Denialism

Preying on the fears of pregnant women

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by

MarkH
in

Here’s some woo for you. Via Gizmodo we hear about this wonderful new waste of money, Mummywraps. Designed to protect your baby from “electro-smog”, the non-existent threat of electromagnetic waves from radio and cell phone sources (that we have been exposed to constantly for decades with no discernible effect), these copper “Swiss Shield” garments will be sure to be a profitable waste of money ($70) for thousands of paranoid parents.
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Ben Goldacre I think has been on the forefront of challenging this new electrosmog woo, so there is very little to add. But it is simply shameful how people are willing to exploit the well-intentioned paranoia of expectant mothers about the health of their fetuses with such nonsense. I’m never surprised of course, but always disappointed.

Of course if you would like to make a few million dollars I can highly recommend imagining something new for people with children to be afraid of, and then convincing them only your product can protect them. My product idea is a special tinfoil hat, designed to block cosmic rays from penetrating your body and mutating your precious offspring.

Comments

  1. Chi

    yes, but if wanting a stainless-steel mesh pair of undies to protect my little ones is wrong, I don’t want to be right.

    Reply
  2. Bob O’H

    No, Chi. Not those little ones.

    Bob

    Reply
  3. Moopheus

    Actually, the real reason you need this is because The Phone Company has implanted your baby with an RFID chip in utero.

    Where is the line of Swiss Shield hats for the tin-foil hat crowd? So much more stylish and wearable in public.

    Reply
  4. Ted

    Well, this makes about as much sense as the $10B chatter swirling facebook.

    If some idiot wants to buy this as well, why interfere? Seems like a relatively harmless way to separate a fool from their money given the available spectrum of yoinking money from them. …Like your pregnant mate is ever going to look like this pensive blond babe.

    Not that I have money in this venture, but you’ve got to take business plan stupidity to new levels to be a vibrant entrepreneur.

    Reply
  5. Nick Johnson

    The less-cynical part of me assumes that, given that there are people who believe these things, there are probably also enterprising people who believe these things, and the vendors of this product may well believe their own woo, making them innocent dupes, rather than conniving bastards.

    Reply
  6. Ted

    …making them innocent dupes, rather than conniving bastards.

    Well, that’s a fairly binary selection. Appealing to people’s concern for their children has been going on forever. “…But think of the children…” You must really hate America to suggest that selling this type of stuff is the result of conniving bastards scheming to separate fools from their credit. On that basis, if you stop buying indiscriminate stuff made in China, Osama wins.

    Me, I’m going to go with colorful mobiles suspended over cribs cause the reported increase in autism. Or sucking on formula that comes from contaminated plastic formula bags. Or hell, any of the thousands of products that purport to demonstrate how much we love our offspring through our purchasing decisions.

    Of course, we don’t love them enough to make them exercise, to make them get off the video games, to control their TV viewing habits, to have them eat less, to prepare them for the world adequately. We’ll just compensate for all those things buy buying them more plastic crap.

    One approach to electrosmog (if we love our kinder) is to move offgrid. Will that happen? No, because it’ll infringe on the parent’s right to be self-fulfilled (or self-indulged) with career, luxury, excess.

    Plus, MarkH would fisk them then for being vegan, commune and quonset living hippies, rather than waiting for technology and the magic of markets to save the day. 🙂

    Reply
  7. MarkH

    Markets? You’ve got to be kidding me Ted. If we waited for markets to do something we’ll be dead and buried before seeing any improvement.

    I’m a regulation/investment man. You can tune markets with regulation to create an economic necessity for change, but it’s not going to happen without someone standing behind Wall Street with a cattle prod.

    Reply
  8. Ted

    Markets? You’ve got to be kidding me Ted.

    I may have gotten your position wrong, but I’ve always thought that a reliance on technology to solve problems depended heavily on the market element and profit motive to make it mainstream and cheap. Without friendly market conditions, the water fueled commercial automobile gets to sit under wraps at Area 51 right next to the spaceship. Ditto on the electric car and its high efficiency batteries.

    You’re no slouch with your economics occasionally, so I’d like to hear your opinions on the notion that today’s (GenY) generation may not make the dough, or demonstrate fiscal growth of the previous generation, but they don’t have to — technology has improved their lives to such an extent that they “feel” richer simply by living in the US of A in the 21st century. Who needs unions when we have the Internets?

    Doing better is for the morally bankrupt top 1%. For the rest of youse it ought to be enough that we, provide you, with more gadgetry to fill the void in your meaningless lives.

    iPhone anyone? The Comcastic tripleplay? You got to admit that life is pretty sweet for the unwashed masses even without catching up to the multi-millionaires.

    Just how much sweeter, is the question. I’m saying sweet enough not to care that they’re treading water.

    Reply

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