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'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?"
"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?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
because stress NEVER causes any of those symptoms...
" ..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?"
Maybe kids don't like being in school? I found myself more active and alert when at home as opoposed to school when I was attending.
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?
I'll bet dollars to doughnuts it's a mold problem in the school. My guess is stachybotrys. Look It up, the symptoms match perfectly.
And the parents happily shell out for their kid's iPhones, yet protest school board meetings against WiFi in schools.
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
Doctors do Massage in Longview WA now, who knew?
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.
"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.
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.
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.
Attention... all grammer nazi"s! Is they're anything; wrong with: my post,
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.
Reminds me of a news segment about that peanut based food for Third World Children in order to get some protein in their diet. The reporter asked one of the docs supervising the program about peanut allergies. The doc responded that there are no peanut allergies in developing countries.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
The lady who made them do it was feeling a lot better, and didn't have headaches anymore, until she saw me surfing wirelessly using a router located on the floor below. Signal strength was still perfectly fine...
Wi-Fi is the obvious culprit. The spectral evidence is clear and this apparently isn't the first time it's caused problems in children...
http://www.salemweb.com/memorial/chronology.shtml
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.
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
I am living in Barrie Ontario right now and I'm telling you Yuppies are the last thing you are going to see around here...
...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.
Via IRC :
Exposed to deadly WiFi radiation, young Peter Parker finds himself
with all the powers of a wireless network device... and all the problems of a
high school student!
Must... route... packets... Gwen Stacy's life... in balance... musn't
let Aunt May's Facebook page... go down.... ARGHHH!
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.
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.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
We like to make fun of stupid people.
Yep, a lot of factors come together to make schools a great place for spreading germs:
1) You are dealing with kids who tend to get sick more often anyhow. This is in part because their immune systems are still developing, and in part because they do not take many of the hygiene steps that most adults do (like not putting everything in your mouth).
2) It's lots of people spending a lot of time in close proximity with one another. There are more than a few illnesses that don't live for long outside of a body, so some distance goes a long ways to stopping it. You don't get that in school, kids are packed in pretty good.
3) You shuffle and mix people around. While most of the time is spent in close proximity in class, you then mix it up at recess, at lunch, in different classes (for the older grades) and so on. So things don't stay contained to one subgroup, they have the chance to move.
4) Cleaning procedures are not that good. There is neither the time nor the money to do a through cleaning of everything in school every day, especially given all the potential surfaces where germs can hide. As such schools are just not kept as clean as some other environments that are similar (like a hospital).
5) Nearly everything is shared. At home and at work my computer, my desk, etc are all mine, reserved for my exclusive use. At school that is rarely true. Desks are often first come, first serve, computers are in labs used by all and so on. The more people that use something, the more chances it can be used as an infection vector.
6) Absence is discouraged. Workplaces often tell sick people to get out, even if they want to come to work. They want things kept healthy, rather than perfect attendance. Schools heavily pressure attendance, and it can be a real pain to miss things and have to play catchup. As such kids may end up going to school when they are a bit sick, but seem ok, whereas an adult might choose (or be forced) to stay home. Also with cuts to subs teachers practically have to be dying before they can miss a day. Well sometimes "a little sick" means "Highly contagious but without frank symptoms."
Basically schools are just ideal places for spreading disease. Now this isn't all bad, kids need to be exposed to disease for their immune systems to develop and strengthen. However it also means that you have to accept that they will be sick a lot more than you probably will be.
I can't speak for all schools, but my old middle school had horrible water. I actually did a side-by-side microscope comparison of fresh-from-the-tap to mudwater, and the school had more bacteria. Less sediment, but still more bacteria.
First time a teacher regretted me actually doing my homework.
Also, food allergies seem to be a symptom of lack of breastfeeding and using formula instead. Obviously, virtually everybody breastfeeds in third world countries.
It's not obvious at all that everyone breastfeeds in third world countries. In fact, efforts such as the Nestle boycott came about precisely because of companies successfully pushing the use of infant formula in developing countries.
I have a simpler explanation for the lack of food allergies in developing countries. In places where even normal people have trouble procuring adequate nutrition, children who have fatal allergies tend to die quickly. That's why you never encounter severe allergies in developing countries -- the ones who were born with them are already dead.
No the creases are good, they help scatter the mind control waves instead of reflecting a strong return signal, which will be picked up by the mind control satellites, then the Illuminati will know you're wearing a tinfoil hat and poison your water supply with mind-control nanites instead, or send the grays to abduct you and install an implant if you already run your water through an anti-nanite system.
So remember, creases GOOD, right angles and flat/curved surfaces BAD.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel