SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
[...] "I can see from my tractor that they are all skin and bones. It's enough to make you cry." On the other side of the small road that winds along his property, a short distance from the town of Mazeyrat-d'Allier, in the Haute-Loire department, Frédéric Salgues can spot what he considers to be the cause of his cows' problems, less than 300 meters away: a cell phone tower commissioned by Orange on June 28, 2021.
[...] On May 23, the administrative court of Clermont-Ferrand ordered the 4G antenna's cessation of operation for a period of two months.
This measure, unprecedented in France, should become effective within three months. The objective is to carry out an expert assessment in order to "establish a potential causal link between the behavior of the cattle and this antenna." The administrative court highlights "a significant drop in the quality and quantity of milk produced, a serious disruption in the behavior of the herd and its voluntary denutrition and abnormally high deaths.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by theluggage on Friday June 17 2022, @08:03PM (4 children)
...the trouble is if they have something recoverable that has nothing to do with the 4G transmitter they'll probably get better over the next couple of months anyway. Funny thing - although the exceptions are terrible, many people and animals get ill and then get better without (or despite) intervention.
I.e. sneezing? blocked nose? headache? Aha - I see you have a WiFi router! did you know that 90% of people who turned off their WiFi after reporting these symptoms got better after 3 weeks? Many fortunes in homeopathy, crystal healing and general snake oil application have been made this way. At least with the cows there won't be an actual effect from the stress reduction and lifestyle improvements brought by unplugging for a few weeks.
To be fair, I've only read the first few "free" paragraphs of TFA which (being a press article) doesn't really worry about trivial details like scientific significance so maybe the people behind this are doing a proper job - but this is not in evidence.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by RS3 on Friday June 17 2022, @08:38PM
What? You mean correlation is not causation? (I'm being very sarcastic for those who don't perceive the sarcasm!)
Years ago I shared an office with a guy who was very intelligent and witty. One of his phrases was: "never underestimate the power of coincidence". I'm still processing that one. :)
Bottom line, of course, is that a real study needs to be done. But in time they might get enough data to draw reasonable conclusions. For instance, if the cows recover and do well for months, and then they turn the 4G back on and the cows go downhill again, we can't say for certain yet, but that's a much stronger possible causation.
But also, you'd think we'd have heard of this problem in other places, as was commented above, so we really don't know (yet?).
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday June 18 2022, @01:25AM (1 child)
Except it sounds like they've had problems for around a year (or am I assuming too much by thinking that the problems must have started soon after the tower went up), so there's no reason to excpet things to imporve shortly after they transmissions are shut off.
And like I said, if they recover, it warrants further investigation, not assuming there's a connection. The most obvious step being to turn it back on and see if the problem returns. If it does, then do it a few more times, without the farmer knowing this time, and see if cow health correlates to the more complex pattern of changes. If it does then we have a serious contender for evidence that 4G can in fact cause serious health problems. But I won't be holding my breath.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by theluggage on Saturday June 18 2022, @02:39PM
Actually, the most obvious (and quicker) step would be to survey a bunch of other randomly-chosen cow fields, with and without 4G masts nearby, and look for a correlation. Even then, correlation is not causation and a positive result would still only mean "warrants further investigation". Trouble is, a negative result would pretty much disprove the connection, which wouldn't really be in the interests of the lawyers.
As others have suggested it could very easily be connected to the construction of the tower (contamination, cutting down shade, poisonous plants taking root in disurbed ground...)
I'm going to call it as anti-4G protesters continually holding vigils at the site and feeding their roaches to the cattle... :-)
(Score: 2) by sonamchauhan on Saturday June 18 2022, @04:48AM
Or not recover at all