Questions about how safe is wifi

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/10/18/wi-fi-schools.html

read this story and it had me thinking.. I can feel wifi radiation myself during large transfers, and it does give you a headache

one of the other reasons I run wired on my home network but if I switch to a usb wireless stick.. and sit within 2-3 feet of it during big lan transfers, you get kind of a sick nausea, you can feel it pass through you

I wonder if they should come up with some legislation that says wired only in the classrooms and setup the wireless access points in the office

maybe have a no wireless laptop in the classroom policy.. think this story has some merit myself

 

I don't use wifi at all, mostly cause I'm cheap.

 

What your feeling is likely psychosomatic there is no proof that wifi effects people. Quick show of hands in this thread.... Does your wifi make you feel unwell in any way?

Me: Nope, never, not even with large transfers from the laptop on my knee with the wifi transmitter behind me.

 

Urgh, this old chestnut.

Okay, Wi-Fi works effectively on the same wavelength as a mobile phone, but at a far, far lower energy level. Wi-Fi is ultra short range compared to your mobile phone, which needs to receive and transmit a signal to a base station which can be several miles away.

People give mobile phones to their kids without a second thought.


I'm pretty sure (actually, fairly positive) that the headaches are psychosomatic. If you're feeling creative/bored there is an easy experiment you can do. Buy a cheap wireless box, pull out the PCB so that it's nothing more than an empty shell and place it on the wall. If you want to go the extra mile, a AA battery and some flashing LEDs to make it look all the more convincing.

Then invite someone who is 'affected' by wireless to stand near it. When they start to complain about their headache and the nasty Wi-Fi cooking their noodle (and they will,) reveal the empty box.


Even so, banning Wi-Fi won't make the air cleaner for your children. Not by a long, long shot.

Mobile phone cells, television (analogue, digital, Sky and Freesat,) radio (analogue FM, AM, digital), satellite communication and mapping, telemetry, VHF, UHF, Tetra, cosmic radiation from space.... the list goes on... and on. You are living in a world saturated by radio communication. Shutting off that little Wi-Fi box in the corner of your room won't shut down everything else, it won't shut down your neighbour's Wi-Fi and it won't turn off the cosmos.

Seriously, if people are that scared of radio transmissions cooking their mental potatoes, the only thing they can do is to build themselves a Faraday Cage and live inside it for the rest of their lives.

 

There was an experiment carried out a couple of years ago that did exactly the thing that Silver is suggesting: it took two groups of people, one of which claimed they were sensitive to mobile phone radiation, one of which claimed they felt no effect whatsoever and put them in a room. Tests were run using a placebo, non-functioning mobile inside a Faraday cage - and those who were thought they were sensitive consistently claimed that the mobile was giving them headaches, even though it was a placebo.

I think part of the problem is that people hear the word "radiation" and instantly think of nuclear radiation, which by association is a bad thing. Therefore, the thinking goes, any kind of radiation is bad, right?

It's the same situation we had with the MMR vaccine scares - and while the long-term disadvantages of people not using WiFi aren't as serious (unless you happen to be a company that makes WiFi kit), it's the same problem.

 

Post hoc, ergo propter hoc

I laughed rather a lot at this quote taken from the article: The parents believe Wi-Fi at the school, which has about 350 students, is causing a number of symptoms among students, including headaches and an inability to concentrate, all of which disappear on weekends.

Is it honestly that difficult to figure out why your child seemingly can concentrate better and losses their headache as soon as they leave the confines of their school? This isn't exactly rocket surgery, and big surprise here: kids have felt better leaving school since well before human-made radio-waves were a reality.

Though it would be funny to see if somebody could get Dihydrogen Monoxide* banned in a school, as there have been a few scientific studies done that show it too can be hazardous to children. Think of the children!




*Go to this link. Read the FAQ's. It will be the funniest thing you've read all day.

 

BBC's Panorama ran a program dedicated to the evils of Wi-Fi back in 2007. Basically, they got the head of some anti-WiFi group to go into a school and run some half-arsed 'experiments'.

I was asked by the management to look into this in, just in case any of our parents had watched the program and had been sucked into the BBC's un-researched bullshittery. Fortunately, nothing came of it. Turns out that the parents who watched it dismissed it as scare mongering.

The Guardian actually posted a short article afterwards, the final paragraph reading; "Scientists generally believe that Wi-Fi ought to be safer than mobile phone radiation because Wi-Fi devices transmit over shorter distances and so can operate at lower power. The Health Protection Agency says a person sitting within a Wi-Fi hotspot for a year receives the same dose of radio waves as a person using a mobile phone for 20 minutes."


Also, damn that Dihydrogen Monoxide. It's just a shame that it's so tasty mixed with dried Camellia sinensis and maybe a dash of skimmed Holstein-Friesian lactation.

 

I wish they'd do an experiment with my usb stick.. my access point I can't feel but that stick, I'm not one to make things up either.. you can feel the radiation come off that sucker

I know were bombarded with radio but it's like sitting up close to a radio tower and getting cooked like a pig hehe that's the only way to describe it

I won't run wireless unless I have to.. think some kids could be susceptible to it too- I know kids are out of control cause it's school.. but I'd like to see if there was improvement after they took the access points out myself

 

Well, you could try taking computer wireless devices out of a school as an experiment. But to be totally scientific about it, you'll need to take out everything else that generates RF signals.

So, off the top of my head, that'll be all the televisions, radios, handheld radios/walkie-talkies, POS registers in the canteens, radio clocks, projectors, laptops, mobile phones, cordless phones, microwaves, speakers, lights, printers, and every single electrical cable in the school, on the route too and from the establishment and at each of the kid's homes.

Better warn the neighbours as well, because in the name of science the cell net has to go, as well as power and just about everything else that has an electronic heartbeat.

Lets face it, if you want to truly get away from RF radiation, you're going to have to move underground, or at the very least, below the waves. We're talking Steampunk without the cool punk bit.

 

You made me LOL with this one... I'm sure some parents here in the states wouldn't even think twice about writing to their congressman and asking for dhmo to be banned from schools... I mean... a kid could get dhmo poisoning... or even have his lungs filled with dhmo and die...

We have to put all our children in tidy glass boxes and prevent them from ever experiencing anything that may be even remotely uncomfortable...

I remember in my early years... My mom would run around the house behind me trying to protect me...

My dad was more like:
He wants to stick that coin into the wall socket?... Let him try it... I guarantee you he'll try once and never do that again.
Does he want to eat dirt? Let him eat dirt... If he likes it... good; cheaper grocery bills. If he doesn't... no harm done.

Have you ever been close to an actual radio tower? I served in my birth country's army back in the early 90's and for the last 3 months of my stint there was assigned to be a guard detail at a Telecom base up in the mountains; we had radio tower at the base and I can tell you that climbing up that thing you could barely last about 5 minutes at the top before it made you puke. Let alone the fact that it was about -5C up there with winds that could knock you off your feet if you didn't pay attention.

But a WiFi usb stick?... Doubtful... I've had WiFi for years both at work and home and never even felt a thing. I think you've fallen prey to self-suggestion and now your body feels what your mind thinks it should feel.

 

Like Silver51 has been saying, there's RF waves all around us. When cell phones were first coming out, remember how people thought it could give you brain cancer? Well cell phones are even more popular now, there isn't really all that much concern about them anymore.

Your kid can't concentrate in school because he's a kid. Technology is an easy scapegoat.

If anything it's probably the fluorescent lighting in the school building giving kids the headaches. Such harsh unnatural lights give me headaches sometimes, not because of the RF, but because of the eye strain. I wear glasses, and have to deal with constant glare, I can deal just fine.

When I was in high school, I got a new pair of glasses, they were a bit stronger and had a massive amount of glare on the sides. (different shape, more oval) Instant headache when I first wore them. I remember going into Walmart with my mom, all of a sudden I would get disoriented and barely be able to walk straight. I'd have to hold onto the cart. This went on for a while, I got use to it. I dealt with it. So, pardon my french, kids need to stop being pussies.

 

You know that every second 400Billion high energy particles travel through your eyeball. It takes about 50 olympic swimming pools of water to detect one of these particles per month.

RF waves may be a lot more ionising than neutrinos but if you can honestly detect signals from a wifi you should probably see if you have x-ray vision as you see to be some sort of super em-wave detector.

 

The problem is that when people that have no clue talk about radio waves they think that "oh! Cellphones have the same frequency as a microwave oven. That must mean that it's harmful".

Nobody talks about power levels.

There is a difference between standing on a heated floor and a cooking plate... Both run on 50hz 230V power, so they must be equally dangerous, right?

 

get a qlink, and to people that can feel the affects of phones or wifi dont even bother trying to explain yourself or convince them of any thing.

Its like ive stopped even warning people about the dangers of diet soda with aspartaine a known carcinogen, nero toxin which breaks down into...

Dont even bother, people think they know every thing when they dont know any thing.

As a side note and to prove how stupid people are, they think nothing of getting into a metal tube which forces the phone to pump out at its max power etc and then stick it against the head, or other wise known as talking in a train,

Or even better, when you walk past a pretty girl and she is

1-Smoking.
2-Drinking diet coke.
3-Has a pack of chewing gum sweetend with Aspartine.

Thats really wounderfull, that little lot in you would be interesting to look at under a microscope im sure, what it would do to you a low level.

 

Really? Aspartame.... It has been shown over and over again NOT to cause an increase in cancer risk. The studies that show the increase in cancer risk have for the most part been debunked either for following poor experimental procedure (like the 2005 study that daily pumped lab rats with the amount of aspartame found in over 2000 cans of diet soda FDA press release after the study) or because the researchers just drew a conclusion from statistics, which were incorrect to begin with--

http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/risk/aspartame



sorry for the thread-jack

 

How Aspartame Became
Legal - The Timeline



Here is the time line of this product from invention.

In 1985 Monsanto purchased G.D. Searle, the chemical company that held the patent to aspartame, the active ingredient in NutraSweet. Monsanto was apparently untroubled by aspartame's clouded past, including a 1980 FDA Board of Inquiry, comprised of three independent scientists, which confirmed that it "might induce brain tumors."

The FDA had actually banned aspartame based on this finding, only to have Searle Chairman Donald Rumsfeld (currently the Secretary of Defense) vow to "call in his markers," to get it approved.

On January 21, 1981, the day after Ronald Reagan's inauguration, Searle re-applied to the FDA for approval to use aspartame in food sweetener, and Reagan's new FDA commissioner, Arthur Hayes Hull, Jr., appointed a 5-person Scientific Commission to review the board of inquiry's decision.

It soon became clear that the panel would uphold the ban by a 3-2 decision, but Hull then installed a sixth member on the commission, and the vote became deadlocked. He then personally broke the tie in aspartame's favor. Hull later left the FDA under allegations of impropriety, served briefly as Provost at New York Medical College, and then took a position with Burston-Marsteller, the chief public relations firm for both Monsanto and GD Searle. Since that time he has never spoken publicly about aspartame.


The Aspartame/NutraSweet Timeline


Timeline

December 1965-- While working on an ulcer drug, James Schlatter, a chemist at G.D. Searle, accidentally discovers aspartame, a substance that is 180 times sweeter than sugar yet has no calories.

Spring 1967-- Searle begins the safety tests on aspartame that are necessary for applying for FDA approval of food additives.

Fall 1967-- Dr. Harold Waisman, a biochemist at the University of Wisconsin, conducts aspartame safety tests on infant monkeys on behalf of the Searle Company. Of the seven monkeys that were being fed aspartame mixed with milk, one dies and five others have grand mal seizures.

November 1970-- Cyclamate, the reigning low-calorie artificial sweetener -- is pulled off the market after some scientists associate it with cancer. Questions are also raised about safety of saccharin, the only other artificial sweetener on the market, leaving the field wide open for aspartame.

December 18, 1970-- Searle Company executives lay out a "Food and Drug Sweetener Strategy' that they feel will put the FDA into a positive frame of mind about aspartame. An internal policy memo describes psychological tactics the company should use to bring the FDA into a subconscious spirit of participation" with them on aspartame and get FDA regulators into the "habit of saying, "Yes"."

Spring 1971-- Neuroscientist Dr. John Olney (whose pioneering work with monosodium glutamate was responsible for having it removed from baby foods) informs Searle that his studies show that aspartic acid (one of the ingredients of aspartame) caused holes in the brains of infant mice. One of Searle's own researchers confirmed Dr. Olney's findings in a similar study.

February 1973-- After spending tens of millions of dollars conducting safety tests, the G.D. Searle Company applies for FDA approval and submits over 100 studies they claim support aspartame's safety.

March 5, 1973-- One of the first FDA scientists to review the aspartame safety data states that "the information provided (by Searle) is inadequate to permit an evaluation of the potential toxicity of aspartame". She says in her report that in order to be certain that aspartame is safe, further clinical tests are needed.

May 1974-- Attorney, Jim Turner (consumer advocate who was instrumental in getting cyclamate taken off the market) meets with Searle representatives to discuss Dr. Olney's 1971 study which showed that aspartic acid caused holes in the brains of infant mice.

July 26, 1974-- The FDA grants aspartame its first approval for restricted use in dry foods.

August 1974-- Jim Turner and Dr. John Olney file the first objections against aspartame's approval.

March 24, 1976-- Turner and Olney's petition triggers an FDA investigation of the laboratory practices of aspartame's manufacturer, G.D. Searle. The investigation finds Searle's testing procedures shoddy, full of inaccuracies and "manipulated" test data. The investigators report they "had never seen anything as bad as Searle's testing."

January 10, 1977-- The FDA formally requests the U.S. Attorney's office to begin grand jury proceedings to investigate whether indictments should be filed against Searle for knowingly misrepresenting findings and "concealing material facts and making false statements" in aspartame safety tests. This is the first time in the FDA's history that they request a criminal investigation of a manufacturer.

January 26, 1977-- While the grand jury probe is underway, Sidley & Austin, the law firm representing Searle, begins job negotiations with the U.S. Attorney in charge of the investigation, Samuel Skinner.

March 8, 1977-- G. D. Searle hires prominent Washington insider Donald Rumsfeld as the new CEO to try to turn the beleaguered company around. A former Member of Congress and Secretary of Defense in the Ford Administration, Rumsfeld brings in several of his Washington cronies as top management.

July 1, 1977-- Samuel Skinner leaves the U.S. Attorney's office and takes a job with Searle's law firm. (see Jan. 26th)

August 1, 1977-- The Bressler Report, compiled by FDA investigators and headed by Jerome Bressler, is released. The report finds that 98 of the 196 animals died during one of Searle's studies and weren't autopsied until later dates, in some cases over one year after death. Many other errors and inconsistencies are noted. For example, a rat was reported alive, then dead, then alive, then dead again; a mass, a uterine polyp, and ovarian neoplasms were found in animals but not reported or diagnosed in Searle's reports.

December 8, 1977-- U.S. Attorney Skinner's withdrawal and resignation stalls the Searle grand jury investigation for so long that the statue of limitations on the aspartame charges runs out. The grand jury investigation is dropped.

June 1, 1979-- The FDA established a Public Board of Inquiry (PBOI) to rule on safety issues surrounding NutraSweet.

September 30, 1980-- The Public Board of Inquiry concludes NutraSweet should not be approved pending further investigations of brain tumors in animals. The board states it "has not been presented with proof of reasonable certainty that aspartame is safe for use as a food additive."

January 1981-- Donald Rumsfeld, CEO of Searle, states in a sales meeting that he is going to make a big push to get aspartame approved within the year. Rumsfeld says he will use his political pull in Washington, rather than scientific means, to make sure it gets approved.

January 21, 1981-- Ronald Reagan is sworn in as President of the United States. Reagan's transition team, which includes Donald Rumsfeld, CEO of G. D. Searle, hand picks Dr. Arthur Hull Hayes Jr. to be the new FDA Commissioner.

March, 1981-- An FDA commissioner's panel is established to review issues raised by the Public Board of Inquiry.

May 19, 1981-- Three of six in-house FDA scientists who were responsible for reviewing the brain tumor issues, Dr. Robert Condon, Dr. Satya Dubey, and Dr. Douglas Park, advise against approval of NutraSweet, stating on the record that the Searle tests are unreliable and not adequate to determine the safety of aspartame.

July 15, 1981-- In one of his first official acts, Dr. Arthur Hayes Jr., the new FDA commissioner, overrules the Public Board of Inquiry, ignores the recommendations of his own internal FDA team and approves NutraSweet for dry products. Hayes says that aspartame has been shown to be safe for its' proposed uses and says few compounds have withstood such detailed testing and repeated close scrutiny.

October 15, 1982-- The FDA announces that Searle has filed a petition that aspartame be approved as a sweetener in carbonated beverages and other liquids.

July 1, 1983-- The National Soft Drink Association (NSDA) urges the FDA to delay approval of aspartame for carbonated beverages pending further testing because aspartame is very unstable in liquid form. When liquid aspartame is stored in temperatures above 85 degrees Fahrenheit, it breaks down into DKP and formaldehyde, both of which are known toxins.

July 8, 1983-- The National Soft Drink Association drafts an objection to the final ruling which permits the use of aspartame in carbonated beverages and syrup bases and requests a hearing on the objections. The association says that Searle has not provided responsible certainty that aspartame and its' degradation products are safe for use in soft drinks.

August 8, 1983-- Consumer Attorney, Jim Turner of the Community Nutrition Institute and Dr. Woodrow Monte, Arizona State University's Director of Food Science and Nutritional Laboratories, file suit with the FDA objecting to aspartame approval based on unresolved safety issues.

September, 1983-- FDA Commissioner Hayes resigns under a cloud of controversy about his taking unauthorized rides aboard a General Foods jet. (General foods is a major customer of NutraSweet) Burson-Marsteller, Searle's public relation firm (which also represented several of NutraSweet's major users), immediately hires Hayes as senior scientific consultant.

Fall 1983-- The first carbonated beverages containing aspartame are sold for public consumption.

November 1984-- Center for Disease Control (CDC) "Evaluation of consumer complaints related to aspartame use." (summary by B. Mullarkey)

November 3, 1987-- U.S. hearing, "NutraSweet: Health and Safety Concerns," Committee on Labor and Human Resources, Senator Howard Metzenbaum, chairman.

 

Hehehehehehe, yes, because large data transfers means there are more intense radiations!!!!!

Lol at this story, if people want to live in the dark ages because they are too afraid to come into the light then thats their perogative

edit: oh, and the people above have been correct about mobile phones using more power than wifi - and there have been more links to brain tumours as a result of mobile phone use, so I suggest that if you are scared of wifi you really need to dump your phone.

 

Slight edit...

We're constantly surrounded by radiation that travels the populated globe. The 10 metres your router puts out is NOTHING compared to standard background radiation.

 

There's radiation every where

Stop being silly and get over it

:/ people these days believe such crap they realy do

 

LOL.

Maybe they should be looking at the quality, and diversity of teaching instead of the WiFi?

"WiFi" is not a special technology. It's a radio signal, and it's not entirely dissimilar from a cellular phone signal, many of which are passing through your head right now... with considerably more power. Have these parents also stopped them using their cell phones? I doubt it.


Knee jerk reactions from uneducated mothers who panic over any potential health risk to their brood.