Massachusetts Boarding School Sued Over Wi-Fi Sickness

alphadogg writes: The parents of an anonymous student at the Fay School in Southborough, Mass., allege that the Wi-Fi at the institution is making their child sick, according to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court earlier this month (PDF). The child, identified only as "G" in court documents, is said to suffer from electromagnetic hypersensitivity syndrome. The radio waves emitted by the school's Wi-Fi routers cause G serious discomfort and physical harm, according to the suit. "After being continually denied access to the school in order to test their student's classroom, and having their request that all classrooms in which their child is present have the WiFi network replaced with a hard-wired Ethernet denied, the parents sued under the Americans with Disabilities Act."

Comments

What does Science have to say about this?

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, they should have some kind of proof that the Wi-Fi is the reason, right?

Re:What does Science have to say about this?

[fredgiblet]

As far as I've heard so far there's been no proof to back it up.

Re:What does Science have to say about this?

[Austerity Empowers]

Well, if I stand outside in the hot texas sun for over half an hour, I do develop a bad skin rash that burns, itches and stings for a day or so. Sometimes it's also accompanied by nausea and lethargy. I suppose I have EHS!

Of course doctors don't diagnose me properly, instead they ask me to apply this skin lotion before hand, and warn me if I keep going out without it I may get cancer. I have tried to sue the sun, and have asked it to turn itself down, but it never complies for more than 12 hours a time, frequently less.

Re:What does Science have to say about this?

[kheldan]

Bring in a portable faraday cage and have him sit in it. If he still develops symptoms then it's something else. I'll bet it's something environmental, like what they use to clean with, or something in the ventilation system. Or maybe the kid just doesn't want to go to school and has his parents totally foxed. Wouldn't be the first or last time that happened.

Re:What does Science have to say about this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy way to win the Amazing Randi's million dollar challenge for supernatural powers. If you get sick when they turn the wi-fi on and feel better when they turn it off, you have the ability to detect 2.4GHz radiation with your body.

Re:What does Science have to say about this?

[Greyfox]

It's probably just asbestos.

Re:What does Science have to say about this?

[Zalbik]

Unfortunately, they have the backing of this guy who is on some sort of crusade to protect humans and wildlife from those oh so dangerous invisible EMF rays.

Even more unfortunately, he appears to be a bright guy with fairly well established credentials.

The problem is (and this is sometimes overlooked by judges) smart people can be:
a) wrong
b) crazy
c) lying

In this case I think it's (a) with a healthy dose of (b) mixed in.

Hopefully the judge takes stock of the numerous double blind studies where it has been shown that EMF "sufferers" symptoms disappeared when they were unaware of the presence of EMF radiation

Re:What does Science have to say about this?

[AK Marc]

A mental illness is still an illness. So the ADA would still apply.

Re:What does Science have to say about this?

[tsnow]

In America, all you need is a gut feeling and a lawyer, and you can litigate anything!

Re:What does Science have to say about this?

[Firethorn]

There have been double-blind tests performed, but the subjects were quite upset when they learned that apparently it wasn't the wifi signals making them sick, but the blinking lights on the wireless devices.

IE lights disabled, radios fully enabled, on highest power, transmitting data: No symptoms.
Simulated status light activity, radios completely disabled and unpowered: symptoms.
Lights & radio on : symptoms
Lights & radio disabled: no symptoms.

Conclusion: Clearly we need to investigate the status lights. ;)

Re:What does Science have to say about this?

[macraig]

That only works if he doesn't know that he's sitting in a Faraday cage. Otherwise the kid would simply subconsciously - or consciously - fake symptoms just to fulfill the prophesy declared by his parents. He can't know the Faraday cage is there, else you'd never be able to rule out WiFi RF and narrow it to "something [else] environmental".

So... give him an astronaut suit to wear for a day and tell him it's a reward for good grades or something.

Re:What does Science have to say about this?

[flopsquad]

Bring in a portable faraday cage and have him sit in it.

Sounds like reasonable accomodation to me, problem solved.

"Thus arose, in the early 20's, a small subculture of spherically encased children known as 'Faraday Hamsters.'

Enabled by a 2017 Supreme Court interpretation of the Americans With Disabilities Act, these 'Faraday Hamsters' could frequently be seen running their electromagnetically impervious cages down school hallways along special troughs--evocative of the famous boulder chase scene in the 20th century classic, Raiders of the Lost Ark."

--Collected Histories of the Twenty-First Century

Re:What does Science have to say about this?

[mark-t]

Everything about the studies that have been done points to the condition being psychosomatic. While psychosomatic symptoms can still be extremely debilitating for the sufferer, even going so far as to produce objectively measurable effects on the person's body and metabolism, should psychosomatic conditions be the school board's problem?

Re:What does Science have to say about this?

[Khyber]

" If he still develops symptoms then it's something else."

Yea, the student is full of shit and trying to get out of school.

Re:What does Science have to say about this?

[alannon]

Sure, but imagine a kid as agoraphobia and can't stand being in the open air. Is it reasonable for the parents to expect the school to put the football field inside of a building so the kid can be on the team? Also there is absolutely no evidence that EHS itself exists, which is what the parents claim. The child would be better off if the parents admitted that it was a psychiatric disorder and started getting the kid treatment for it. The ADA has limits on what accommodations an employer, or school has to make for somebody disabled. My understanding is they tend to be limited to making spaces mobility-accessible and ergonomic accommodations to their personal workspace/desk and not wide-ranging changes to the work environment to accommodate a severe psychological disorder.

Re:What does Science have to say about this?

[makapuf]

Interesting, do you have a source ? (Aka citation needed).
I'm genuinely interested in getting such kind of study result. Of course the real subject is long term exposure effects of radio microwaves. For which I'm not sure many results (scientific ones) exist. And incidentally I'm going to install Ethernet plugs in our sons school next week to avoid this - not for me but by other parents demand (which I think will bring more reliable connectivity - win win )

Re:What does Science have to say about this?

[Anonymous Coward]

LMGTFY: http://www.who.int/peh-emf/publications/facts/fs296/en/

Re:What does Science have to say about this?

[kheldan]

OK, true enough. So we provide him with a fake Faraday cage, that doesn't keep anything out. If he magically gets better then you reveal it's a fake and that he's suffering from imaginary symptoms. Or that he's just trying to get out of going to school.

Re:What does Science have to say about this?

[Dunbal]

There is proof however that people who claim to have "electromagnetic hypersensitivity" mysteriously cannot explain why they can get "sick" even when the source of electromagnetic radiation is turned off. Apparently the mere sight of a router/electrical transformer/pylon is enough to make them "sick".

Re:What does Science have to say about this?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

In this case, it isn't even a school board, it's a private school's admin, so it is likely to be even less their problem. A public school district is legally obligated to deal with basically whatever the residents of the area spawn; either in-house or by paying for an appropriate specialist placement(I think that kiddo going to jail makes him not their problem anymore; but if so that's about it).

A private school has no particular obligation to deal with anyone in particular; so long as they don't explicitly step on some protected class or (as is being argued in this case) fail to make reasonable accommodation per the ADA.

If it were a public school, it would be the school's problem, just as they have to make provision for the education of any other sickie(mental or physical); but for the private school to be obligated; it has to be demonstrated that kiddo has a 'disability' for ADA purposes, that they are capable of performing if provided with 'reasonable accommodation', and that the 'reasonable accommodation' would not cause 'undue hardship' for the entity being asked to provide it.

I'd be interested to know how the meaning of those terms would be decided in this case. Fay is a pretty fancy school, east coast private boarding school with history dating back before 1900 and its own endowment and all; but even if that mitigates any argument about the financial impact of having to hardwire everything, it might well be argued that, say, making it impossible for anyone in this kid's class to do an ipad-related curriculum activity would impose excessive limitations on their ability to learn, and the school to teach, as it usually does. If the school were purely doing wireless because it was cheaper, they might have issues; but today wireless devices are used routinely in situations where hardwired stuff would never have been considered practical; plus(unlike an accommodation that requires adding something, like a braille copy of the textbook or the like, the accomodation here demanded requires depriving everyone in the student's proximity of any use of wifi devices, or segregating the student, neither of which are likely to go over all that well.)

Re:What does Science have to say about this?

[Immerman]

Hell, you don't even need the gut feeling. Or the lawyer.

Re:What does Science have to say about this?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's exactly what double blind means. You don't tell the subjects whether they're in the active, placebo, or control groups.

Re:What does Science have to say about this?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

For ADA purposes, the limitations imposed by the effects of an illness, or the treatment requirements of one, count as 'disabilities'(eg. unless you can prove that it would cause 'undue hardship', you would need to allow a diabetic some breaks to test blood sugar and administer insulin, if needed).

You do have to have a disability, and you can't just self-diagnose(it would be interesting to see what the court thinks of the quack who did the diagnosing in this case); but the law covers basically any functional impairment, if it can be overcome with a 'reasonable accommodation' and without 'undue hardship'. A limb stump or guide dog makes things nice and obvious; but any medical issue potentially qualifies if it has functional impact.

I suspect that if the school is just running wifi to save on cabling costs and to allow students and staff to screw around on their phones; they might have an ADA problem. Not because kiddo is actually sensitive to 802.11-compliant microwave chatter; but because kiddo has some sort of actual psych issue that can be mitigated just by turning some APs off.

However, if the school has introduced assorted mobile devices into their curriculum(which wouldn't be a surprise, ipads are a huge craze in education, and Fay certainly has the cash for it); the case might really hit the rocks on 'undue hardship' because the accommodation would require forcing the school to use a less-optimal curriculum, without any devices that cannot be hardwired or situations where hardwired devices aren't practical, for all the students who share a class with this kid(and, unless their IT office is good at toggling POE ports, potentially all students who share a classroom with this kid). That's the sort of disruption of how things are done that goes beyond mere money or inconvenience. It also(unlike added aids, braille texts, audio amplification, screen readers, magnification devices, and so on) isn't something that you can just get the affected kid, it's something you have to take away from everyone else.

Re:What does Science have to say about this?

[Nemyst]

A double-blind test only ensures that the researchers and the subjects are not aware of any information that may affect their actions during the test. What is being tested has no impact on whether something is double-blind or not, and likewise for revealing that information after the test.

That test is on the contrary quite revealing, since it correctly decorrelates radio signals from symptoms, thus refuting the hypothesis that radio signals are responsible for the symptoms.

Re:What does Science have to say about this?

[kheldan]

It seems to me that more and more people are exhibiting symptoms of being allergic to modern life and all its complexities, technology very much included. But in this case I'm thinking more and more that it's just the kid not wanting to go to school, so he latched on to this mysterious ailment (that he probably read about on the internet) and is playing it for all it's worth. His parents, being totally incapable of conceiving on their precious little snowflake actually faking anything like this, is going Great Guns over it. Or, perhaps, they're scumbags and are trying to cash in through litigation on something they sold their kid on. Either way: Occams' Razor.

Re:What does Science have to say about this?

[Firethorn]

Well, here's one - Note "sham".
and another.

The study I'm remembering was slightly different, but I'm being drowned out by different studies.

Re:What does Science have to say about this?

[bws111]

The whole reason there is a placebo group is precisely because we know the human brain is susceptible to suggestion. In an experiment like this, there is no reason at all to provide that suggestion.

Re:What does Science have to say about this?

[Firethorn]

To expand upon this, in a 'double blind' test, not even those with any contact with the test subjects know whether they're administering the real thing or a placebo. IE those handing out the pills and recording any symptoms don't know. This prevents even more contamination, because the doctor can act differently if he knows which pills he's handing out, and influence the patients that way.

Re:What does Science have to say about this?

[Firethorn]

I disagree. There is no reason at all to show lights if what you are really testing is sensitivity to radio signals.

As the famous 'experiment' down in South Africa showed, where the cell phone tower operators shut the tower off six weeks before a meeting about turning the tower off, where people were STILL expressing the same symptoms, how getting away from the tower decreased them, how it was the radiation from the tower giving them rashes and such, perception is a thing.

By having the lights be visible, it allowed the study to not just test radio sensitivity, it allowed them to test perception of radio sensitivity.

The test essentially showed that the people were getting sick when they thought they were being bombarded with radio waves, not when they were actually being bombarded.

A real test would not provide any misleading clues.

They tested that as well. They had 4 different tests - Radio & lights, Radio & dark, No Radio &lights, No Radio & dark. Symptoms tracked with the status lights on the test device, not the radio waves.

If people were sensitive, but also fooling themselves with the lights, more people would have shown something when the lights were dark but the radio was on.

Re:What does Science have to say about this?

[chihowa]

You've described a "blind" study. "Double blind" means that the testers don't know which subject is in which group until after the study.

Re:What does Science have to say about this?

[Darinbob]

The rule is, it's an abuse of the system if the other side does it, but it's a constitutional right if your side does it.

Re:What does Science have to say about this?

[msobkow]

That could also be explained by the simple fact that their "symptoms" are all in their heads.

Re: What does Science have to say about this?

[C0R1D4N]

http://reason.com/archives/201...

Falsehood 1: You can light your tap water on fire. Fox made this claim famous in the first Gasland movie when he showed a resident of Colorado striking a match as water came out of his tap; the natural gas dissolved in the water burst into flame. Yet the water was tested by the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, which reported to the resident: "There are no indications of any oil & gas related impacts to your well water." The agency concluded that the natural gas in his water supply was derived from natural sources—the water well penetrated several coal beds that had released the methane into the well.

Re:What does Science have to say about this?

[Jason Levine]

Bah, we don't need him to sit in a Faraday cage. I'll simply sell them my patent pending WiFi Sickness Rocks. Each rock absorbs the bad components of WiFi via a process called Eam Nihil Penitus Operari. By simply keeping the rock in his pocket, he can be guaranteed that WiFi signals won't cause him any physical harm. All for the low, low price of $19.95 (plus shipping and handling). Order now and I'll throw in my Vaccine Toxin Be Gone rock which removes anything in vaccines that causes autism simply by having it anywhere near your child when the kid gets his vaccines.

Re:What does Science have to say about this?

[yndrd1984]

Why would it not be a stronger experiment if there were no lights at all?

OK, you run that test and nobody feels ill, on or off. What does that prove? Not much - your signal could be too weak or the wrong frequency, or the room could be interfering, or it need to send data in bursts or cycles, or both the signal and the blinking lights are needed, or... On the other hand, if you can create the feeling of sickness using just lights and with lights and wifi you can be pretty sure that lights are the (indirect) cause - making those 'what ifs' more implausible.

Second, it also gives you a chance to catch non-wifi issues that are making people sick. What if the school's lack of proper ventilation, or an old chemical spill giving off fumes, or the hot plastic of the router creating VOCs really is making people ill? We can catch it now by proving that it's not just not wifi, but also not all in their heads, and start looking for other answers.

Re:What does Science have to say about this?

[Jason Levine]

As someone who has fought with the public school system to get accommodations for my son (who has an actual medical diagnosis for a real condition), it takes more than the parents saying "Johnny gets sick around WiFi" before the school would be forced to turn off all WiFi. So even if this were a public school, they would have an uphill battle and would need to 1) demonstrate that their child really does react badly to WiFi signals and 2) show that there is a solution that can be reached which wouldn't overly impact the education of other students.

It's one thing if you accommodate a peanut allergy by banning peanut products in the school or give a child extra time on tests due to reading disorders. It's quite another if you say that all kids can't take advantage of educational opportunities because one child claims to be allergic to them (but doesn't have a medical diagnosis of any kind).

Re:What does Science have to say about this?

[Firethorn]

Why would it not be a stronger experiment if there were no lights at all?

Let me ask this: What are you gaining by testing less?

There have been a number of experiments like you describe. By not telling them whether the wifi is active or not, you do indeed confound them enough that they can't just guess and fake the symptoms.

But as yndrd mentions, by having the lights as additional test groups, it can help zero in on whether it's psychosomatic in nature. And the evidence is that it IS, at least in part.

It also gives you the ability to differentiate between symptoms between two levels - when people think they're supposed to be sick, and when they think they aren't. If there was a minor difference when they think they're supposed to be, but not when they don't, you can detect it with the more detailed study.

Re:What does Science have to say about this?

[fredgiblet]

More likely the kid got legitimately sick at some point, the parents latched onto something they heard about on Facebook and things snowballed from there.

Re:What does Science have to say about this?

[Firethorn]

I don't understand this. Why is the suggestion that the radio is off (dark lights) not as strong as the suggestion that the radio is on?

It's a matter of ratios, which is why it's good to do all 4 possibilities(in this case) in 1 experiment.

Basically, between the lights on and lights off tests, you can figure out, roughly, how many people are (presumably) responding to the lights, and not the radio. How many are responding to the radio, and not the lights, etc...

Re:What does Science have to say about this?

[Smidge204]

I disagree. There is no reason at all to show lights if what you are really testing is sensitivity to radio signals.

There's no parlor tricks here. The lights are the placebo in a placebo-controlled study.

If you want to determine if a medicine is really the cause of the effect on patient's health - positive or negative - then you use a placebo to rule out the possibility that swallowing a huge pill or getting an injection itself is causing some psychological effect. You have the real medicine (lights+signal), fake medicine (lights + no signal), control group (no lights + no signal), and sometimes an alternative treatment (no lights + signal).

There is a known (or at least claimed) correlation between WiFi signals and reported illness. The test is designed to isolate the effects of perceivable stimulus (lights on the device) with the supposed cause of the illness (the invisible WiFi signals). Intuitively we all "know" that WiFi signals do not cause any physiological effects. But something is apparently effecting these people, and the test is aimed at figuring out what that something is.
=Smidge=

Re:What does Science have to say about this?

[RogueyWon]

I had to deal with an issue relating to a number of members of the public claiming to be affected by this a couple of years ago. Bluntly, most of the people involved had clear mental health or personality issues and were projecting their general dislike of modern life and technology onto this supposed bogeyman.

A couple turned out to be more interesting; they'd started feeling unwell since having wireless routers installed in their homes. Turned out that a faulty batch of router power supplies was emitting a high pitched whine that some people were sensitive to, with symptoms including loss of sleep, headaches and nausea. The problems with this router batch (though not the specific issue I was involved in) attracted some reporting in the tech press: here.

Nothing to do with wireless signals, but everything to do with what was, essentially, one of those teenager-repellent "stingers" being installed in their homes.

Re:What does Science have to say about this?

[MrL0G1C]

Are you not aware of the many orders of magnitude difference between WiFi and Microwave ovens.

Microwave Oven typically 600+ Watts or 600,000mW

Wifi Typically 5mW or 0.005 Watts

Re:What does Science have to say about this?

[Himmy32]

Maybe they it they are just sensitive to radiation in the visible spectrum. The obvious answer is to stick them in pitch dark rooms to help them learn.

Re:What does Science have to say about this?

[Bob the Super Hamste]

Probably not the organic cleaning agent using ones (as you point out those don't kill the germs) but the ones who have little bottles of Purell hand sanitizer clipped on to their belts and wipe every thing down with Clorox wipes multiple times a day. These parents are also ones who likely don't let the kids play in the dirt or go outside.

Re:What does Science have to say about this?

[danbert8]

Or electrical tape works...

Re:What does Science have to say about this?

[Holi]

Posting removes moderation done to articles, one cannot post and moderate in the same article.

Re:What does Science have to say about this?

[Aighearach]

When I was in preschool, I got a "cold" and had to stay home so I didn't make the other kids sick. That part was explained to me at the time. But they didn't also explain that my runny nose and sore throat were themselves the "cold." So those symptoms went away, and I had no idea that I no longer had a "cold." They asked if I wanted to go back to preschool, I said "no." I mean, I didn't like it for other reasons and back then in the stone age "preschool" was daycare with no education at all, and no concept of appropriate supervision either. So it was no loss. But they just respected my wishes, and it was many years later when they found out the reason I said "no" was that I didn't want to make the other kids get a "cold," whatever that was. It sure sounded bad by the tone of voice adults used when they said I had it.

It is the natural trajectory for making decisions from ignorance.

Re:What does Science have to say about this?

[Firethorn]

Boy, you're really going on that citation thing, you know? Completely missed where I posted sources?

Here, have another couple.

Re: What does Science have to say about this?

[TheRealLifeboy]

Is it just me or what?? You don't "light something on fire". You simply light it. The verb "light" in this context means "to set on fire". Clearly some dimwit started this "lighting on fire" nonsense and now everyone and their parrot is "lighting things on fire".

In summary:

1. You light a fire
2. You set fire to a bush
3. You set a pile of wood on fire
4. You strike a match to light it

You never light something on fire, unless you mean to say that you're setting fire to something that is somehow balanced on top of an existing fire.

:-P

Really!?

[DaMattster]

I'm guessing a whole new low has been reached here. Shaking my head ....

Re:Really!?

[thegarbz]

I'm guessing a whole new low has been reached here. Shaking my head ....

Just wait till we move the goal posts again by finding the school is actually liable.

ADA act? What's their disability

[barc0001]

Chronic stupidity? Overactive placebo gland?

Oh dear

[viperidaenz]

I hope they don't have any cell phones in their house.
I hope they don't use a microwave.
I hope they don't live near any cell towers.
I hope they don't live near any TV or radio transmitters

What would be funny is if they had turned off WiFi in his classes and not told them, and they continued to complain.

Re:Oh dear

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

It's actually an immune response to 802.11 frames, not microwaves per se. The best way to confirm the diagnosis is to obtain some of the old pre-802.11b era gear, from when the spec still defined an IR physical layer. Then you can completely remove RF from the test environment; but still expose the subject to 802.11 frames.

Alas, finding Spectrix Inc. networking gear is pretty damn tricky these days, so it's a difficult test to perform.

Re:Oh dear

[viperidaenz]

You could still be causing TV interference, by blocking the signal with your tall, grounded, metal pole.

Better

[Anonymous Coward]

Call Saul

I suffer from Bullshit-Intolerance Syndrome

[xeno]

My condition causes me significant discomfort around people who say aggressively stupid things, internalize and repeat strange diagnoses they read on the internet, and causes me to have thoughts of self-harm when listening to security software vendor presentations. I have repeatedly asked my employer to accommodate my needs stemming from Bullshit-intolerance Syndrome (BS), but they all just say, "that's bullshit, we won't tolerate that" to which I say "yes, that's my problem too." Perhaps I also suffer from Jackass Impulsive Recursive Comment (JIRC) disorder, but they don't want to hear about that either. I'm gonna sue.

Here's to bullshit!

[DaMattster]

Last time I checked, the earth has a certain amount of naturally occurring electromagnetic fields. In of itself, that would nullify any EHS argument.

Re:ADA act? What's their disability

[aaron4801]

Cyberchondria

Too be fair

[nedlohs]

The parents are apparently mentally disabled.

The kids full name...

[Anonymous Coward]

... is 802.11 G

Re:The kids full name...

[thegarbz]

... is 802.11 G

It's quite natural for him to be extremely impressed. In every test at the school the other kid 802.11 N was shown to be faster, better and able to go further. 802.11 G will always be in second place and that takes its mental toll.

Re:yes

[timrod]

Of course Wifi only exists near hotspots, which is why I plan to sell the parents behind this lawsuit my own unique brand of Wifi that won't trigger their son's sensitivity. As everyone knows, only Wifi routers put out harmful radiation that can trigger such totally real disorders as electromagnetic hypersensitivity syndrome. Microwaves, on the other hand, contain all their radiation entirely within the steel box using the powers of science.

By putting their Wifi router in the microwave, along with any devices they wish to receive wifi, and turning the microwave on for 12 hours, young G's parents can bake the Wifi right into their devices without any risk of electromagnetic radiation triggering their son's disorder. I like to call it Mi-Fi.

Needs to move to Green Bank, WV

[hawguy]

How can he be sensitive to Wifi, but not to the rest of the ubiquitous RF emissions that surround us all? Cellular signals, commercial radio+TV, microwave ovens, radar, etc.

Sounds like he needs to move to The Town Without Wifi

Re:commentsubjectsaredumb

[ArmoredDragon]

I'm sure you'll find one somewhere, but that doesn't mean it was the correct diagnosis.

Re:Blind test.

[Nutria]

There was a case like this in South Africa, regarding cell towers.

http://idle.slashdot.org/story/10/01/15/1516245/tower-switch-off-embarrasses-electrosensitives
http://mybroadband.co.za/news/Wireless/11099.html/

Blind studies fail

[silas_moeckel]

Blind studies with control groups fail. It's not a fscking anything it's a flavor of hypochondriac, he needs counseling and possibly some psych meds.

Re:Blind studies fail

[GoodNicksAreTaken]

He wasn't bothered until they "doubled the prior emissions" to 5Ghz!

From TFA:

Specifically, the Aerohive Network doubled the prior emissions in Fay classrooms from 2.5 GHz to 5 GHz.1 Exposure to the emissions from the highdensity Wi-Fi now used by Fay is dangerous to persons having an aggravated sensitivity to those emissions, as will be explained in more detail further below.

Re:Blind studies fail

[silas_moeckel]

You can not fix stupid.

Re:yes

[Adriax]

Shouldn't it be called Wi-Fri?

Upgrade the child

[Nkwe]

The child, identified only as "G" in court documents

Well there is the problem. If the child identified himself as "N", there wouldn't be a conflict and the kid would learn faster.

Tinfoil hats

[mveloso]

This is why you make a tinfoil hat: to keep the radio waves out of your head. It's simple to do, and as a bonus the voices stop.

Re:Tinfoil hats

[techno-vampire]

That's a great idea, but you have to make sure that it's shiny-side out. You only make it shiny-side in if you're trying to keep your thoughts from leaking out where other people can read them.

Where to even start?

[Anubis IV]

First off, it's a boarding school, which means that you are choosing to send your child there. Don't like the service they offer? Pull them out and send them to another one, or take advantage of the free, public education provided the state of Massachusetts.

Second, what disability? Every study done has either come back inconclusive or contrary to the notion that this disease exists. Every anecdote I've personally heard has indicated that these people have an accuracy not statistically significantly different from a coin flip when it comes to accurately identifying when WiFi is around in blind tests.

Third, is it really only an issue at school? Every Starbucks and McDonald's has free WiFi at this point, and they're on practically every street corner in America at this point. If your issue is with WiFi, you have bigger problems.

Fourth, 2.4 or 5GHz? Because they're just radio waves, so it kinda makes a difference...or is it just any WiFi at all? Would you still have this disability if we switched WiFi to use the same frequencies as TV or CB radio? Because WiFi?

Ugh, these people.

Re:Where to even start?

[jtownatpunk.net]

Why would the kid want to live with the people who sent them to boarding school?

Re:ADA act? What's their disability

[msauve]

Actually, a large dosage of heavy metal solutions administered IV will help block the RF, and is guaranteed to solve the root cause.

Re:electromagnetic hypersensitivity syndrome?

[techno-vampire]

There's another one in Los Angeles: Dewey, Cheatham and Howe.

Re:Doctor's diagnosis

[DarkSkiez]

From that physicians website

She treats cancer with homeopathy. "Supportive Care for Cancer: Possible treatments include: Complex homeopathy"

This makes me sad.

Re:commentsubjectsaredumb

[konohitowa]

You know what they call the person that graduates from med school at the very bottom of their class? Doctor.

Re:ADA act? What's their disability

[Firethorn]

Oddly, works even better when administered to the parents of the sufferer instead of directly.

Re:commentsubjectsaredumb

[JillElf]

But, but Dr. Jeanne Hubbach is Board Certified in Family Practice and Environmental Medicine. Other tidbits (according to the Massachusetts Network of Information Providers for People with Disabilities), she apparently doesn't accept any type of insurance treats everything from asthma to Agent Orange. Seriously though, the poster that elsewhere suggested the family in question move to homestead in Alaska has the right idea. It's a beautiful place. They can replace the nonsensical danger of WiFi with moose and bear.

Re:commentsubjectsaredumb

[Nutria]

https://www.disabilityinfo.org/mnip/db/mddb/ResourceDetail.aspx?type=1&id=2344

Specializes in treatment of chronic illness through an intergrative approach.

IOW, fake medicine.

Re:Kids these days

[Midnight Thunder]

My superstition is that not having a 13th floor is bad luck, since after all what is proping up the 14th floor? Magic? Though, whatever you do, don't try proving the fact that the 14th floor is the 13th, since this will lead to confusion and mass hysteria, and may even brand you as some sort of heretic.

The real reason

[rossz]

You precious snowflake is sick because you put him on a strick vegan diet.

Chronically Stupid Parents

[redshirt]

I occasionally read about parents in affluent Marin, CA whining about this. In fact, there was a movement to prevent PG&E (the local power company) from installing real-time meters that transmit usage over radio because they were afraid it could hurt them. I remember seeing a parent interviewed on the evening news, with her kid in the background playing on an iPad. Did I mention that Marin also has one of the lowest child immunization rates in the country? Yeah. These are people that get all their "facts" from Pintrest and Jenny McCarthy.

Re:commentsubjectsaredumb

[Nutria]

Even "better":
http://drhubbuch.com/

Her interest in health and assisting her patients take control of their own health began with her work in the Womenâ(TM)s Self Help Health Movement.

Even more better than better...

Dr. Hubbuch is a member of the American Academy of Environmental Medicine

But the AAEM is not recognized by the American Board of Medical Specialties, and is mentioned in Quackwatch.
http://www.abms.org/member-boa...
http://www.quackwatch.org/04Co...

Re:ADA act? What's their disability

[alannon]

I propose a novel treatment:
Seal pure water into a container and place it into a microwave oven for 1 millisecond (or a microsecond for extreme cases). Sell it as a homopathic treatment for $50/ounce.

Re:ADA act? What's their disability

[alannon]

I should have looked more carefully. Apparently the diagnosing doctor DOES provide homeopathic treatments!
http://drhubbuch.com/patient-c...

Re:No medical evidence...

[Darinbob]

I work in a building full of equipment broadcasting on several different bands all day long, not just the few piddly wi-fi routers. It seems that every day I come to work I spend the day completely depressed, but I cheer up again when I go home at night. My only conclusion is that RF causes depression.

Re:Doctor's diagnosis

[Darinbob]

Her entire page is a buzzword soup of alternative hooey. I'll trust chicken soup before I trust her.

So, send the kid ...

[PPH]

... to a boarding school in the NRQZ in West Virginia. Where the curriculum includes moonshine, banjo, musket marksmanship and making sissy outsiders squeal like a pig.

Re:Blind test.

[tsotha]

I once had an HVAC guy tell me it's pretty common for people in that business to install unconnected thermostats in buildings where people complain about the temperature. Then the complaints stop.

Re:While I doubt the seriousness of the claims her

[skirmish666]

Ok, the rest of your points aside:

Could it cause cancer/whatever? Maybe, otherwise I wouldn't be able to actively detect it

I can detect red, salt, rough, smooth, acceleration, loud, hot + many more things. Some of these are in the form of radiation. The ones I mentioned don't cause cancer/whatever. Your argument is flawed.

and I'm sure there are people more sensitive than me.

How? You'd better have some studies or you're only as sure about it as people who are sure the earth is flat. I'm open to evidence here as long as there is some.

And yes, I'm completely willing to submit to any test anyone wants to perform. I have done so many times so far and they're always surprised that my sensory disorder is real.

Dropbox + scanned image of diagnosis document + link in reply might not get you on the 6:00 news, but it's a start.

Re:Blind test.

[Technician]

Some cell tower companies and ham radio operators moving into elite neighbourhoods with high lawyer representation often will pre build the expansion and not install the equipment to collect baseline data and use the new complaints and lawsuits as baseline of the pre existing conditions. It's hard to make a case against the new cell tower or ham radio operator when the court case reveals to the plaintiffs the only operating device is the obstruction beacon.

Later when the equipment arrives and is installed, the community is not informed. Only then can the real cases be identified. Most of the time, the numbers are in the 0's.

If you put up a tower in a nice neighbourhood, make it look nice. Leave it unpowered for a few months. Reduce power on nearby towers to make marginal areas worse. Offer better signal by upgrades to nearby towers. Switch on the new tower to cover the poor coverage areas. Result, more even signal coverage with fewer towers running high power to reach into dead zones.

Re:I have always been curious....

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

It's the harsh, unnatural, digital modulation that causes the trouble. Good old analog transmitters, carrying Human voices, are naturally in sympathetic harmony with the body's own vital energy; and promote wellness.

Once arrogant technocrats imposed a 'binary' worldview that rejects the wholistic wisdom of the body, the transmissions became intensely disruptive to our health, and corrosive to the spirit.

Isn't it obvious?

MIT WIFI Study

[arthurpaliden]

There was an MIT under grad psychology study done a few years ago on the Effects of WiFi on people with WiFi sensitivity. They had a WiFi generator that had antennas, dials and blinking lights. The generator was always positioned behind the test subjects so they could not directly see if it was on or off. However, there were enough reflective surfaces on the opposing wall so the the subject could tell when it was on or off. When the generator was brought in the room and and turned on the subjects felt the effects. When it was turned off and or removed from the room the subjects felt much better.

The machine did nothing.

The ceiling of the room was loaded with active WiFi base stations that were on all the time during the tests yet the subjects only reacted when the fake WiFi generator was turned on and in the room.

Better Call Saul!

[khetti]

Slippin' Jimmy has experience with this very issue! Call up James and Chuck McGill and they'll have you wearing a space blanket in no time!

He is the middle child

[hydrodog]

His brother's B and N also get sick, but at difference rates.

Re:OT: new study needed

[danbert8]

Seriously, why does my air purifier need an LED power on indicator light? I can hear the damn thing if it is running! It shouldn't take 5 layers of duct tape to make it dark enough to sleep in my room...