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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."
There's a question about that are Skeptics stack exchange - http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/1178/are-wifi-waves-harmful
This is the answer:
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WIFi is non-ionising radiation and so has similar issues to other radiation using similar frequencies such as mobile telephones and microwave ovens. These produce heating effects. WiFi is not focused, so any impact should be very small and perhaps not measurable.
I am not aware of any health studies specifically on WiFi. There have been studies on mobile phones which has shown that while the phone is in use and held next to the head, there is small but measurable heating effect on human tissue. My guess is that it has less impact than standing at right angles to the Sun so one side of the head gets warmer faster than the other. Even then, these studies have produced no evidence that this has any health impact, positive or negative:
A large body of research exists, both epidemiological and experimental, in non-human animals and in humans, of which the majority shows no definite causative relationship between exposure to mobile phones and harmful biological effects in humans.
And per Dr. Michael Clark of the HPA, WiFi is a fraction of the energy of a cell phone:
“When we have conducted measurements in schools, typical exposures from wi-fi are around 20 millionths of the international guideline levels of exposure to radiation. As a comparison, a child on a mobile phone receives up to 50 per cent of guideline levels. So a year sitting in a classroom near a wireless network is roughly equivalent to 20 minutes on a mobile. If wi-fi should be taken out of schools, then the mobile phone network should be shut down, too — and FM radio and TV, as the strength of their signals is similar to that from wi-fi in classrooms.”
The Sun does emit ionising radiation (ultra violet) and that has significant health effects such as sunburn, pigmentation changes and Vitamin D production. WiFi's impact, if anything, is nothing like this.
You think that's bad? I just ate a banana...
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Maybe instead of removing the wifi, the school should make available a nice conical tin-foil hat, free of charge, to the children of those parents who request it.
And they could also put a prominent 'D' on the front.
Oh gosh. This is not a very good precedent. I hope the children are taught that: -The radiation from WIFI is the same type as what comes from the Sun, which is essential for all life on earth. -We all emit radiation.
Thankfully, New Zealand isn't as 'backwater' and 'stupid' as the summary makes out.
From TFA:
Science Media Centre manager Peter Griffin says the death of Te Horo pupil Ethan Wyman from a brain tumour was a tragedy for his family, friends and school mates, but that to blame it on wi-fi is wrong.
Mr Griffin notes there is no evidence anywhere in peer-reviewed literature to suggest wi-fi signals pose an elevated risk of developing brain cancers.
And also:
In a statement, the Te Horo School board said it would take wi-fi out of junior classes and replace it with ethernet cable. However, wi-fi will not be removed from the senior school due to the wishes of parents who were surveyed on the issue.
The board says it shares the government's view that wi-fi is safe.
"We have sourced information from the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Health and other submissions," the board's statement says.
"Based on this information the board believes that Wi-Fi does not pose a health risk to staff or students."
So it really is just a couple of dumb people putting pressure on the school and not indicative of the school's or Ministry of Education's thoughts at all.
My book about LSD and Self-Discovery
Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan
The articles about this keep saying that "recent international research has shown there may be a link" without providing the source of that data! I can't find it anywhere, all the studies I can find show no evidence of a link. What the hell are these assholes talking about?! Why don't these journalists think this is an important piece of information to include with their articles?
I don't care if a bunch of nuts half a world away banned wifi for their elementary students. I but do care if they had a good reason to do it!
Anything with potassium in it is radioactive.
"Naturally occurring potassium is composed of three isotopes, one of which, 40K, is radioactive. Traces (0.012%) of this isotope is found in all potassium making it the most common radioactive element in the human body and in many biological materials, as well as in common building materials such as concrete."
(Wikipedia)
Gee, I hope the "parents" never find out. This is real radioactivity, not the wussy WiFi sort.
OTOH a banana panic would lower the price of one of my favorite fruits, so .... maybe somebody should warn them - they might be feeding their kids cancer-causing bananas right now in their ignorance!
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You'd think that as a "scientist" Mr. Peter Griffin would have heard of the Stark-Einstein of photochemical equivalence, which tells you why WiFi is harmless. It was only one of the most studied pieces of science of the 20th century. Simply saying "we have no evidence" is a bit feeble.
You'd think for a press statement designed to appease worried parents, he doesn't need to talk science that is way about most of their heads - just tell them that it's okay.
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Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan
http://www.pepijnvanerp.nl/2013/05/danish-school-experiment-with-wifi-routers-and-garden-cress-good-example-of-bad-science/
I hadn't heard of this experiment until now, interesting. The mainstream media reports I saw about it all seemed rather heavy on sensationalism and light on facts. I dug a little deeper and found this, which does a good job of pointing out the many flaws in the experiment: Does wifi stunt cress growth?.
This one also provides a summary of the points in the original.
I wonder how much of the occasional health panic that springs up around wifi - and indeed other technologies - can actually be attributed to the high pitched hums that can be emitted by badly manufactured devices.
For instance, when I moved home last year, my new ISP - Virgin Media - provided me with a router when I signed up with them. Their "superhub" - basically a rebranded mid-range Netgear home router - shipped with a cheap and nasty plug adapter, which was prone to emitting a high pitched squeal. Google will turn up plenty of forum threads on the issue if you're interested. Anyway, because it was right on the edge of my hearing range, it took me quite a while to work out what was going on. Until I did, I suffered several weeks of sleeping problems, headaches and nausea - pretty much the typical symptoms associated with cries of "wifi is harming my health". Swapped the plug adapter for a better made one and everything was fine.
Now admittedly, I've always been sensitive to these things. When I was a teenager, my dad had a job that meant that there were often medical devices (monitors, defibrilators etc) used in training course in the home. One weekend he had brought home a monitor device that emitted a particularly horrible hum and left it switched on for testing. Nobody else in the family could hear it, but it made me quite violently ill. He refused to believe that I could actually hear anything until I talked him into a blind test where I went into another room and then shouted "on" and "off" as he toggled the power on the device.
So yeah... while schools should be pushing back on the idea that wifi can harm childrens' health, I do think a lot of them might want to check whether any of their electronics are giving out high pitched squeals like that (particularly as childrens' hearing tends to be more sensitive to these ranges).
So tell us Mr. Scientist... how does photosynthesis work?
Photosynthesis is a chemical reaction caused by light and it doesn't need UV to work
(red/green light works best)
If light can cause chemical reactions then it can also cause cancer.
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If you aren't at least introducing concepts related to dosage, population level statistical study, various epidemiological techniques, you are basically just waving your hands from first principles.
You're also willfully ignoring the actual science that's been done regarding electromagnetic radiation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoelectrochemical_process
(In particular the Stark-Einstein law and the lower bound it places on the photon energy needed to cause a chemical reaction)
No sig today...
No.
Because then we eventually wind up with a long, LONG string of idiocies being perpetrated just to make someone "feel better".
No.
HELL FUCKING NO.
As sympathetic as I am to these people, no parent should have to outlive their child, there's no excuse for idiocy. NONE.
Issues like this need to be met with compassion and a firm resolve not to simply sway in the face of someone's excess of emotion. Especially when said excess of emotion leads to fuzzy thinking and unsupportable actions such as this.
If these people want to scream and call you a heartless monster, so be it.
The whole "give in just a little so we can all get along" mentality is part of what's wrong with just about EVERYTHING nowadays.
There's this braindead notion that you can just compromise on EVERYTHING and it'll be okay.
The problem is, it's NOT okay. And the only people who seemingly aren't willing to compromise are the ones who're making these logic-impaired demands on others.
It needs to change.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dullhunk/3109815261/sizes/l/in/photostream/ says it all
What he really needs to to is to grow a pair and tell them not to be so fucking stupid (or words to that effect).
While tempting to do so in this kind of situation, I believe his approach was probably more effective. If you go around insulting people, they're less likely to take you seriously or listen to your opinion in the future.
Just think of the flamebait posts here on Slashdot. Occasionally they actually make a reasonable point, but they do it in such a way that most people aren't going to actually take the time to consider the point. It's a sorry state of affairs that 'how' we say something is important rather than only 'what' we say, but it is the case for the vast majority of people and if you intend to interact with other people throughout your life, it's an important skill to learn in order to actually get what you want in life.
My book about LSD and Self-Discovery
Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan
Not really. The fact that it benefits an argument for it to be delivered clearly and politely isn't a bad thing unless you think a society in which such things are valued at all is a desirable outcome. What's sad is the people who occasionally have something worth sharing but are so completely unable to understand the need to be polite that they can't share it effectively.
In the early 1970's I worked in a machine shop. I was exposed to hand-soaking kerosene at one station, which was being used as a cheap cutting/ drilling oil. I developed small wart-like bumps. At a medical library I looked up if kerosene was carcinogenic. One book stated as a fact, that all petroleum distillates are. Another book stated as a fact that it was not, and that the whole issue of chemical carcinogenesis was 'iffy,' or unsettled. Guess which book was written by a chemical industry affiliated group?
Considering the range of different chemicals present in "petroleum distillates" (also that these can vary depending on both the original oil and the refining process) claims that they are "all X" are likely to be nonsense.
Wait until those parents find out that their kids are subject to trillions and trillions of neutrinos blasting into their kid each second as they sit in class. They will be demanding that those neutrinos be turned off, and I will be there to help - by selling them my patented neutrino shield. It works because it is patented.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Brazil nuts are also slightly radioactive. It is said that the complex root system of the plant generates the radioactivity.
:) More likely the plant is concentrating naturally occuring radioactive elements. Biochemical systems can even be capable of selecting specific isotopes in some circumstances.
It's unlikely that a plants root system, however complex, would be capable to nuclear reactions
I lost a grandfather, and he was a prolific reader. So I want to remove the scourge of books from schools because they must have caused his death. I realise this is nonsense and illogical, but just let me have this one. Another parent I know lost a mother to pencils. Let her have this one. And I heard about a guy whose son died from arithmetic. Let him have this one. Our school now doesn't give much education, but at least us parents feel better.
You can have every sympathy in the world for this father's loss. It's terrible for him. But he has no right to enforce what is nothing more than a manifestation of his grief on everyone else's education.
I more hope they'll also ban all other devices that emit radiation in similar wavelengths, such as mobile phones. And that would of course include the phone of the children of the parents that arranged for this ban.
A red light photon carries about 16000 times the energy a photon from E.M. radiation @ 2.4 GHz carries. That difference is comparable to the difference between red light and hard X rays. Light from the indicator LEDs on the router has more chance of hurting you than the waves from the antenna.
Having Ethernet cables running all over the place is probably a greater measurable hazard than the WiFi. Tripping over a cable and injuring yourself Is a real danger, most workplaces are required to cover any cables running over the floor with heavy rubber mats or something like that. Or they could put in cable boxes into the floor of the rooms, very expensive, and very limiting to room geometry, which teachers Love to change!
I see. It seems that this Wikipedia line had me confused:
According to Oak Ridge Associated Universities, this is not because of elevated levels of radium in the soil, but due to "the very extensive root system of the tree."[22]
The actual source indeed says:
The accumulation of the radium (and barium) is due to the very extensive root system of the tree.
So the root system is just effective in sucking in radioactive stuff.
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.
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
The thing is you're not going to get cancer from that anyway. Dead (due to being burned alive) but not cancer.
Mercury in vaccines causes autism.
WiFi boils the brain and causes cancer.
Obama is the Anti-Christ.
You will never stop stupid people because stupid can't be fixed. Once that one realizes that correlation != causation, you have a chance. Until then, you can only introduce the facts and hope for the best. It's tough to stanch meme propagation when the propagators are teary-eyed mothers with dead children. But it has to be done.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Radio waves don't just get absorbed when passing by some matter, they have to be of the right energy.
Water will absorb an extremely wide band. Contrary to popular belief, 2.5GHz is NOT a special resonant frequency for the water molecule, pretty much any cell phone band would work fine for microwave ovens. 2.5GHz was picked for engineering reasons, not out of physical necessity.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
It's not rude to disagree with people, and it's possible to tell them that they're wrong politely.
Like I just did there, you silly cunt.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
It depends on how the antennas are aimed. They are directional after all. For example, you talk about an "old school" microwave long distance relay -- how likely is it that this will be aimed at you, the ground, etc. It is aimed, as tightly as possible, at the next relay tower.
To the direct south of me, just five houses away, I've measured levels of 24,000 microwatts per meter squared (on the sidewalk) -- one-third of the reading directly in front of a working microwave oven. Move ten feet (or one foot) over and it is "just" 2,000 or 4,000. Outside my home it is 700 and the one time I took readings north of me I gave up after a house or two -- they were in the 100 range. And yes I have an "antenna farm" just a hundred yards away, with dozens of antennas spread over an enormous retirement center roof. By the way, at the base of all that, the front door measurements at the center are just 100 to 300.
It is about are you line-of-sight, and where are the antennas aimed.
My video on the subject.
I come here for the love
In the early 1970's I worked in a machine shop. I was exposed to hand-soaking kerosene at one station, which was being used as a cheap cutting/ drilling oil. I developed small wart-like bumps. At a medical library I looked up if kerosene was carcinogenic. One book stated as a fact, that all petroleum distillates are. Another book stated as a fact that it was not, and that the whole issue of chemical carcinogenesis was 'iffy,' or unsettled. Guess which book was written by a chemical industry affiliated group?
But, Wifi causing cancer? I will believe if given a pile of proof.
About that time I was writing for an environmental magazine. Every time the EPA or OSHA or somebody would ban a compound because it had evidence of toxicity, the users would come up with a new chemical without evidence of toxicity. Or we'd have to figure out what to do with water that was contaminated by dioxins and stuff.
I used to go to the library, and interview scientists (on both sides) and ask them, "How do you know this chemical is safe? How do you know it's dangerous? Where's the evidence?"
I was amazed to find out that for most chemicals in daily use, like the ones you could pick up at a hardware store, there was no good evidence one way or the other.
Think about it. How do you prove a chemical is safe? How do you figure out whether a chemical is dangerous? Do you feed chemicals to people and watch what happens? Do you feed chemicals to rats? Do you go back and look at medical records of people who were and weren't exposed to chemicals?
Computerized records now make it easier to keep track of what happens after occupational exposure, but still, it's damn hard to figure it out. There are a few cases where investigators luck out (to the misfortune of the subjects) and find a well-documented pattern, but most of the time it's a short-term study with a small number of (unfortunate) rats who were checked for a small number of problems.
I haven't kept up with that stuff recently. If anybody has I'd be interested in knowing what's going on.
Back when I was a teenager, we had an underage night club. It was great. 2 kids, who ran away from home to hang out on the streets of Seattle, to go to this nightclub and do other things, had some parents who managed to get a group behind them, to shut down underage night clubs in Seattle. The kicker? They didn't even live in Seattle.
And after the nightclubs got shut down, and those 2 kids went home to new cars and other luxuries, what did all us kids who lived in Seattle have to do? Nothing, go hang on the streets.
Parents fucking suck.
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