Ontario Parents Suspect Wi-Fi Making Kids Sick

Fidel, I don't make jokes about the plagues of capitalism that have been identified by workers and validated by science. I'm not sure why you would suggest that I do, except perhaps that you're still in an arguing mood but have long since run out of arguments.

I do, however, make jokes about the children of Barrie being the first in the world to prove that microwaves make you sick. Especially when you can identify, right from the news stories, who is stoking the panic and crying wolf.

Sorry, but I don't believe that parents have any expertise, whatsoever, on the genesis of their children's ailments. I don't believe that parents know what's best for their kids.

If you have the slightest grain of scientific spirit, you will have noticed that the alleged symptoms appeared very soon after the schools installed Wi-Fi.

So explain something to me, please.

If that's true, [b][i]why should it take decades to prove or rule out a link?[/i][/b]

ETA: LOL, we crossposted - you said:

Fidel wrote:

We can even make jokes about Wifi and cell phone studies that haven't been conducted because an insufficient amount of time has passed.

Precisely my point. Whatever is making the kids in Barrie region sick, it can't be Wi-Fi or cell phones. Thanks for the confirmation.

Unionist wrote:

RP, your post is confused. You think parents were lobbying against cigarettes while scientists were saying they were safe? Or maybe the scientific establishment was claiming it was safe to drink and drive, until noble brave citizens won the day?

Anyway, since you're creating "history" on the fly, you forgot the victories of the valiant anti-vaccination lobby. They haven't quite succeeded yet, because Big Pharma is still making billions off sticking needles into people and causing [whatever the latest bullshit scam panic is], but one day, the little people will prevail!

 

 

Confused.

Heh, check out their website - http://www.safeschool.ca. They're a parents' committee with an "Advisory Board"!

The members of the "Advisory Board" are all parents, but the site carefully lists their degrees, professional memberships, and accomplishments.

They are: two (2) chiropractors, one (1) dentist, one (1) psychotherapists, one (1) special education teacher, and two (2) journalists, one of whom (Rodney Palmer) now owns a "health-related business".

Here are some sample testimonials:

Quote:

"Both of my children have arrived home after school with headaches lately and they rarely complain of headaches. Both of them had to take Tylenol which they rarely take. My daughter came home one day recently with a headache and dizziness and had to lie down."

Quote:

"Both of my kids are coming home with headaches for the last year. It doesn’t seem right for kids to get headaches. They don’t concentrate as well in class and my older one has seen his grades drop this year. He’s fine on the weekends and can concentrate fine and doesn’t get headaches. It’s only at school that he has these problems."

It's sad - that if there's a problem, no one seems to be looking for the cause.

Sounds like Rodney's the ring leader. But I still recommend they switch back to ethernet. Invisible enemies can sometimes be real. 

Oh, a little background about Rodney Palmer - the organizer, "communications director", and media spokesperson of the "parents committee". He used to be CTV's Middle East bureau chief. Now he owns "SaunaRay", whose website describes it as: "North America's Only Research Based Medical Grade Sauna Company".

Apparently, his saunas have beneficial effects on athletic performance, besides helping people suffering the effects of asthma, high blood pressure, chronic pain, cancer, fibromyalgia, lead, mercury, pesticides, psoriasis, and obesity!!

As Mary A. of Niagara Falls, New York stated:

Quote:

"I was diagnosed with Pancreatic Stage 4 Cancer one year ago and was given three months to live. I attribute my survival in part to your sauna which I've been using almost every day. With appreciation."

Maybe the sauna rays can help alleviate the wifi death rays? Stay tuned to this channel for more breaking medical news.

 

Curious, isn't it, that the MSM geniuses couldn't do some background checks (like on Rodney Palmer and his health-giving rays) and ask a few simple questions (like, how do the symptoms happen Monday to Friday, disappear Saturday and Sunday, and no one else in the world has ever noticed this!?).

Oh well. I just hope for the kids' sake that someone asks these questions and finds out what, if anything, is really going wrong - although when you read the "testimonials", they sound awfully similar in persuasive power to those on [url=http://www.saunaray.com/84p_saunaray_mystery.htm]Rodney's business site[/url]:

S.Skelton, Craigleith, ON wrote:

"There is a magical feeling inside this sauna. I think it's because all the materials as so natural and selected so carefully. Or maybe it's the pure ceramic  vibrations. It feels so peaceful."

J. Briscoe, Santa Cruz, CA wrote:

"I am in love with my new sauna! I've told my husband there is not another man, but my SaunaRay is coming between us! I absolutely love it."

Quote:

The mystery of the SaunaRay magic is hard to explain. You have to feel it to fully understand. But we strongly believe that the care we put into every board, every heater, and the meticulous construction of every unit has resulted in the same enduring qualities of a fine musical instrument.

It's meticulously constructed all right...

 

Caissa wrote:

personally, I think the reported symptoms sound like a normal reaction to school.

The symptoms, which also include memory loss, trouble concentrating, skin rashes, hyperactivity, night sweats and insomnia,

Just getting things back on track.  This is cogent.

Leaving before I make a comment that would be deemed inappropriate.

unfuckingbelievable really....well on second thought not so much...same people were shilling for h1n1 shots.

 

I agree BA.

I don't think the left has a monopoly on pseudoscience. It was my understanding that the anti-vaccine movement was a largely far-right phenomenon. What we should be upset about is why the anti-vaccine movement is so much stronger, better organized and more successful than any of our pseudoscience campaigns.

Oh, and welcome back, Snert.

Snert wrote:

This anti-science "open mindedness" is, IMHO, a big, big part of why the left is still seen as a bunch of crystal-worshipping, chakra-aligning homeopathic hippies.

Welcome back, Snert. But I have to take issue with you. I know of no serious leftists that promote homeopathy or refuse vaccination or want to shut down wifi. I personally do worship crystals, however, I'll grant you that, but I haven't even been able to convince my local union to formally adopt that as a bylaw.

I don't blame the parents. If my kids were or seemed sick, I wouldn't rest until the appropriate authorities found the cause and cure, and neither should they. I blame the MSM for popularizing a sexy story about a group of unfortunate people who have been fed a bill of goods by some whackjob(s) - and not even bothering to ask simple questions which would put this hoax right where it belongs, and maybe help relieve the parents' anxiety.

 

wish my fridge worked, even if it was causing e illness, the illness it prevents is well worth it. Sometimes it sucks being in the hinterlands, not often but sometimes.

Maybe next week the correct parts will be in....

Going out to get me some leaded paint, asbestos and DDT, fucking bugs anyway....who needs them.

it has far too much of a lot of things...let's all group think. Or better yet, let's all start referring to ourselves in the 3rd person...... :D

Remind wrote: Or better yet, let's all start referring to ourselves in the 3rd person...... :D

Caissa believes this idea has merit.

[url=http://www.gq.com/images/cars-and-gear/2010/01/cellphones.jpg]Warning: Your Cell Phone May Be Hazardous to Your Health[/url]

Ever worry that that gadget you spend hours holding next to your head might be damaging your brain? Well, the evidence is starting to pour in, and it's not pretty. So why isn't anyone in America doing anything about it? Christopher Ketcham

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v697/rabblerabble/cellphones.jpg[/IMG]

Another side benefit of dreg'ulashun and corporatocracy.

Do yourself a favour and get the hell off the phone!

[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DBm]Here's a good comparison chart.[/url]

Snert wrote:

[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DBm]Here's a good comparison chart.[/url]

Thank you.

500 mW seems to be the typical cellular phone transmission power.

100 mW is the typical wireless router transmission power.

So, a router is 20% as strong.

 

Next link:

Fidel wrote:

[url=http://www.brain-surgery.us/khuranaSurgNeurol.pdf?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6... phones and brain tumors: a review including the
long-term epidemiologic data[/url](pdf) 2009

Cell phone users should at least read the abstract and conclusions.

Thank for the link, Fidel.

Now, cell phones seem to be responsible for doubling one's risk to brain tumors.

But only on the side of the brain that they tend to use the phone on. The other side of the brain seems to be unaffected.

So, the damage only occurs if you hold the transmitter against your body for several hours a day, and only in that spot where you hold it.

So, if the students are holding the routers against their heads for about as long as they hold cell phones aginst their heads, they will be twenty percent more likely to get a brain tumor.

Fidel wrote:

What leads you to make this conclusion?

I don't think there are any studies on Wifi and human health that would allow anyone to make such a wild claim.  Remember, the telecom dregulation act of 1996 in the states tends to protect fat-cat corporatists from frivolous public inquiries as well as public health and safety regulations. Corporations aren't interested in the truth about their products just the bottom line as a general all purpose rule.

But very many studies done outside of the ongoing deregulation experiment in the USA are clear, including the Interphone study -  increased cell phone use tends to increase one's chances of developing various kinds of tumors, and some are the deadliest kind of brain tumor. And most of the international reports all say that more study is needed.

Well, I compared the transmission power of an average cellphone with that of a typical wi-fi router. It is twenty percent.

Now, cell phone use increases your chance of getting a brain tumour from 20 in 100 000 to 40 in 100 000.

So, 20 more people out of 100 000 will get a brain tumour.

Now, if the router is only 20% as powerful as the cellphone, the increase of cancer should only be 20% of these 20 in 100 000.

20% of 20 is 4.

So, the wifi should increase brain tumours by 4 people out of 100 000, from 20/100 000 to 24/100 000.

This is equal to an increase in 20%.

That explains the math. Or did you want to know why the kids have to hold the routers against their heads?

 

[url=http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2010/05/17/cellphone-brain-cancer.html]The question of whether cellphone use causes brain tumours remains unsettled after the results of a major study on almost 13,000 cellphone users over 10 years.[/url]

Quote:

For some groups, cellphone use appeared to lessen the risk of developing cancers, which the researchers called "implausible."

 
Hehe.
 
"The bad news is that your Nokia cell phone gave you a brain tumour. The good news is that this Blackberry, used for 30 minutes a day, will cure it."

Quote:

"The tired refrain 'more research is needed' fully applies in this instance: without more research the public's question about the acceptability of cancer risk from mobile phones will remain unanswered."

I totally agree. That the refrain is tired, I mean.

Pants-of-dog wrote:

Now, cell phone use increases your chance of getting a brain tumour from 20 in 100 000 to 40 in 100 000.

[size=12]Did you notice the date of publication on the article you've pointed us to? The important thing to remember here, maestro, I mean Pants, is that widespread cell phone use in the USA didn't happen until the mid-1990s. Nobody I know had much use for first generation cell phones of the 1980s. Not unless your were Gordon Gekko of Wall Street, the kind of person now being diagnosed with brain tumors mentioned in Ketcham's [url=http://www.gq.com/cars-gear/gear-and-gadgets/201002/warning-cell-phone-r... article.[/size]

Pants-of-dog wrote:

Now, if the router is only 20% as powerful as the cellphone, the increase of cancer should only be 20% of these 20 in 100 000.

20% of 20 is 4.

So, the wifi should increase brain tumours by 4 people out of 100 000, from 20/100 000 to 24/100 000.

This is equal to an increase in 20%.

That explains the math. Or did you want to know why the kids have to hold the routers against their heads?

[size=12]That's incidence. We're talking about incidence rate. Over how many years of exposure to WiFi are you taIking about? Your math is just as flunky in this discussion as it was in the 9/11 threads.

I like [url=http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2009/06/google-submits-initial-co...'s national broadband plan[/url], and [url=http://policies.lakeheadu.ca/policy.php?pid=178]Lakehead U's WiFi and Cellular antennae policy[/url] in Thunder Bay, Ontario, and broad band infrastructure projects in [url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8068560.stm]Japan[/url] Japan's broadband access speeds and telecom infrastructure are world class. They aren't screwing around with dial-up in rural areas or cheaping out with WiFi in public schools.

They aren't cutting corners and compromising human health for the sake of saving a buck for corporations or their lackeys in government. Fiber optic trunklines and fiber-to-the-home and businesses and schools beats any wireless technology hands-down as far as speed and reliability are concerned. If the money people and bean counters think WiFi and wireless is so good, they should shove the microwave towers up their derierres sideways. A good thing can't hurt. And we need a real infrastructure plan in Canada, too, and not one that is based on what the suckers are willing to pay for regardless of public health and safety issues.[/size]

I used to sleep with my cell phone under my pillow, it's alarm set to vibrate. That way if I was in a roomw ith a bunch of people, or beside my wife, I wouldn't wake them up when the alarm goes off.

 

The more I read the more it seems stuff like wi-fi and cell phones are dangerous so I've reluctantly went back to my old walmart screaming alarmclock, making sure to shut my cell phone right off at night.

 

Sad thing is you can't go hardly ANYWHERE today without being bombarded with Wi-fi.  I think in the future they will probably have " wi-fi free " zones instead of wi-fi hotspots.

Pants-of-dog wrote:

If you can find another statistic showing incidence of tumour rates, be my guest. I'll redo the math with your numbers.

[size=12]Let's use the results of the [url=http://www.oxfordjournals.org/our_journals/ije/press_releases/freepdf/dy... study(pdf)[/url] since no one in the USA participated in a similarly large study.

People in the study reported spending a median time of 2 to 2.5 hours a month using mobile phones. The heaviest users - ~10 percent of total - said they spent about 1,640 hours total on the phone. That's the threshold for heavy phone use,  roughly half an hour a day for ten years. I know people that do at least half an hour every day on their cells nowadays. Participants reported their use for periods ranging from one year to more than 10 years, according to the report.

More than one-third, or $6.8 million, of the study’s $23.7 million dollar funding came from the cell phone and other industry sources, That's just under 30% of the total funding coming from private sources.ie with private interests not public ones.

Cell phones emit radio waves and, at higher levels than that released by phones, the emissions heat body tissue and spur tumors, according to the [url=http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/cellphones]US National Cancer Inst.[/url]

Pants-of-dog wrote:

You are correct, Fidel. I forgot to mention that if wi-fi is causing brain tumours, the kids would have to be holding these routers to their heads sevral times a day every day for over ten years.

What makes you think so? Let's apply that logic to a similar scenario, one with posteriori knowledge of the health risks and work backwards. What if you were sat in a public school riddled with asbestos and lead paint for six to seven hours a day over nine years of your childhood? What if none of you or your classmates got sick or died within the next ten years after leaving the school?  Would you jump to the conclusion, similar to your own example, that asbestos and lead paint are compatible with human health? Why not do real scientific study on the effects of lead and asbestos on warm-blooded living things, and preferably lab rats well before deciding that the new and wonderful industrial products are safe for humans? Why not us empricism and the scientific method to prove these things beyond a doubt for the sake of public health and safety? Or will it be cheaper to allow corporations to milk profits now so that taxpayers can pay later when rising health care costs are realized? Those same corporations might be bankrupt, or broken up and pawned off to predator corps sometime down the road. But public health will still be an issue. I don't think we can't afford to run the country like a dregulated fly by night corporation, or even allow corporate interests to take priority over public good.[/size]

[url=http://www.thestar.com/parentcentral/education/schoolsandresources/artic... debate, then reject, wireless ban[/url]

 

Quote:

"Microwaves used to be scary and we got over that. And if the World Health Organization says there's no threat from exposure to wireless levels here in Canada, I think we should not limit it for students"