UK Schools Bans WiFi Due To Health Concerns 535
Mantrid42 writes "Schools in the UK are getting rid of their WiFi network, citing health concerns from parents and teachers. The wireless emanations, parents fear, may be the root cause of a host of problems from simple fatigue to the possibility of cancer. A few scientists think younger humans may be more vulnerable to the transmissions, because of thinner skulls. From the article: "Vivienne Baron, who is bringing up Sebastian, her ten-year-old grandson, said: 'I did not want Sebastian exposed to a wireless computer network at school. No real evidence has been produced to prove that this new technology is safe in the long term. Until it is, I think we should take a precautionary approach and use cabled systems.'"
Come on.... (Score:5, Insightful)
ID-10-T Error (Score:3, Insightful)
there is no *evidence* that these devices CAUSE problems...
Re:ban wifi? what about other technologies? (Score:1, Insightful)
Environmentalists gone mad and spreading fud again (Score:2, Insightful)
The amount of energy pushed out bu 802.11a/b/g networks is miniscule and it's almost background level when you consider cell phones, TW transmissions, RADAR and a whole host of other technologies that have been in use for much much longer.
Many of the environmentalist policies and acts legislated by governments provide little or no real benefits.
As one friend of mine said - it's like putting a bandage on a wooden leg....
Re:ban wifi? what about other technologies? (Score:5, Insightful)
I would say they should stay indoors but then they are still susceptible to all those cosmic rays!
Obviously, the only solution is to move everybody to New Zion right above the Earth's core.
Give me a break, this kind of thinking is why 3 year olds die from food posioning every year because its a political impossibility to get irradiated meat on shelves sans a gigantic radiation symbol.
Its ill-informed knee-jerk thinking of the most insipid kind.
I think they should turn up the signal strength... (Score:3, Insightful)
"Stowe School, the Buckinghamshire public school, also removed part of its wireless network after a teacher became ill. Michael Bevington, a classics teacher for 28 years at the school, said that he had such a violent reaction to the network that he was too ill to teach.
"I felt a steadily widening range of unpleasant effects whenever I was in the classroom," he said. "First came a thick headache, then pains throughout the body, sudden flushes, pressure behind the eyes, sudden skin pains and burning sensations, along with bouts of nausea. Over the weekend, away from the classroom, I felt completely normal.""
Ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
Fundamental (Score:4, Insightful)
No matter how many studies one has that fail to detect a hazard, there is always a chance that the hazard was too subtle to be statistically detectable, or was of a type of hazard that wasn't investigated (e.g., hearing loss or arthritis).
It's the old saying - you can't prove a negative. Actually, you can't prove anything in science. You can only present evidence.
Re:ban wifi? what about other technologies? (Score:2, Insightful)
(You probably should NOT attempt this.)
So yes, there are other technologies which operate right around 2.4 GHz, but wireless networks are one of the only technologies which operate at that precise wavelength (which interacts strongly with water and lipids), with those power levels, without shielding, and with long durations of exposure.
skeptical (Score:3, Insightful)
He's not nuts. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's the HVAC. Classic infrasound symptoms.
He's not nuts at least.
Re:wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Fortunately, us stoopid Brits do understand enough statistics to know that drawing conclusions about the whole population from a sample of one is unlikely to give reliable results. :-)
FUD (Score:4, Insightful)
This is not a concern of pretty much all UK schools, their pupils or their parents.
The reason behind the story is simply that newspapers sell papers based on how sensational the issues are. If they could convince people to believe parents won't sending their children to school because of fears of radioactive textbooks, they would print that also.
Re:Environmentalists gone mad and spreading fud ag (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:ban wifi? what about other technologies? (Score:3, Insightful)
We are not talking about actual research suggesting most people are actually seriously concerned about the matter either. A semi-tabloid newspaper publishes a single article about some freaks' concerns and slashdot takes it seriously. Please, it's not like even the Times gave the story much credit.
Re:ban wifi? what about other technologies? (Score:3, Insightful)
Microwaves make things heat up. It's not magic voodoo radiation. Your wifi router over there in the corner of your room isn't hurting you anymore than your light bulb over in the corner lighting up your room is.
Easy solution... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:ban wifi? what about other technologies? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:ban wifi? what about other technologies? (Score:3, Insightful)
But oddly enough, people rarely get upset about AC power anymore. Did you know that when you are electrocuted, the frequency of the electric current can determine whether or not your heart goes into fibrillation? And it just so happens that 50 to 60 Hertz (the line voltage frequencies in UK and America) is just about optimal for causing fibrillation. That frequency range interferes with our own bioelectrical hardware. And yet, just walking around in our homes, we are constantly exposed to it, being capacitively coupled by a few picofarads to both line and ground. Heck, go and stand under a 100kV or so transmission line and you're now under a huge E field gradient, easily a couple or few kV from head to toe.
I think most of what is going on here is just fear of the unknown and a lack of familiarity with the technology. As people become more familiar, they will lose their fear and see the benefits as outweighing possible risks. Same as with electric power, even though it may be the bigger threat.
Re:Acute symptoms (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I think they should turn up the signal strength (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I think they should turn up the signal strength (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyone live near a school? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:ban wifi? what about other technologies? (Score:3, Insightful)
Is that the real problem though? The gigantic radiation symbol isn't saying anything that's untrue - if people know that the meat is irradiated, then they're gonna react in a certain way, symbol or not.
And certainly hiding the fact that it's irradiated would not help matters at all.
Re:ban wifi? what about other technologies? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:ban wifi? what about other technologies? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:wow (Score:4, Insightful)
"However with church attendance on the decline and only 7% of Christians in the UK attending church, the figure seems remarkably high."
So I'm going to say that based on your stat and this one, a significant (majority?) of people in the UK are culturally christian, but not epistemologically christian...
Re:wow (Score:3, Insightful)
That's interesting to hear considering a lot of the "Americans are stupid" and "Americans are fat" comments I've heard here came from Brits.
The Coca-Cola Machines in the Cafeteria (Score:3, Insightful)
After 20 years of drinking and being addicted to this crap, I've found out the hard way. Throughout those 20 years its tore up my life, made me think I was insane, chronically fatigued, confused, unable to concentrate, and eventually gotten down right sick.
Its not the wifi, its the sugar water.
Numerous studies on the toxicity of sugar to the body can be found on the net. No, refined sugar is not the same as blood glucose, and no, you body does not need refined sugar to function. Healthy vegtables, meat, water, and fiber. Zero sugar. Zero caffeine.
simpler explanation? (Score:3, Insightful)
Besides, CRTs blast more energy into your skull than wifi. We should ban old monitors and TVs
Tom
Check the indoor environment (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:They should absolutely ban cell phones (Score:3, Insightful)
Given that microwave transmissions are designed to be picked up from far away by devices, perhaps the neurons in the brain are similarly capable of being affected by those transmissions?
Power levels are not the issue. The issue is that the human nervous system is electrochemical in nature and is designed to respond on the cellular level to vanishingly small electrical impulses. Of course, few are aware of this. The telcos are more than happy to keep the debate spinning on about the non-issue of human tissues being heated by microwaves.
-FL
Re:ban wifi? what about other technologies? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:ban wifi? what about other technologies? (Score:2, Insightful)
The carrier is spread by multiplying the data signal against a pseudorandom spreading sequence and the resulting signal is constant amplitude, phase modulated. So unless your radio just happens to be regenerating the same pseudorandom sequence in precise synchronization there is no recognisable correlation between bits in the datastream and signal amplitude.
And that's not counting compression and various other tcp/ip stuff that makes even the underlying bitstream effectively random to any unintelligent, passive device
Here's a test for you. Turn off the wireless and any source of audio. Delete your mp3 collection off the computer just to be sure.
Now tune your radio to some noise coming from the computer, inform your cow-orkers that you're sending [insert track title here] over the wifi network, and see if they still think they can hear it. I bet most of them will still think they can.
Re:ban wifi? what about other technologies? (Score:2, Insightful)
Understanding the difference between particle and electromagnetic radiation would be a start.
Oh right, explain the difference between particles and waves, the Nobel Price is waiting for you!
(All right, I know what you meant, I just couldn't resist!)
Re:2.4GHz doesn't! (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:ban wifi? what about other technologies? (Score:3, Insightful)
"Who cares if they are right, they are right for the wrong reason so we will ignore them!"
That's a bit hyperbolized. More accurately (though less catchy) it'd be, "Believing something to be unsafe out of ignorance and being right doesn't justify the ignorance."
Re:ban wifi? what about other technologies? (Score:3, Insightful)
The reality is for WiFi, mobile phones or similar technology to cause the problems that are often suggested would require a significant new way for EM fields to interact with matter that has gone completely unnoticed till now. This would require that parts of the standard model that have been experimentaly proved to unprecidented levels of precision are also plain wrong. It just is not happening fokes.
Re:under power transmission lines? (Score:1, Insightful)
>been for years because of reports that cancer rates for people living under them are higher.
LOL, nice bit of FUD there.
Yup, houses near power lines are cheaper. People for some reason don't like buying houses near huge great ugly metal pylons! They also tend to be built through cheaper areas because there's less political damage this way.
Now these cheaper houses aren't bought by rich people wanting to save a few bob, they're actually bought by poorer people. That's right, poorer people, whom on average have poorer diets. Yup, that's right poorer diets cause cancer.
OK, I'm over-simplifying, it's not just diet, but the fact is that poorer people are more likely to suffer from cancer.
Re:wow (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:wow (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah I noticed that too. Whenever there's some dick tailgating behind me chances are good that they'll have some Born Again insignia or We Support Our Troops magnets.
With the Born Agains, I guess they are just too focused on their eternal reward in heaven to give a fuck about some plain day-to-day courtesy on Earth.
Re:my personal experience (Score:2, Insightful)
Exactly - Litvinenko (Score:3, Insightful)
The assassination of Litvinenko in London a few days ago is a case in point. He consumed radioactive material. That his unagi was irradiated in the process is irrelevant.
The difference between eating irradiated food and ingesting radioactive material is like that between eating a flame-broiled steak and eating a flaming Duralog.
Re:ban wifi? what about other technologies? (Score:3, Insightful)
Its all a question of relative risk. I live in the south west of the UK, the bedrock is granite and houses built on these rocks tend to fill up with genuine radioactive radon gas. I dont see any sign of a Parents against Radon campaign though. This is just one more example of ignorant media types finding a story to get people whipped up about. The statistics about cancer derived from living on top of granite rock is already clear and known but nothing is done about it. A slight rise in the level of electromagnetic radiation from WiFi is now being demonised as being a possible problem in 50 years time. There is no evidence that this slight rise in the existing electromagnetic background will cause any health concerns at all.
Why are people behaving in such a stupid fashion? Is it something to do with the drift towards personality cult and the death of scientific understanding in the west. A major University in the UK known for its excellent robotics research is dropping Physics as an undergraduate subject. Worldwide fundamentalist christians are poisoning peoples minds with creationism. This is all very sad at a time when the need to use scientific methodology to halt the degradation of the environment has never been greater. The need to adjust our technology to take oil out of politics before it starts more wars. The need to develop food production to feed an unsustainable population.
These idiots that are trying to ban WiFi networks will all be giving their children cell phones which transmit regularly throughout the day even when they aren't being used to make calls. The only saving grace is that more than likely the whole lot of them are going to die of H5N1 in the next few years. I hope the media barrons like Rupert Murdoch who owns 40% of the UK's newspapers is one of the first to drown in the fluid in his lungs when the pandemic strikes a population that spent its efforts banning WiFi rather than spending money on virus research. Lets hope that the politicians who have gone along with this management by style rather than substance have been mislead that their personal stashes of Tamiflu will protect them too.
Pah, human civilisation has already failed and its time for something else to have a go.
Tommy Boy (Score:4, Insightful)
That will never work. It depends on people being able to think for themselves. To paraphrase Dan Akroyd as Ray Zalinsky in the movie Tommy Boy: What the average person doesn't know is what makes them an average person. Look at how many people buy lottery tickets every day.
(Yes, I know the article is about a school in the UK while the original quote was about the American public. Hence "paraphrase". Same principle still applies.)