'Wi-Fi Illness' Spreads To Ontario Public Schools

An anonymous reader writes "Readers of Slashdot might be familiar with Lakehead University's ban on WiFi routers a few years ago in Thunder Bay, Ontario because of 'health concerns,' a policy apparently still in effect. Now it seems a group of concerned parents in a number of communities in Ontario have petitioned the local school boards over similar concerns at public schools, where their kids are apparently experiencing 'headaches to dizziness and nausea and even racing heart rates' — symptoms that appear only when they are in school on weekdays, not on weekends at home. 'The symptoms, which also include memory loss, trouble concentrating, skin rashes, hyperactivity, night sweats and insomnia, have been reported in 14 Ontario schools in Barrie, Bradford, Collingwood, Orillia and Wasaga Beach since the board decided to go wireless ...' Besides Wi-Fi signals, could there possibly be any other logical explanation for kids having more symptoms of illness on school days than at home on weekends or in the summer?"

Comments

Mod the summary funny

[Overzeetop]

"Besides Wi-Fi signals, could there possibly be any other logical explanation for kids having more symptoms of illness on school days than at home on weekends or in the summer?"

Um, being in school doesn't count as a reason?

Re:Mod the summary funny

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately it overshadows a real problem. I felt crippling anxiety in school for 10 years (dropped out when I was old enough) and it was a waste of a good childhood. There are real reasons kids can feel this way. It doesn't have to be excuses, even if that was the easy thing to blame my problems on.

Of course WiFi didn't exist back then so it wasn't that, but I can understand how kids would feel awful at school and fine at home.

School can be a very uncomfortable place to be in, and an almost impossible place to learn in.

Re:Mod the summary funny

[jcr]

I can understand how kids would feel awful at school and fine at home.

Hear, hear!

I'm convinced that forcing children to sit and pay attention for hours on end is a lousy way to teach them anything at all. Kids are naturally curious, but schooling makes far too many of them hate learning.

-jcr

Re:Mod the summary funny

[AK Marc]

As long as you use your hatred of "schooling" to fix it, not sabotage it, then I agree with you.

School is bad, but better than the alternative. So rather than using its problems as a reason to destroy it, its problems should be addressed to improve it.

Re:Mod the summary funny

[Anachragnome]

"I think that on the off-chance the kids aren't faking it (and really, who hasn't done it at some time in their youth) their parents are doing them a disservice by simply trying to blame it on WiFi."

I am surprised that the principals of the schools didn't rule things out by themselves. Start by polling the STUDENTS (specifically NOT the parents) while the Wi-Fi is up and running, then simply shut it off for a month and repeat the poll. Do the students feel better? Do they miss the Wi-Fi? Does school still suck? Are their parents full of shit?

And what about Wi-Fi in the home environment? Was that taken into account? None of these households use wireless? I find that hard to believe.

I get the feeling there is some underlying factor to the debate...like a paranoid mother that got the PTA all worked up, or something to that effect.

Re:Mod the summary funny

[daveime]

Knowing what I know now, I can see all kinds of ways that I could have put that time to better use

Had you spent your time in Information Technology 101 class better, you'd have know you don't need to sign or initial posts on message boards when your name is clearly displayed at the top.

But hey, we'll let it slide ... no matter how much it irritates the fuck out of us.

Re:Mod the summary funny

[dgatwood]

Too much water is bad for you, period. See also water intoxication. See, there, for all you who think alcohol is evil, you can get drunk on water, too.

Distilled water is worse as a thirst quencher after heavy exercise because it contains no electrolytes to replenish what you lost in sweat. No big deal, as most of us get way too much salt in the rest of our diets anyway, but it is worth noting in case you are one of the three people on Earth who doesn't over-salt everything.

As for the taste, it depends on what you're comparing it against. There's not a huge difference between well-filtered water (e.g. Aquafina) and distilled water (e.g. the grocery store jugs). There is, however, a huge difference between unfiltered or coarsely filtered water and distilled water. For example, to me, Arrowhead water tastes noticeably worse than more filtered brands, presumably because of the dissolved minerals. Other people prefer that taste. And there are many varieties that are somewhere in the middle. For example, Dasani uses filtration and then adds certain minerals back in. SmartWater distills the water and then adds salts back in. And so on. Everybody has their own preference, and as far as health goes, it makes little difference given that the vast majority of the minerals you consume come from the foods you eat rather than from the water you drink or cook foods in.

Re:Mod the summary funny

[shermo]

Other than eating Tuna in a can, my exposure to fish has been extremely limited in my lifetime. I don't eat fish or seafood, I don't eat Sushi, I don't live near the coast.

And yet 'in an effort to lose weight' you went on a tuna based diet, without consulting a doctor. To reiterate you'd never eaten seafood, your family doesn't eat seafood, your friends don't eat seafood, and yet you were willing to switch to a seafood based diet on a whim. Yeah I've made some assumptions, but given what you've told us they're probably not far off.

I'm somewhat sympathetic to the idea that you weren't able to afford a doctor (strange country!). But trying out a fad diet (on whose recommendation?) without getting any more information than the necessarily limited amount present on a label seems a little rash. It doesn't deserve getting called an idiot over, but it's not the smartest move.

Re:Mod the summary funny

[qeveren]

Distilled water is rather aggressive when it comes to dissolving minerals. Since it doesn't have any dissolved in it when you imbibe it, it just takes them from your body. It's basically an exaggeration of the difference between drinking water and isotonic beverages when you're exercising.

WiFi at home?

[leenks]

Don't people in Canada have WiFi at home? Surely if the illness was WiFi related they'd be suffering at home, in cities, on planes, or any other populated place?

GODDAMN IPHONES???

[Bananatree3]

And the parents happily shell out for their kid's iPhones, yet protest school board meetings against WiFi in schools.

I'm at school i am sick

[Psychotic_Wrath]

The symptoms, which also include memory loss, trouble concentrating, skin rashes, hyperactivity, night sweats and insomnia

Thats funny I read about this as a kid.

'I cannot go to school today, ' Said little Peggy Ann McKay. 'I have the measles and the mumps, A gash, a rash and purple bumps. My mouth is wet, my throat is dry, I'm going blind in my right eye. My tonsils are as big as rocks, I've counted sixteen chicken pox And there's one more-that's seventeen, And don't you think my face looks green? My leg is cut-my eyes are blue- It might be instamatic flu. I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke, I'm sure that my left leg is broke- My hip hurts when I move my chin, My belly button's caving in, My back is wrenched, my ankle's sprained, My 'pendix pains each time it rains. My nose is cold, my toes are numb. I have a sliver in my thumb. My neck is stiff, my voice is weak, I hardly whisper when I speak. My tongue is filling up my mouth, I think my hair is falling out. My elbow's bent, my spine ain't straight, My temperature is one-o-eight. My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear, There is a hole inside my ear. I have a hangnail, and my heart is-what? What's that? What's that you say? You say today is...Saturday? G'bye, I'm going out to play! ' Shel Silverstein

Ridiculous

[WillyWanker]

This is so ridiculous. It could be ANYTHING in the environment at these schools. Tainted water, Chinese drywall, toxic mold, contaminated food. The list is endless. But I can tell you one this it's not is the wi-fi.

Re:Ridiculous

[bsDaemon]

Maybe the kids are munching on Chinese routers while swimming in a contaminated pool? But seriously though, those all sound like classic symptoms of public school in general. I suffered most of them myself when I was in school, and the 802.11 standard wasn't published until about the time I started high school, and I didn't start to think of it as commonplace until a actually fairly recently (like, last 5-6 years or so). We certainly didn't have any APs in my school.

It's probably mold... or the soul-crushing depression of academic slavery.

Yes

[Sycraft-fu]

"Besides Wi-Fi signals, could there possibly be any other logical explanation for kids having more symptoms of illness on school days than at home on weekends or in the summer?"

Yes, it is called "Believing shit that isn't real." Our minds can have powerful effects on our bodies and in particular on how we feel, since ultimately the mind is what does the feeling. So people believe that something causes a given set of symptoms, thus they experience those symptoms.

Happens all the time with the WiFi types. People have been up on the evils of "radiation" for a long time, WiFi is just their newest target.

Personally what I think the school needs to do is this: Tell people "Ok, for the next two weeks we are shutting down WiFi, you let us know if you get any better." However don't actually shut it off. Have the APs stop broadcasting SIDs and accepting connections, but leave the radios broadcasting at full power. Then after that say "Ok we are turning back on now, in a test mode, no data for two weeks. tell us if you feel worse." At this point shut the APs down completely.

At the end, when people say that during the "off" time they were fine and during the "on" time the problems came back, you get to reveal the test results and say STFU.

Seriously, if there is something to this WiFi thing how come we can't get any laboratory results on it? The answer to that is because there is nothing to it, it is all in the heads of the people who allegedly have the problems.

Predictable

[Peach Rings]

How much do you want to bet that these concerned parents are credulous proponents of alternative medicine?

I can imagine their rapt attention at reading how much danger their kids are in, and they trust someone with MD after their name (as if it's not a diploma mill degree anyway) more than an engineer or physicist.

This whole subject is dominated by that folk etymology mentality where something that sounds smart and appeals to an aging housewife's intuition gets spread around at bridge games and finds its way into Reader's Digest or whatever checkout aisle trash they flip through on the toilet these days.

Whats wrong with the children?

[Kitkoan]

My guess, it's the parents. The parents want the children to be sick and press/force it upon the children to be sick. Its a common incident in lawsuits.

Parent: "Its ok, just tell me that your getting sick from the stuff at school. You don't need to hide it, just tell me."

Child: "But I'm fine, nothings wrong."

Parent: "Please, you shouldn't bottle these things up. Just tell me that its making you sick and I'll make it stop. Now please, don't hide these things from me."

Child: "But there really isn't anything wrong."

Parent: "Now we've talked about this, you don't need to keep secrets from me. Just tell me its making you sick because I know it is. So just be honest and go ahead and tell me its making you sick and then we can go have ice cream. And then we can talk to everyone about this because they will like to hear what you have to say."

Child after hearing they will get a reward and lots of positive attention for agreeing to claim it makes them sick: "Yes mommy, it makes me feel really ill and sick. Can we have that ice cream now?"

Keep instilling that its making them sick after a while mind over matter will happen and you'll have a child with a minor form of hypochondria that will claim its the school since they are getting rewards for it and lots of positive attention, the two things most children want it abundance.

Sick School Syndrome?

[pedropolis]

Have they checked the air quality and ventilation of these buildings before ascribing blame to some new technology? Sick school syndrome is real and to blame for many of the symptoms believed to be caused by the offending gamma-powered wi-fi routers.

Re:It's Black Mold

[cptdondo]

Mold my butt. If the kids are getting sick from radio waves, take away their cell phones. That'll cure'm quick!

Re:Turn off the wifi..

[jeremyp]

But to be a fair experiment, you'd have to conceal the fact that the wi-fi is turned off from the children. The reason for this is that the most likely cause of all the illness is children feigning it to get of school.

Re:It's Black Mold

[Smidge204]

If that were the case, the teachers and staff - who are exposed a lot more - would be getting symptoms too.

Here's a really easy test: Turn off all the wireless routers in the building and keep it a secret from the children and parents as best you can.

$5 says nothing will change.
=Smidge=

At home they must all use corded phones too...

[VortexCortex]

...otherwise many of their cordless phones would be emitting the same "wifi" signals that wireless routers do.

Perhaps the children are suffering from stress caused by video game, Internet, phone, and texting withdrawals at school.

Or, perhaps the other way around

[Sycraft-fu]

Kids don't want to go to school. I know I didn't when I was a kid and I was even good at school. I was always happy for an excuse to stay home from school. Didn't often work for me, since mom was a teacher and fairly clever, but still.

So kid doesn't want to go to school says "But mom, I feel sick!" and make up some symptoms. Mom says ok and lets them stay home. Mom notices that these symptoms only happen when the kid has been going to school. Never on the weekend, never during summer. Mom goes and looks them up online, rather than asking a doctor, and finds the anti-WiFi nutters. She says "Oh my god, this must be it!" The kid, of course, latches on to it as it means less time in school.

I'm sure it is a combination of these two as well as others (like kids who legitimately feel like crap in school because of stress). It all adds up to a manufactured panic about WiFi.

Hell maybe I should get in on this! In recent years, as WiFi has rolled out all over work, I've had less energy than I used to. I am tired easier, and seem to just be over all a bit slower than I was. Not drastic, but noticeable. Must be the WiFi... ...

or maybe the fact that I'm 30, and have gained weight. Nah, couldn't be that, must be the WiFi.

Re:It's Black Mold

[bcmm]

"Sounds like x, I read that it matches the symptoms perfectly" is exactly what produced this crap in the first place.

No it isn't. The difference is in whether x is a real thing or not.

Re:WiFi at home? (Burden of Proof)

[cosm]

Exactly. I, for one, am sick and tired of the 'blame everybody but the self' mentality that pervades society. It creeps up more and more everyday. I don't know how the Canadian legal system works, but wouldn't the burden of proof lie with the parents? Can they cite one study, just one fracking conclusive study that proves that it is these routers and acess points causing the children, oh the poor freaking children's ailments? Seriously. Show me one study where it has been positively shown that signals that fall in the range of the wifi consortium jurisdiction are causing people to get sick. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Evidence, or GTFO.

And people wonder why education gets worse. These damn parents are so sue happy, they just attack attack attack the schools every damn opportunity that presents itself. So the schools become so hamstrung in bureaucratic idiocy that they are afraid to do anything because some snot-nose little johnny's parents might sue.

This. Two things. Taking personal responsibility and the scientific method. The sooner society actually adopts these two solid mentalities, the better off we all will be. Until then this world will continue to be run amok by victimized-its-not-my-fault-blame-the-world-can-i-get-some-money-too asshats.

End rant.

Re:NO: nothing... (except possible pheromones)

[Nerdfest]

We like to make fun of stupid people.