Dr. Jill Stein, Harvard-educated medical professional and Green Party Presidential candidate, was already struggling this week with how to best define her stance on vaccinations to appeal to both science-oriented Bernie Sanders voters, and “progressive” leftists with more interesting ideas.
Now, it seems, a YouTube video has surfaced showing Stein (still a medical professional), describing the inherent danger of putting wireless Internet in public schools.
She starts out sounding like any parent concerned about children getting too much “screen time”—staring at computers and handheld devices rather than interacting and developing social skills. She notes that “we should be moving away from screens” at all levels of education: a fair criticism.
But then things get weird. Part of her objection to computers in schools, apparently, is that the use of technology in education is a “corporate ruse” designed to hook children, teachers and parents into an unspecified conspiracy, so that companies like Apple can ensure a profit.
And then, there’s her concerns about Wi-Fi.
Jill Stein: We should not be subjecting kids’ brains especially to that. And we don’t follow that issue in this country, but in Europe where they do, they have good precautions around wireless—maybe not good enough, because it’s very hard to study this stuff. We make guinea pigs out of whole populations and then we discover how many die. And this is like the paradigm for how public health works in this country and it’s outrageous, you know.
Although some left-leaning sites have promoted the idea that wireless Internet carries with it a harmful radiation, particularly in the age of wearable wireless devices like Fitbits and Apple Watches, there is no evidence connecting wireless Internet to any major health problems.
The World Health Organization even has a briefing that dispels most major misconceptions surrounding cell phones and “radiation fields,” noting that, even in “wireless-dense” locations, risk of any real, harmful exposure is very low. Wireless is a different kind of radiation than, say, X-rays.
Stein has yet to show up in most polls, but there remains a chance that she will be the Bernie Bros’ candidate of choice, particularly if rumors are true that Nina Turner, Sanders’s top surrogate, plans to join the Stein ticket, as her VP. While Libertarian Gary Johnson is still just inches away from the debate stage, with 13% of the vote in one recent poll, Stein could quickly match that, if she picks up disenfranchised progressives.
Unless the wireless Internet gets them first, of course.