Can Wi-Fi Make You Sick?
Wireless Internet has become vastly popular, with networks appearing in restaurants, schools, and shopping malls. But new speculation has risen that says Wi-Fi may be making some people sick. Some in the scientific community suggest that electromagnetic radiation released from wireless routers could have a negative effect on health. That has lead to an outcry from parents who are against adding wireless networks to schools until further research is conducted.
Last fall, parents in Barrie, Ontario had a failed attempt to ban Wi-Fi from schools because of health reasons. Now, the Ontario Education Minister is requesting information regarding the potential health concerns. The debate is at a height again, with parents, teachers, and administrators all wanting more information.
Those in the scientific community are also debating the issue. While they agree that radiation is released, the debate centers on the amounts. Some say it is negligible and would fall well within the guidelines of various national health administrations. Others say that Wi-Fi has been known to cause health issues such as nausea and headaches. The World Health Organization says that Wi-Fi is safe as long as it falls under the exposure limits.
Despite the findings by the World Health Organization and other scientific bodies, the debate over the potential risks of Wi-Fi is stirring the debate among the schools. While the parents in Barrie continue to demand the elimination of Wi-Fi, the school board has yet to do so. They are saying there isn’t sufficient evidence to warrant removing wireless networks from the schools. The issue in Barrie isn’t new. As far back as 2006, the safety of Wi-Fi has been called in to question. Lakewood University in Ontario banned campus wide Wi-Fi that year, and other schools have followed suit. The fears over Wi-Fi are likely to spark further research on the issue.
I was unaware that any of these parents had done a proper study of the matter. It seems that something is affecting these kids but it’s more likely to be cafeteria food, or a cleaner the school uses, even some chemicals used to treat carpets. But no no .. it’s automatically wifi. A larger and larger percentage of these kids have a home network most of whom have a wifi connection shouldn’t we be seeing more of this globally?
probably the same people that think that those energy balancing bracelets actually work.
It’s very simple. Why not err on the side of caution and ban it until all the information is in. What will happen now is that a study will be done, it will be found to be harmful and the parents will sue the school board for millions. Why not just go back to hard-wired until you know all the facts.
I have been researching this issue for months now, and there is definitely a reason for concern. Look over to Europe…the Austrian Medical Association recommends banning wi-fi in schools, Germany warns its citizens,the National Library of France in Paris has removed wi-fi, etc…We need to ask ourselves, why are the Europeans so concerned? There is research out there on the biological effects of this type of radiation. Bottom line…no one has researched the safety of chronic, long term exposure. So why would we take the most vulnerable section of our population, children, and expose them to hours upon hours of this, poorly researched, radiation? Keep in mind, children absorb radiation 10 times more than adults!! The precautionary principle needs to be applied. Good place to start your research: http://www.magdahavas.com
Idiots, absolute idiots.
Lets just ignore the cell phonetowers , and the RF frequencies and the leaky AC and the old asbestos in the building and the fluoride in the water and the pesticide in the water and the agricultural runoff (thats pig s___) in the water and the list of chemicals in the food. No lets blame Wifi (even though we have it at home on our laptop)
Here is why you don’t change it… IT’S TOTAL BS. If wifi is making people sick, then so are radio’s, bluetooth headsets, xbox360/ps3 controllers, baby monitors and cordless phones. It’s all BS from people who are too stupid to understand technology.
“World Health Organization says its safe” haha who are these jokers, i would like to see them exposed to wi-fi radiation for 8 hours per day 280 days a year. These children are our future, we should protect them. WHO always claims things are safe when that thing is in the interest of their corporate friends business. When has WHO actually cared about health. Once again they havent even released a proper report on cellphone radiation and how it causes cancer and mutations. Wi-FI is probably even worse as its always ok and transmitting… ban wi-fi.
It is soooo easy to automatically denigrate the parents of these children for their ooncerns. The burden should be on the schools to provide a safe and time tested environment for the children temporarily in their care. To assume wifi is automatically safe because supposed experts say so is naive. So called experts have told us many things subsequently known to have been wrong such as: hydrogenated oils are healthy, women should do estrogen replacement, We all eat more carbs, etc… All these and more have caused irreparable damage to many people’s health – just look at the number of recalls and class action lawsuits over pharmaceutical drugs. The point is – new discoveries are embraced well before long term analysis and studies have been completed, basically using the human population as guinea pigs in a massive experiment. Genetically modified foods are another example of untested technology currently being tested on a global scale with no knowledge of the long term effects. WiFi should continue to be available for adults to use at their discretion. Parents should be able to selectively decide what is available in their home their children are exposed to. However public entities taking temporary custody of children during school hours should be held to a higher standard and not expose those children to unproven technology until long term studies are complete with a consensus in its safety – and at this time there is no consensus as many legitimate researches are finding concerns in the safety of the technology – especially as it pertains to young children and their develping brains.