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But did they include the effects of blogging in the study?

Remember all that venom directed at the Bush administration for repealing the ergonomics rules that President Clinton put into place at the eleventh hour? Remember the diatribes from self-proclaimed labor advocates who declared that Bush was going to cripple millions of workers? Well, it turns out that a large part of that argument just ain't so:

Frequent on-the-job use of a computer keyboard does not pose a major risk for carpal tunnel syndrome, according to the largest study of the topic to date. The findings were published June 11 in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

There are, of course, critics of the study (aren't there always?), and it did find a small possibility that mouse use -- I have a trackpad, so nyah -- may contribute to carpal tunnel syndrome. But it seems as if there's little chance that carpal tunnel syndrome comes from sitting in front of the PC. That doesn't mean that repetitive stress injuries can't be caused by job-related activities, of course; this study only covered the use of computers. But that would have been an awful lot of unnecessary regulation if Bush hadn't acted.

Pity the poor makers of those wacky "ergonomic keyboards," though.
posted by David Nieporent at 6/18/2003 04:44:00 AM |