Wireless Internet signal allergy

[Cpilot]

Wow, bet you all didn't know that those wi-fi transmitters were putting you all in danger...did you?
Or that the act of transmission was a form of discrimination.
Group wants Wi-Fi banned from public buildings

A group in Santa Fe says the city is discriminating against them because they say that they're allergic to the wireless Internet signal. And now they want Wi-Fi banned from public buildings.

Arthur Firstenberg says he is highly sensitive to certain types of electric fields, including wireless Internet and cell phones.

"I get chest pain and it doesn't go away right away," he said.

Firstenberg and dozens of other electro-sensitive people in Santa Fe claim that putting up Wi-Fi in public places is a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The city attorney is now checking to see if putting up Wi-Fi could be considered discrimination.

But City Councilor Ron Trujillo says the areas are already saturated with wireless Internet.

"It's not 1692, it's 2008. Santa Fe needs to embrace this technology, it's not going away," Trujillo said.

The city attorney hopes to have a legal recommendation by the end of the month.

Looking to sue for the BIG money.

[cmpm]

HaHa, too funny....

It can't be proven or disproved.
And you can't prove pain or not.

Hey, if I eat icecream too fast I get a headache.
Commonly called brain-freeze I believe.

Are there warnings on the carton?
hmmmmm..........

[Cpilot]

HaHa, too funny....

It can't be proven or disproved.
And you can't prove pain or not.

Hey, if I eat icecream too fast I get a headache.
Commonly called brain-freeze I believe.

Are there warnings on the carton?
hmmmmm..........

-cmpm (May 24, 2008, 11:36 PM)

Aaaah but you see, it's not about facts, it's about how you "feel".
Facts have become irrelevant, opinion is what matters now.

[jgpaiva]

They could do a test to those guys. Get them into a room with a box that contains a wireless router (hidden) and to another one with an empty box and see if they can guess which is which

[Deozaan]

It seems to me that unless having a "wireless" allergy is legally classified as a real disability, then having wireless signals around don't discriminate people with disabilities since it's not legally acknowledged as a true disability.

But yeah, do a double blind test with something like what jgpaiva mentioned and see how many of them are liars. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's hard to imagine there really is a problem, especially with a big enough group in one small area to complain about it. We're bombarded with signals and waves all day long, and have been since radio became widely available. Not to mention satellites and cell phones, etc.

Also, most wireless internet devices use 2.4Ghz frequency, which is also what microwaves and wireless telephones and other wireless home devices use. Oh yeah, and PINE NEEDLES emit a frequency of 2.4Ghz as well. So they'd have to remove all Pine trees from the area too.

I wonder if these people complain when they get too close to a tree or microwave.

[cranioscopical]

So they'd have to remove all Pine trees from the area too...
I wonder if these people complain when they get too close to a tree

-Deozaan (May 25, 2008, 06:50 PM)

Certainly not, they're within the cone of silence!

[J-Mac]

I agree that without any such diagnosis formally existing there can be no accommodation required by an employer or government agency.

However I'm not quite laughing it off either! After all the relatively large number of people worldwide who believe that the waves carrying mobile phone signals can cause brain cancer have caused myriads of scientific studies looking for a correlation. (Not that I worry much about it here as I type this reply on my Blackberry!!). Try to imagine the horrors of such an allergy if it WERE true! There would be virtually no escape from such an allergy in this day and age. Eeewww!

I don't entirely dismiss such claims anymore - as I did for most of my life - mainly because static electricity has become a very large annoyance in recent years. I have personally destroyed a Motorola 6412 Cable Box/DVR, two DVD Players (a Panasonic & a Sanyo, and a Panasonic Home Theater receiver. What always used to be a tiny blue spark and a little snapping sound has become a miniature blue lightning bolt of a half inch to an inch with a much louder crack. We moved from a very cold climate to Florida and lived there for 8 years - hot, humid, and NO static electricity. But ever since we moved back up north I have been frying electronic devices ever since!

None of that really means much of anything. But before that I would have routinely dismissed any such claims about static electricity as laughable.  Go figure...

Jim