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?

[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?

[Anonymous Coward]

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

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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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.

Really!?

[DaMattster]

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

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.

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.

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: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: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: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: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: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: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.

Re:Where to even start?

[jtownatpunk.net]

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

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: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.

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: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.

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...