Bay Area doctor shoots down ‘baseless’ claim that 49ers injuries are caused by EMF from substation near Levi’s Stadium

SANTA CLARA, Calif. (KGO) — The San Francisco 49ers are hoping to advance, so they can get some of their key players back from injuries in the coming weeks.

It has been another season plagued by the injury bug, and there’s a wild theory circulating on social media that attempts to explain why.

The 49ers have called their current practice facility and stadium in Santa Clara home since 2014. Since then, they’ve been among the league’s worst in missed games due to injury.

This week, a self-proclaimed researcher on social media named Peter Cowan claimed it’s the substation next door that’s to blame — particularly the electromagnetic fields coming from it.

“I can actually understand if people are getting injured, looking around at different variables, making jokes and saying what could be happening,” said ABC7 News Contributor Dr. Alok Patel.

Cowan’s post has nearly 10 million views on X and claims exposure to EMF can weaken tendons and cause soft-tissue damage.

He said that could explain the injuries the 49ers have seen. There was no talk of this theory among current players at an availability at the facility on Friday. But a former 49er said that it has been a topic of discussion in the locker room in the past.

Former 49ers guard Jon Faciliano shared Cowan’s thread on X and has reportedly said his teammates would joke about the electrical substation.

He was not available for an interview Friday, but we did speak with Patel about the theory.

MORE: OT Williams, WR Pearsall among 6 listed as questionable for 49ers

“What a wild headline and claim,” Patel said. “Somebody actually sent this to me earlier this morning. There are some laboratory studies that have shown that high levels of acute exposure to electromagnetic fields might cause some cellular damage. But guess what? This isn’t a lab setting. You cannot look at lab data and then make a claim that’s happening in real human activity in real time. That’s a massive leap.”

Patel said EMF is different than ionizing radiation that can be harmful to the human body with overexposure. In fact, he said research shows some electromagnetic pulse therapy might actually aid in tissue recovery.

As far as the 49ers injury woes, Patel says overuse injuries from the lack of rest represents a more likely cause than this baseless theory.

“It’s valid for people to have questions about low levels of electromagnetic fields, and if they have an exposure, what potential risks might be,” Patel said. “But I urge people to go and look up credible sources of information. What this is, is a classic case of correlation is not causation.”