Santa Fe group allergic to RF wants WiFi banned

We've been hearing for years of that certain elusive breed of human that is extra-sensitive to certain radio frequencies and electromagnetic fields, so it was only a time before those wire-tethered folks took shot across our wireless-loving bow. According to a local NBC news affiliate, Sante Fe resident Arthur Firstenberg (not pictured right) has organized a group of electro-sensitive citizens to rally against WiFi and cellphone use in public space, claiming it violates the Americans with Disabilities Act. No doubt it is indeed a sticky situation, but we're pretty sure Firstenberg and co are going to have to do a little better than claiming to "get chest pain and it doesn't go away right away" if they really expect an entire city (or country) to cease using wireless communications.

[Via Fark]

[Derek @ May 24th 2008 12:29AM]

So, they get a slight pain? And they want the world to just stop using necessary wireless standards due to their "slight pain"?

[Aguiluz @ May 24th 2008 1:17AM]

I call it placebo effect. Let's "pretend" to move them into a wifi-free place. Tell them that there is no wifi signals there and they will stay for a week while they organize everything. In reality, there's a few hidden APs dotted around the hotel. When they say "I'm doing better!" then we have the placebo effect.

I'm pretty sure their minds are over matter, or whatever way you say it.

[DarkLight @ May 24th 2008 2:16AM]

Guess it's time to jump in...

I am sensitive to wireless. No pain in here - not even "slightly" - but I can clearly feel when my laptop or my PDA is doing intense wireless activity (I don't have a cellphone).... Of course you don't feel everything, you only feel when you're in the direct path of the waves

Don't get me wrong, I'm a proud user of a 400mW 802.11g (but ready to go N, just waiting for a cheap N router) network, but I'm just saying that if you think all that energy passing THROUGH you is going without any effect on you, you're an idiot... No matter how much you love wireless - there IS a possibility that it is doing nasty things to your health

[sirsilencedogood @ May 24th 2008 2:18AM]

Or give them an antacid... that's what I do for chest pain that "doesn't go away" :-)

[Stem $ell @ May 24th 2008 2:31AM]

They're gonna absolutely hate my new 100 mega-electron volt cyclotron based LinkSys wireless router!

[r3loaded @ May 24th 2008 2:50AM]

In other news, it has been shown that standing in the sun for 30 minutes does much more damage than any man-made radio source. Researchers recommend people that they never go outside if it is sunny.......

[Twitchy @ May 24th 2008 2:51AM]

I'm sure that the Amish have a few beds spare...

[miron @ May 24th 2008 3:40AM]

DarkLight, that... I don't think that would work, considering how radio waves actually work. It wouldn't make a difference whether or not you were in the path or not, if both sources are the same distance, you're getting the same energy. Actually, if the laptop is between you and the router, I think you'd be getting more energy on the same side, so you'd feel it more. But that doesn't seem to be what's happening, as far as you say.

[453 @ May 24th 2008 4:28AM]

Aguiluz: they've already done loads of studies like that. Go to pubmed.com, type "Mobile" and "Phone" into the search and pretty much every relevant hit ends with the conclusion "No significant correlation".

There was a study where they put a bunch of people in a room that excluded mobile phone radiation from outside, and plonked a mobile phone mast in the middle. The people complained of all sorts the whole way through. The experimenters failed to mention that they only switched it on halfway through.

Oops.

[Garst @ May 24th 2008 5:09AM]

Instead of peacefully displacing them, I say we let the angry pitchfork yielding villagers chase them from villages by tying wireless devices to the end of the pitchforks. Nothing beats mob mentality.

[DarkLight @ May 24th 2008 5:15AM]

miron: Radio waves are (in ideal conditions - read: not rly) fully directional when going to a tuned receiver... (tuned to the same exact frequency, that is).... Otherwise using such low powers (in the mW range) over such big distances wouldn't be possible

[treetrunk @ May 24th 2008 10:04AM]

@Darklight:

Radio waves are not directional. The gain of an antenna describes how directional it is relative to an isotropic radiator - even a high gain "directional" antenna like a TV Yagi omits some power in other directions.

Wi-fi and cellphone antennas are omnidirectional, otherwise you'd have to point your phone/laptop towards the base station for it to work! Obviously, they won't be perfectly isotropic in practice, and multi-path effects may lead to high/low signal areas due to interference, however, the wavelength of wifi signals is around 12.5cm (much smaller than you!), so you couldn't possibly be "out of the path" when near a source.

The low powers are made possible by clever encoding and code concatenation, which allows a decent bitrate despite the very low SNR.

[Mike10010100 @ May 24th 2008 10:07AM]

Wow. This is "knowledge is power" backfiring.

(Just a thought experiment, don't beat me up.)
If people (at least the hypochondriacs) didn't know how wireless things worked, and thought they worked by magic, they wouldn't be afraid that it would cause health problems. But now that everyone knows that it works by "WAVES THAT ARE INVISIBLE PASSING RIGHT THROUGH YOUR BODY!", they instantly feel violated because they are positive that not only do they feel these intangible waves, but they believe that they are causing them pain and bringing diseases.

Can they feel the Earth's magnetic field? What about when they are around their kitchen magnets? Do they feel that too? Does visible light hurt them?

Or better yet (as some of those parts of the electromagnetic spectrum might be too weak or not a small enough wavelength), does the infra red beams of light being emitted by their remote controls hurt them?

Whether they like it or not, this is just another part of living in todays time. To quote from a BBC article,

"Wi-fi is a technique using very low intensity radio waves. Whilst similar in wavelength to domestic microwave radiation, the intensity of wi-fi radiation is 100,000 times less than that of a domestic microwave oven.

"Furthermore, tissue can only be effectively heated by a wavelength that is closely matched to the absorption, and there are strict guidelines for ensuring such absorption peaks are avoided."

Science, not belief, is the truth.

[GTMoogle @ May 24th 2008 10:27AM]

DarkLight, err, no, the receiver has nothing to do with the direction of the signal.

The transmitter is in essence a light bulb. Instead of visible light through black-body radiation, the transmitting antenna is shining much much larger waves. Like a flashlight, you can direct the beam SOMEWHAT, but the anteanna will have an obvious large flat reflector surface like a satellite dish. A stick antenna pretty much has to be omni-directional from what I understand (I'm not an electrical engineer).

Now, the best receiver is the exact size of the wavelength. Half or quarter size will pick it up, but less well. WiFi is 2.4 GHz, which is a wavelength of 12.5 cm. The body doesn't have any conductive structures that long that could be affected by radio waves. You are essentially 99% transparent to a wifi signal. If you had huge eyes that could see that band, people would show up as a barely present smog.

FYI, you say your wifi is 0.4 watt. That's 0.4 joule per second, or 0.092 °C per gram of water per second. So if you stuck the antenna in your mouth, the average 3.6 kg human head would experience a total heating of about 0.000026 degrees per second if it were a perfect antenna. And you're not even getting a hundredth of THAT! Does this seem silly yet? What happened to "all that energy"? It's just not there.

So yes, it is in fact reasonable to believe that wifi has essentially no effect on the body. Get a friend to set up a double blind test, I'd put money on finding out it's all in your mind.

[b.essiambre @ May 24th 2008 11:39AM]

Hey all,

Don't dismiss things too fast. We all have mechanism that continuously repairs our DNA. DNA is constantly being damaged by all kinds of things including some forms of radiation. There are known conditions where the repair mechanisms don't work well and a person can become sensitive to things like radiations. Apparently some of these conditions are diagnosed when a person goes for an X-ray and it results in blistering and burning of their flesh! For most people the radiation damage would be almost instantly repaired so that they wouldn't notice the effect if X-rays it but for others it isn't the case. I'm not saying that wireless communication are a problem but physically and biologically it isn't impossible.

See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_repair#Medicine_and_DNA_repair_modulation

[treetrunk @ May 24th 2008 3:06PM]

@b.

The difference is x-rays are ionising radiation, radio waves aren't.

[Morgan @ May 25th 2008 2:50AM]

@DarkLight:

I'm not sure why you got voted down so badly, personally I'm inclined to believe you. I had a friend growing up who would distort any television or radio as he walked by, to the point of creating white noise until he was a few feet from the device. I don't see why a similar effect on a human body wouldn't be true; just as some people are more sensitive to sunlight than others, some people surely can "feel" a difference when near a broadcasting antenna.

All that being said, for the life of me I'll never understand why some folks out there have the mentality that the needs of the very few outweigh the needs of EVERYONE else. Instead of seeking a ban on all public wireless communication, which would have vast negative effects on society, why not try to come up with a way to coexist comfortably with the radiation? Hell, I'm allergic to cigarette smoke but I'll gladly leave the room rather than try to tell someone they don't have the right to smoke. It's simply not my place to force the masses to conform to my comfort levels.

[Zorque @ May 24th 2008 12:30AM]

Yeah, this'll go through. I wish Wi-Fi really was hazardous and would kill this moron.

[J00gedy @ May 24th 2008 12:52AM]

Yes because someone speaking out against something that causes harm (Even a little) should be punishable by death.

Quick thinking there buddy.

[Kurian @ May 24th 2008 2:15AM]

Yes, punishable by death. His own placebo death.

[Zorque @ May 24th 2008 2:34AM]

I'm not saying he should be punished with death, I'm saying he should die on his own... due to his wi-fi "allergy" for being such a dumbass. There's a slight semantic difference there.

On a serious note, his slight chest pains aren't going to get our entire multi-trillion-dollar cellphone/wi-fi infrastructure shut down and he's stupid for even thinking him and his group are going to accomplish it.

[Jason Talley @ May 24th 2008 12:32AM]

unless it actually killed someone, I never see this going into effect, and even then I think it would be extremely hard to push. Especially in areas as big as san fran, there is to much money to be had from this.

[NG @ May 24th 2008 9:02AM]

The air he's breathing out is killing me too, i'll go sue him

[Flashpoint @ May 24th 2008 12:33AM]

that's quite simply the worst looking redneck, Bush/McCain supporter I've seen.

I hope my 802.11n KILLS HIM DEAD.

[Aguiluz @ May 24th 2008 1:21AM]

Say that to my two modded routers rocking the airwaves at 80 mW per.

That would drive him nuts.

[Wwhat @ May 24th 2008 6:00AM]

The picture is NOT the guy as is stated, it's just a fun picture, notice the tin-foil-hat eh.

[aardvark sandwich @ May 24th 2008 10:11AM]

A redneck is automatically a republican? I bet you think all rednecks are prejudiced too. Pfft.

[ugg.tryptophan @ May 27th 2008 11:54PM]

he looks like he drives a prius to me

[DESTOS @ May 24th 2008 12:35AM]

And ban the cats, and ban the flowers, and ban the gadget blogs, and ban all the shellfish!

If we start banning everything 0.5% of the population is allergic to, or even has a problem with, what are we left with?

[Lazerface @ May 24th 2008 12:53AM]

the stone age?

[gfar @ May 24th 2008 12:59AM]

fanbois.

[AC @ May 24th 2008 1:00AM]

I'm allergic to stones.

[BobTurbo @ May 24th 2008 1:12AM]

I wish they would ban cats.

[ethana2 @ May 24th 2008 1:27AM]

a lack of reproductive organs for one

[gad get @ May 24th 2008 1:39AM]

Glass sculptures and empty kleenex boxes.

[lawyer bird @ May 24th 2008 3:08AM]

Amen about the cats.

Whenever you hear a story about a dead dog, it's like awww Old Yeller. When it's a cat, who cares? It's just a damn cat. They smell terrible, and the more you have, the stench grows exponentially.

[Blaktornado @ May 24th 2008 10:31AM]

I have a problem with other humans. They make me sad. Can the government please ban them?

[Grant @ May 24th 2008 1:55PM]

lolcats make me vomit, does that count?

[Reader @ May 26th 2008 9:01PM]

Uhm have you had a dog and a cat? Dogs if they're not washed often start to smell like, well, dog. Their breath often smell pretty bad too. Cats almost never smell like anything unless you stick your nose against them, which still only smells like dust at worse. I love both of them personally, but cats are definitely not the bad smelling ones.

[Reid @ May 24th 2008 12:39AM]

Worst thing about being a geek is being associated with those annoying idiots who whine and moan about every little thing bothering them (OMG florescent lights, OMG I can't deal with background noise, OMG I'm such a sensitive little flower). They're always special and nothing is ever their fault but they are the center of the universe.

Get over yourselves.

[fischju @ May 24th 2008 12:42AM]

According to actual science and Ghost Hunters (TAPS) high EM (like from a leaking electrical box) can cause a feeling of paranoia.

Also according to science that when you put people that are "sensitive" to wifi in a faraday cage with a router, they can't tell when it is on or off.

I once again call BS

[A.C.E.R. @ May 24th 2008 2:19AM]

Damn those leaky electrical boxes! They get me every time.

[DESTOS @ May 24th 2008 11:04AM]

Last week mine leaked all over my desk, that wasn't a fun clean up.

[atticus @ May 24th 2008 12:45AM]

people like this have an interesting way of "disappearing".

[gad get @ May 24th 2008 1:40AM]

Are you saying they're g-g-g-ghosts?!

[sirsilencedogood @ May 24th 2008 2:22AM]

No way! They're allergic to ghosts... Ban on dieing in public places anyone?

[gad get @ May 24th 2008 5:21AM]

@ sirsilencedogood

I'd go for that. I find it rather disturbing when I witness someone dying.

[ryan @ May 24th 2008 12:49AM]

considering wi-fi sensitivity isn't an officially recognized..uh..condition, I highly doubt that these people will have any success, but then again we are talking politics here so you never know.

[Gregory Kimball @ May 24th 2008 12:49AM]

Is there any credible evidence that people can be affected by RF? I think it's much more likely that these people have convinced themselves that WiFi is the cause of unrelated health problems:

"Hey, I've been having some powerful chest pains for months now."

"You hear about dem wireless signal transmitter dealies dey got set up now?"

"No joke? Maybe they're the cause of these health issues I'm now facing. Y'know, instead of aging, disease, or poor diet."

"Yeah, dat der makes a good lot of sense. Let's get dat commie wifi stuff banned for good!"

So does anybody else picture these anti-RF guys/gals as rednecks?

[johnny @ May 24th 2008 8:35AM]

actually, they're Californian activists...

...therefore I can't help but imagine that the plaintiffs are right wing progressive transgendered black lesbian midget vegans, and this lawsuit is part of their master plan of causing "Babylon to fall" ..

(sorry, I lived in Berkeley for some years. you get a bit cynical.)