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posted by mrpg on Wednesday July 18 2018, @11:33PM   Printer-friendly
from the and-the-cell-phones? dept.

CBC News reports that the BC Human Rights Tribunal has ruled against parents who insisted that their child needed special protection against radio waves. The parents believed that their son had a condition called electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS), a bundle of non-specific symptoms that they attribute to EMF exposure, and that "...Wi-Fi, cellphones and other electronics ... caused the boy's migraines, nausea, insomnia and night terrors. "

Claims that Wi-Fi causes health problems are not unusual on the West Coast of Canada, but these parents added new twists to the story. His mother believes that the condition was caused by living near a cell phone tower during pregnancy, and that severe headaches and episodes of vomiting were caused by the amplification system his teachers used to help students with hearing impairments.

T's family complained he developed a headache one day after staying inside for recess. In an appeal to the school board, his family said it happened because, "as you know, the RF [radio frequency] does penetrate the room he is in when the children are moving around the school with their cellphones on at recess and lunch."

The student has since moved to a private school specializing in, among other things, working with autistic children. He is now able to develop social skills by joining other students on regular field trips to a local (presumably Wi-Fi and cell free) farm.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 18 2018, @11:45PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 18 2018, @11:45PM (#709088)

    Maybe it's caused by vaccines?

    • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday July 19 2018, @12:04AM (3 children)

      by bob_super (1357) on Thursday July 19 2018, @12:04AM (#709091)

      Maybe it's caused by losing the genitor or genetic lottery ?

      • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday July 19 2018, @12:40AM (2 children)

        by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Thursday July 19 2018, @12:40AM (#709106) Homepage Journal

        I lived for a number of years in New England and Atlantic Canada.

        This kind of stuff simply _never_ occurred there.

        --
        Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
        • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @12:50AM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @12:50AM (#709113)

          Dukoboers, more insane than your average Christian, and the Polygamous Mormons who did not make it to Mexico with Mitt Romney's Father (non-heavenly). And they wonder why we mock them, these religious people with very stupid ideas, and all the WiFi scrambling their brians. Life of Brian, recommended.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @12:31AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @12:31AM (#709101)

    Let's also set up a tribunal for global warming, autism and abortion to make danger illegal.

  • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday July 19 2018, @12:37AM

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Thursday July 19 2018, @12:37AM (#709104) Homepage Journal

    I enjoyed my time there, I mean I really did.

    That British Columbia has a Human Rights Tribunal just for this kind of adjudication surprises me not at all.

    Not. One. Bit.

    --
    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
  • (Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @12:56AM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @12:56AM (#709114)

    We're going to see a lot more of this nuttiness, as idiot millennials fry their brain cells with marijuana and then claim that it was the evil radiations that caused their mental problems.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @02:26AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @02:26AM (#709154)

      How about the idiot old people? Hasn't your palm flower changed color yet?

    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @03:08AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @03:08AM (#709180)

      It's a mad lib! I got:

      We're going to see a lot more of this nuttiness, as idiot $current_generation $unfounded_harm and then $unrelated_action.

      What did you expect? I'm a programmer so I assigned the blank spots variable names.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @07:07AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @07:07AM (#709259)

        I expect abbreviations for each word to save memory, what a slacker.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @05:40AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @05:40AM (#709226)

      I used to live near a mcs (multiple chemical sensitive community) who were also very anti electromagnetic everything. I never visited, but knew a contractor who did a lot of work on their houses and said it was difficult to work sometimes because of the amount of marijuana smoke inside.

  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Mykl on Thursday July 19 2018, @01:07AM (14 children)

    by Mykl (1112) on Thursday July 19 2018, @01:07AM (#709121)

    This kind of crap really irritates me. Instead of actually trying to investigate the real cause of this kid's (possible) illness, the parents are off pointing at boogeymen.

    There was a great story a few years ago here in Australia about this sort of thing. A few people in a town that had recently had a mobile phone tower installed were complaining of headaches, insomnia etc etc. A town hall meeting was arranged, and a representative for the Telco showed up. After listening to the various complaints of the constituents, he checked a few facts:
    "So, it's worse when you're outside, and the closer you get to the tower?" Yes
    "Did you feel it coming here tonight?" Yes
    "When did this start?" As soon as the tower was installed

    "OK then, how about we run a trial where we turn the tower off for 2 weeks and see if that makes a difference?" The complainants thought that this sounded like a reasonable idea, and agreed to it.
    "Hang on though, there's just one problem," said the Telco rep. "We actually haven't turned the tower on yet".

    Meeting dismissed.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @01:21AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @01:21AM (#709128)

      While the tower may not have been active yet, it is quite possible that it was already infested with dropbears which would certainly explain the townspeople's headaches.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @06:53AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @06:53AM (#709255)

        The best solution for this is to set up a "Reality Free Zone", where people do not have to be exposed to the real world.

        (In the olden days, these were known as mental asylums).

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by dwilson on Thursday July 19 2018, @02:23AM (4 children)

      by dwilson (2599) Subscriber Badge on Thursday July 19 2018, @02:23AM (#709152) Journal

      I've seen variants of that story floating around for years. The last one I read had the tower somewhere in Europe (Switzerland, maybe? I don't recall), and the ending wasn't "Hang on, we haven't turned it on yet", it was something like "Well, we feel absolutely horrible that all these ailments are affecting the community as a result of our new tower. This is terrible! But just imagine how much worse it will get once we get around to installing all the electrical equipment and getting the power hooked up!"

      I wonder if it's based on a true story, somewhere, somewhen.

      --
      - D
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by stormwyrm on Thursday July 19 2018, @02:44AM (4 children)

      by stormwyrm (717) on Thursday July 19 2018, @02:44AM (#709167) Journal

      I've also heard about a similar incident [mybroadband.co.za] in Craigavon, South Africa:

      At the meeting Van Zyl agreed to turn off the tower with immediate effect to assess whether the health problems described by some of the residents subsided. What Craigavon residents were unaware of is that the tower had already been switched off in early October – six weeks before the November meeting where residents confirmed the continued ailments they experienced.

      MyBroadband was furnished with technical reports which confirmed that the Fourways Memorial Park iBurst tower was turned off in early October and that it did not provide any services over the next few weeks.

      Van Zyl argues that this clearly proves that the iBurst tower could not be the cause of the health symptoms described by some of the residents. Van Zyl reiterated that residents said that the symptoms typically subsided in hours or days after leaving the Craigavon area, and since it still prevailed in mid-November it means that it could not have been related to the iBurst tower radiation.

      Dr. David "Orac" Gorski has an excellent article [sciencebasedmedicine.org] on the topic. Even if EHS is wholly psychosomatic it doesn't mean that the people allegedly afflicted by it aren't suffering, and chasing a bogus cause like that instead of looking for the reality behind it can cause a great deal of harm. He relates the story of Jenny Fry, a teen who had committed suicide and whose death has been blamed on EHS. Instead of getting her looked at by an actual doctor who might have diagnosed and treated what seems to be clinical depression, and which might have prevented her suicide, they chased the phantom of EHS.

      One can’t help but wonder if, were it not for the parents’ obsession with wifi as the cause of their daughter’s health complaints, her depression might have been recognized and treated earlier, avoiding the tragic end that ultimately occurred.

      --
      Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @03:14AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @03:14AM (#709185)

        The millennial's parents are all hypochondriacs and enablers. That explains a very good deal of their problems that aren't explained economically.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @05:51AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @05:51AM (#709231)

          problems that aren't explained economically

          I'd bet the two are strongly related from firsthand experience at work.

      • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Thursday July 19 2018, @06:31AM

        by bzipitidoo (4388) on Thursday July 19 2018, @06:31AM (#709248) Journal

        Hey, at least they're not literally hunting for witches to blame and burn. These days, people are too sophisticated to think such things. Yes, we still have plenty of snake oil-- homeopathy leaps to mind-- but on the whole, society has improved on this.

        There could be some other external cause for all these health problems. It need not be hypochondria or psychosomatic stuff. If some local operation had changed processes recently and was spewing out new toxins in their pollution, that could cause headaches and other health problems. Could be entirely coincidental that a communication tower was installed at the same time. Naturally, citizens will make causal connections between whatever things recently changed-- that they know about.

        And certainly, companies have shown that they cannot be trusted. If a polluter can easily frame another business, they will.

      • (Score: 2) by ilsa on Thursday July 19 2018, @05:21PM

        by ilsa (6082) Subscriber Badge on Thursday July 19 2018, @05:21PM (#709516)

        Even if EHS is wholly psychosomatic it doesn't mean that the people allegedly afflicted by it aren't suffering, and chasing a bogus cause like that instead of looking for the reality behind it can cause a great deal of harm.

        Gee... why does that sound awfully familiar?

        *muttermutter*vaccines

    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @09:51AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @09:51AM (#709302)

      Actually, I've heard another story: Namely one where the tower ended up to really be harmful, but not because of the EM radiation. Instead, it turned out that the colour it was painted with gave off toxic chemicals that caused the problems. But it wasn't detected for a long time because the people who had (real) headaches claimed it to be from the EM radiation, which caused the tower operator in turn to brush off the headaches as purely imaginary.

    • (Score: 2) by mcgrew on Thursday July 19 2018, @09:57PM

      by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Thursday July 19 2018, @09:57PM (#709624) Homepage Journal

      If emf actually caused any problems, why did my dad work with 750 to 90,000 volts of AC current (depending if it was a pole or a tower) for forty years and die at age 84?

      Actually it did cause one problem: his red blood cells seemed to become magnetized, because when he put on a watch after getting down from a tower, the watch would stop. He was glad when didgital watches were invented, they didn't have that problem.

      But yes, they need to see what if anything is causing the kid's problems. My guess is hypochondria.

      --
      mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @05:46AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @05:46AM (#709229)

    Stupid religious peoples! I offer you total absolution, if you only take basic courses in physics, chemistry, biology, and epistemology! You can be saved, you idiots!

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @06:35AM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @06:35AM (#709250)

      Stupid religious peoples! I offer you total absolution, if you only take basic courses in physics, chemistry, biology, and epistemology! You can be saved, you idiots!

      Ah! If it were only that simple...
      The primary problem with that approach is that you normally then end up with a relidge spouting a mangled version of whatever they've allowed through their filters and managed to pick up of these subjects as a new pseudoscience.

      • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday July 19 2018, @02:11PM (1 child)

        by Grishnakh (2831) on Thursday July 19 2018, @02:11PM (#709393)

        Exactly, that's why we have people following crap like Chiropractic, new age crystals, etc.

        • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @05:54PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @05:54PM (#709540)

          Don't get me started on new age crystals...

          At one point, as well as being in charge of most of the computers in a University Electronics & Electrical Engineering department, being primarily an electronics guy I was also in charge of the project labs, so imagine my delight when I was presented one night with a fucking crystal headset thing for testing, think: standard single earphone telephony style headset where the earpiece had been replaced with some sort of crystal 'device' where one of the tips of the crystal was strategically placed to make contact with the skin at the approximate location where you'd find the Tilak mark on a Hindu (that alone, should set off the 'Danger Will Robinson!' signal).

          This thing had a standard 50Ω co-ax and BNC plug attached, the remit? see what sort of signals it would pick up from various people suffering different ailments and try provide them with a series of 'spectra' (their word) for each of these ailments...

          What can I say? we knew it wouldn't do anything, but as someone further up the greasy pole was getting paid, we had to test it, big surprise, no fscking signal from it, no results...oh, forgot, they hoped eventually that by analysing these spectra then figuring out an appropriate 'anti-signal' and sending it back up the co-ax, they could cure the ailments.

          Fraggles, fraggles everywhere..thankfully I got a better paid job elsewhere away from that sort of nonsense.

  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by ledow on Thursday July 19 2018, @07:48AM (1 child)

    by ledow (5567) on Thursday July 19 2018, @07:48AM (#709264) Homepage

    I work IT in schools.

    I have had this exact conversation with parents, including some very in-your-face mothers who literally asked "You do know that you're frying children's brains don't you?"

    However I couldn't help but point out the irony. The parent in question was complaining about a small wifi box in the school reception (we didn't have wifi anywhere else at the time!). While also using a mobile phone. Underneath the school roof, which had housed a huge cell tower for the previous decade.

    And the order of exposure to radio in that instance? The phone next to your head, then the cell tower on the roof, then the wifi on the wall.

    It's not pretty much accepted by even the layman that this kind of thing is everywhere and affects no-one, but there's always one who believe they know better or are somehow "sensitive" to something that others aren't. I don't doubt it. But when you look at the modern world, if you're sensitive to it, you're stuffed. And, without fail, those people "sensitive" to it are in fact unable to detect it when they haven't been told it's there.

    There was a news story a few years ago about a girl who died and her mother was suing a school because the wifi etc. was "contributing to her depression". The photo given by the family to use in the newspaper? A selfie she made with a cell-phone and uploaded to Instagram.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @02:22PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @02:22PM (#709405)

      https://youtu.be/75S-i8PPLig?t=4m24s [youtu.be]

      Electrosensitives' symptoms track with being told the WiFi is on, rather than the WiFi actually being on.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @10:53AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @10:53AM (#709313)

    Which just means he's a lot smarter than all the other kids.

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