WiFi and autism: a quick debunking
By John Timmer
November 23, 2007 - 12:43PM CT

Late Wednesday, as most people in the US were focusing on the next day's holiday festivities, Engadget picked up on a potentially unnerving press release entitled "Link Between Wireless Technology and Autism Unveiled in New Scientific Report."

Given the increasing prevalence of WiFi use, a clear link between this technology and autism should give many of us pause. But a closer examination of the press release should raise enough red flags that the announcement should be viewed with extreme skepticism. The first issue comes from the journal in which the results are apparently published.

The press release calls the source the Australasian Journal of Clinical Environmental Medicine. As noted by a ZDNet columnist, however, that journal doesn't actually exist. The detailed reference refers to the "J.Aust.Coll.Nutr.& Env.Med," which translates to the Journal of the Australasian College of Nutrition & Environmental Medicine.

This does exist, but the journal's web page is currently under construction. Information elsewhere on the site claims that it is peer reviewed, but it's not indexed by PubMed, meaning it's not on the radar screens of the vast majority of biomedical researchers.

Ars Technica
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