'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]

As my mom used to call it... "Schoolitosis"

Re:Mod the summary funny

[Peach Rings]

That's obviously the joke.

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

[PrecambrianRabbit]

In 5th grade, I always felt sick during math class, which was taught by a teacher that I really didn't like.

In my defense, their understanding of mathematics would have made any thinking person ill :-D.

Re:Mod the summary funny

[A Friendly Troll]

I was fine all throughout primary and secondary school, but since coming to college I've noticed that I feel physically sick in the lectures, it was enough to make me stop attending lectures almost entirely (maybe I'll do better next year).

Could have been the lighting.

Some people are extremely sensitive to (C)CFLs, especially if they have a low CRI or a cold colour temperature. One of the lecture halls at college kept giving me headaches when I attended in the evening; then again, I knew it was the ceiling lamps, because I've had such issues in a couple of other CFL-lit areas in the past.

Re:Mod the summary funny

[TheRaven64]

I, too, am allergic to work. Unfortunately, the government does not recognise this as a disability, so I had no option but to become a consultant.

Re:Mod the summary funny

[TheRaven64]

Another possible cause is mild oxygen starvation. Lecture theatres are often poorly ventilated. You end up with a lot of people breathing all of the air in the room and then starting to feel drowsy / unwell. A few minutes after you get outside, you feel fine again.

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

[hipp5]

It's most likely the water chemistry. Most North American water systems are saturated with minerals

Wow. Imagine that. Minerals. In water. The humanity. I demand that North America triple distill all water before piping it to homes, lest we all be harmed by these evil minerals.

Re:Mod the summary funny

[anagama]

Other possible actual causes, aside from just wanting to play hooky, could be allergic reactions to chemicals (some cleaners are really nasty) or some kinds of mold.

As for wifi, that should be easy to test -- do the kids get sick in malls? Somehow I doubt it, but lots of stores use wifi. If the kids don't feel the same in the mall (except perhaps when walking withing 50' of a "Body Shop" store's stench), then it's not likely wifi.

Re:Mod the summary funny

[jcr]

Why are you convinced that schooling is the only way that someone can obtain an education?

-jcr

Re:Mod the summary funny

[EdIII]

You will notice he also said "various biological agents" and "that's just for starters". I agree that minerals are certainly normal in the water, but only when present in normal levels. There are plenty of examples all over the world where some minerals are present in dangerous levels, and some pretty unhealthy minerals like Arsenic.

There are also the example of where the fuel additive MTBE has greatly contaminated many water sources in the US and has affected the trust we have in our government to provide clean water. Then there is also the case of fluoride being added to the water supply and the mind control conspiracies that go along with it. Personally, I don't think the government needs to add fluoride to the water I drink, regardless of conspiracies about its purpose. I am an adult, if I think I need fluoride supplements I will take them. By their logic why not infuse the water with various supplements and vitamins as well? Perhaps a fat government contract with the fine folks that provide us Vitamin Water?

What about the biological agents? That is a real developing problem. Metabolized psychiatric and other drugs are present in water supplies all over the developed world. It is affecting fish species as we speak. If you are drinking tap water you ARE consuming some of these compounds, albeit in very small amounts they "deem" to be safe. Of course, there isn't exactly an abundance of data and studies yet that show us the real dangers either and what is really safe levels.

As full disclosure I will say I have zero faith in the FDA and any of those cocksucking regulators either. I *never* knew that Tuna sold in the US had levels of mercury in it, in whatever amounts. As an effort to lose weight I went on an all Tuna diet with a lot of vegetables (not corn, or peas, but salad type vegetables) and got a really nice case of mercury poisoning. Later on I found out that powers that be let small amounts of mercury be sold in the fish and don't exactly bend over backwards to test it either. Probably because of dollar bills that keep falling out of the fish industry executive's pockets. Quite a nuisance I am sure. If there was even the smallest disclosure on the can that said there might be levels of mercury in it, I would have never eaten it at all. I miss Tuna quite a bit, but it is not safe to eat in any amounts whatsoever. Why? The recommended daily allowance of mercury in your diet is ZERO. Of course the allowed daily allowance is non-zero. Go figure.

I know that the GP might have sounded a bit tin-foil-hattish to you, but there are plenty of justified reasons to not fully trust the people responsible for keeping our food and water supplies safe.

Water quality is a particularly serious issue and the various municipalities and engineers responsible have not exactly instilled me with an abundance of faith in their efforts. As a result, I don't trust any water that has not directly gone through my own water filtration systems and I tend to take water with me during the day. That does not leave me with very many beverage options to be sure, but most of the crap out there is full of high fructose corn syrup, chemicals, and other super healthy additives. It is quite easy for me to abstain.

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

[Rob the Bold]

It's most likely the water chemistry. Most North American water systems are saturated with minerals and various biological agents. Now I know some scrotum employed by the water dept. is going broadcast his/her displeasure with my comments. I can hear it now ... "No ... umm... uhh... dats not tru. Ummm ... err... uh .... NO." Put a TDS meter under your kitchen tap and see for yourself. And that's just for starters.

I noticed that too. I first became aware of it, during the physical act of love...Yes, a profound sense of fatigue, a feeling of emptiness followed. Luckily I was able to interpret these feelings correctly. Loss of essence. I can assure you it has not recurred. Women sense my power, and they seek the life essence. I do not avoid women, ...but I do deny them my essence.

Re:Mod the summary funny

[tibit]

Wish I had a mod points -- who the heck moderated parent as troll?! I find mercury poisoning from a tuna diet quite believeable, heck if you eat more than a can of tuna a day you may be putting yourself at risk.

You need to eat quite a bit of tuna on a tuna-based diet; perhaps a pound per day?

Let's run some numbers.

EPA's limit is 0.1micrograms per kg body mass per day. So for a 70kg adult, the EPA limit is 7ug per day.

Now one pound of tuna is ~450 grams, at FDA average of 0.2ppm concentration in tuna, you get 90 micrograms, so you're 13 times over the limit. If you're unlucky and get fish close to FDA limit of 1ppm mercury concentration, you get 0.45 mg.

Out of 0.45mg of mercury per day, about 0.4mg will be accumulating in luckiest of circumstances (to be conservative, I'd just assume 100%). You'll be sick in short order.

Re:Mod the summary funny

[jackbird]

What are you talking about? It's widely known that EVERY species of long-lived, predatory ocean fish has significant mercury in it because it falls out of the fucking sky into the ocean from burning coal in power plants and then bioaccumulates.

Perhaps this chart helpfully provided by the cocksucking regulators with data going back as far as 1978 would have saved you some grief. Or perhaps the very notion of "I'm going to eat only one thing" might have encouraged a normal person to do some research beyond reading the label on the damn can.

What part of "consult with your doctor before starting any program of diet or exercise" didn't you understand?

And then seriously? Your reaction to your own gobsmackingly foolhardy ignorance about what you put into your body results in you trusting nobody but yourself to supervise your water quality?

Re:Mod the summary funny

[Anonymous Coward]

It Has Electrolytes! Is it what plants crave?

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[millennial]

The fact that you don't know the difference between fluoride and fluorine lends so much credibility to your case. Excuse me while I go smooth out the creases in my tinfoil hat.

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[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.

Yeah...

[mewshi_nya]

because stress NEVER causes any of those symptoms...

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?

It's Black Mold

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

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: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=

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:It's Black Mold

[Rockoon]

Hah. Your most reminds me of a story about a school janitor that had problems with the school girls putting lipstick on and kissing the bathroom mirrors (leaving lipstick kiss marks.)

No amount of telling the girls not to do it stopped them, so one day they brought the girls into the bathroom in small groups and the janitor says "let me show you how hard it is to clean lipstick off mirrors" and then promptly sticks a mop into one of the toilets, takes it out dripping wet, and then proceeds to scrub the mirrors with the toilet-water.

After that day, the girls never kissed the mirrors again.

GODDAMN IPHONES???

[Bananatree3]

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

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.

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.

Re:Whats wrong with the children?

[TheTurtlesMoves]

Its much worse than that. A parent can lead the child on in a way that the child *believes* its true. Even at quite old ages (~10) this is true and makes children's testimony very unreliable. This has come out after some child abuse cases. But heres the real rub. Leading statements like "did he do this to you", and "did he touch you there", has strong effects on our imagination. At all ages we can has some sort of experience from situations that we imagine. At a young age we often can't distinguish between real and imaged situations. They child not only believes it happened, but is traumatized in the same way as if it really happened.

I don't have the references handy and i can't be bothered looking them up. But a few high profile cases have turned out to be total BS because one partner assumed, led the child on, and got the courts rolling on it. However there would be physical trauma related to the accusations. There was none. It never happened.

They banned WiFi on a floor of my last workplace

[bolt_the_dhampir]

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...

Re:I'm at school i am sick

[Delarth799]

How dare you! How dare you much an accusation that children would fake illness to get out of school!!
This is an outrage and I will not tolerate such lies sir!