USADaily -
The cringe-worthy Trump-Clinton race has led some Bernie Sanders’ supporters to shift their support to protest candidates like Jill Stein.
As a true liberal, they say, she is eminently qualified to lead the progressive movement. However, her actual positions say otherwise.
For example, at a campaign event this past March she called the use of technology in education a “corporate ruse.” According to Stein, “we should be moving away from screens at all levels of education.” Stein also has concerns about the safety of WiFi — she says we “should not be subjecting kids’ brains to that.”
The World Health Organization disagrees, noting noting that radiation “exposures from base stations range from 0.002% to 2% of the levels of international exposure guidelines.” Humans, in fact, absorb up to five times more radiation from FM radio and television than from WiFi technology.
Animal studies have also demonstrated no link between WiFi and cancer, “even at levels that are much higher than produced” by wireless networks. And scientists have observed no adverse effects relating to brain function, body temperature, or other physiological functions.
The greatest health risk from electronic devices is not the radiation they produce, but rather their encouragement of a sedentary lifestyle. Still, condemning President Obama’s initiatives for expanding computer programming and software education in schools as a “corporate ruse” in essence condemns the progress of science and society itself.
It’s clear that Jill Stein’s candidacy is more a war of words than a sincere effort to confront the complex realities of public health and all the other issues facing this country.
Like Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, Stein is seems more interesting in pointing to the angriest voice in the crowd and amplifying it, without regard for the scientific truth. (Stein has also made some troubling statements about vaccines.)
Stein should be focusing instead on the potential conflicts of interest between the revolving doors between regulatory agencies and the private corporations they control, or are controlled by. Doctors themselves should be brought under the scope of her campaign, as many are paid to promote more expensive, but biochemically identical, drugs to their patients.
These conflicts of interest have had real consequences: According to a 2013 Gallup poll, the Food and Drug Administration has been rated about as positively as the CIA and the EPA, with just 45% saying that they are doing a good job, as opposed to 60% for the CDC.
Citizens that do not trust health-related agencies and their doctors have no few incentives to follow the health guidelines by medical professionals. With Stein’s background as doctor-turned-politician, she is in a unique position to push important issues like this to the forefront.
But despite her medical education, Stein has chosen to go down the mendacious road of identity politics. Her fight as an anti-establishment candidate is not leadership for a chicken in every pot, but deceit for a tin foil hat on every head.
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