John Lynch Says 49ers Are Looking Into Impact of Electrical Substation on Players, Injuries
The San Francisco 49ers are investigating a recent conspiracy theory that an electrical substation near the team’s practice facility could be contributing to the rash of injuries the Niners suffered this season.
General manager John Lynch told reporters Wednesday that the team has asked “anyone and everyone” if there is an actual study to back up the claim that low-frequency electromagnetic fields can weaken tendons or contribute to soft-tissue injuries.
Sam Fortier and Albert Samaha of the Washington Post dug into the validity of the theory, and most experts have either debunked the claim or said that far more research was required.
Frank de Vocht, an epidemiology and public health professor of at Bristol Medical School in England who is a “leading expert on how EMF affects humans,” told the Washington Post that the theory was “nonsense.”
“The things he measured are actually quite low,” de Vocht added of Peter Cowan’s social media post, which kicked off the theory. “Kind of what you would expect in any normal house.”
Utrecht University professor of exposure assessment and occupational hygiene Hans Kromhout, meanwhile, called it “highly unlikely.”
There’s also the fact that the Niners have been practicing near the substation in 1988 and haven’t always been as injury prone as they’ve been since opening Levi’s Stadium in 2014 (while Kyle Shanahan took over as head coach in 2017).
That said, a number of agents told the Washington Post that players were reaching out to them to seek more information on the situation. And Kendrick Bourne publicly joked about the matter:
The Niners are doing their due diligence, which makes sense. For now, however, it appears the theory is far from confirmed science.
