Photo from Taobao's Tmall
As most of you were probably busy with other things during the holidays, I thought I’d share this piece by Adam Minter about the debate in China over anti-radiation clothing for pregnant women. These protective aprons are a big industry, and expectant mothers who work at computers often purchase them to protect against electromagnetic radiation.
This is a topic that I find absolutely mind-boggling, and in fact, I wrote about this briefly a few years back over on CNet [1]. As I pointed out then, the WHO has said that there are “no substantial health issues related to ELF electric fields at levels generally encountered by members of the public.”
Similarly, Minter relates the story of a Chinese mother who was surprised when she went to Switzerland to find her doctor had never heard of such a protective suit, assuring her that “The amount of radiation thrown off by a computer is less than what is thrown off by the sun’s rays.”
Nevertheless they continue to be sold both online (even reputable online retailer Taobao has hundreds of pages of them listed) and offline. But as Minter points out, at least now there’s some debate happening, much of it on Sina Weibo.
It’s a pretty bizarre story about an equally bizarre product. Be sure to drop over to Bloomberg to check the story in its entirety.
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That page is no longer online, but I’ve captured it as a screenshot on my own website. ↩