Parents' Campaign Leads To Wi-Fi Ban In New Zealand School

drmofe writes "Two parents in New Zealand have orchestrated the removal of a school's Wi-Fi system. They have expressed the concerns that Wi-Fi causes cancer and other health issues. The child of one of these parents died recently from brain cancer. This appears to be an emotional area and one where decisions appear to be being made without evidence. The NZ Ministry of Education provides guidelines for the safe use of Wi-Fi in schools and the school itself was operating within those guidelines."

Comments

Re:There's a question about that at Skeptics

[jamstar7]

well believe either that page or the one saying that we all have cancer..

Besides, if they didn't ban mobile phones I really, really don't see the point in banning wifi.

Blaming wifi or cell phones is easy. Actually digging around and finding the true cause of the cancer is hard. Besides, you might discover the cause was environmental, say, the coating on some cookware, or contaminants in food, drink, laundry detergent, whatever. And discovering a household product triggered a cancer is actionable. Best blame it on the wifi and shift the attention of the pitchforks and torches brigade.

Re:radiation and cancer

[Anonymous Coward]

You're confusing the difference between knocking an electron loose through sheer force (ionizing radiation) and simply exciting an electron to a higher energy state before passing it on (photosynthesis).

The difference is, if there were nothing for chlorophyll (or insert-pigment-of-choice-here) to donate it's electron to, nothing would happen to it. The excess energy would probably just be absorbed as heat, and you'd still have boring old chlorophyll. But, hit it with enough ionizing radiation and you can damage the molecule enough so that it's no longer boring old chlorophyll. And that's what causes super-powers.

Re:High pitched noises

[Kaenneth]

I've also read that a lot of the power line/cell tower 'cancer clusters' are explained by contractor massively (like 100x) overusing herbicides to prep the construction site; they think that no one will live there, so they dump enough poison to kill the neighborhood, literally.

Keeps the vines off the equipment tho.

Re:Wouldn't someone think of the children?

[fatphil]

I remember when cellphones base-stations were being maligned as being totally cancerific (that's a mother-of-schoolchildren science term), the response to a "there's no connection, all published results say so" claim by the big companies was "therefore they're not publishing the stuff that proves our claims - it's a coverup" from the anti-sciencoids (that's a worked-for-a-basestation-manufacturer mild insult).

These mothers were unable to explain why the local Nokia R&D site had a massive base-station *right in the middle of it*, and how that would fit in with their consipiracy coverup theorem.

You can't argue with idiots whose minds are already made up using *any* language.

Re:There's a question about that at Skeptics

[cusco]

And for all the young Rand-bots, Love Canal was the norm for disposal of chemical waste before the creation of the EPA. For all your whining about how the government can't do anything right, you little twits haven't grown up on top of a waste chemical disposal trench. Our tax dollars made sure of that. You're welcome.