 for each of the detectors he flogs to worried parents, or his detector's came from.
While they were doing that the teacher googled the name of Philips who does a natty line in radiation shielding for your windows and special shielding paint for your house. He even flogs an insulation mesh beekeeper hat to protect your head from microwave exposure.
The Inquirer proceeds to point out that another "expert" used by the show, Olle Johansson, has a similar history to Alasdair Philips and had been labelled "
Misleader of the year 2004" by his fellow boffins. Hah.