Can Anyone be Allergic to WiFi?
July 28, 2009 by Rico Mossesgeld
Filed under Ramblings of a Gadget Geek, Wireless
So you may have heard about the man who’s apparently allergic to WiFi. Steve Miller has to live in a house with 18-inch thick walls, and can’t just go anywhere, as he has to avoid the “electrosmog” that aggravates his claimed “electromagnetic hypersensitivity” and characterizes his allergy to WiFi. The increasing number of WiFi hotspots definitely doesn’t help his case.
On the other hand, the Telegraph’s Ian Douglas claims that WiFi-allergy is impossible, and that something else is causing Steve Miller’s reaction. Douglas explains that WiFi operates on a frequency similar to radio waves and mobile phone signals, and that hotspots transmit with much less power than a cellular network tower. More so, radio, cell signals, and WiFi are electromagnetic—just like light.
Given these similarities, Douglas asserts, Steve Miller would have trouble literally everywhere, since radios, mobile phones, not to mention light, are in operation everywhere.
What do you think? Personally, as a gadget geek I’m inclined to believer Douglas’ side. He’s not as dismissive as most electromagnetically-induced biochemical reaction skeptics are, as he goes beyond debunking a claimed condition by proposing that Mr. Miller could actually be suffering from agoraphobia.
Ridiculous. Publicity stunt. He’d not be able to go anywhere! Cordless phones, baby monitors, garage door openers, etc use of unlicensed 2.4GHz is pervasive.
The article however IS incorrect in stating that cell phones use the same frequencies as wifi. Most use 800 and 900 MHz bands, or 1.8 to as high as 2.1 GHz, but nobody’s cell phone networks radios use the 2.4 or 5.8 GHz unlicensed bands.
Exactly! Thanks for clarifying the frequency stuff too, I kinda forgot all those “800/900/1800/1900/2100″ snippets I always see on cell phone specs.
There has already been a lot of media coverage on WiFi across all the broadsheets and tabloids in the last few years.
Last year WiFi was removed from Paris libraries after librarians complained of the same symptoms of migraines, dizziness, etc. after it had been installed. There are 1000’s of studies showing adverse effects from this radiation such as double strand DNA breaks in rats. (2.45 GHz Lai and Singh 1996)
The radiation intensity is trillions of times higher than the natural microwave background levels. It was never tested for safety before being used in telecoms from the 1990’s onwards.
http://www.mastsanity.org/index.php?option=com_...
WiFi- A warning signal
http://www.wifiinschools.org.uk/8.html
David Carpenter, MD, Director of the Institute for Health and the Environment, School of Public Health, University of Albany, New York, has said
‘Based on the existing science, many public health experts believe it is possible we will face an epidemic of cancers in the future resulting from uncontrolled use of cell phones and increased population exposure to Wi-Fi and other wireless devices. Thus it is important that all of us, and especially children, restrict our use of cell phones, limit exposure to background levels of Wi-Fi, and that government and industry discover ways in which to allow use of wireless devices without such elevated risk of serious disease. We need to educate decision-makers that ‘business as usual’ is unacceptable. The importance of this public health issue can not be underestimated’.
People can be sensitive to Electromagnetic forces, I personally find returning to the city after an extended period of time camping that for a couple weeks I must get used to the shit flying around everywhere in the city; it feels like ants crawling under your skin, and can lead to irritability, the humans literally becomes a giant irate nerve from too much stimulation.
Like frogs in boiling water you sit, and swear there is nothing funny feeling happening… How often are you not completely immersed in your limited field of frequencies?
Go de-static yourself in the wilderness for a couple weeks and see what happens when you come back!
Hmmm, I’ll probably take your advice. Even at my favorite beach hotspots abound!
You people just don’t get it. If the power output of a microwave transmitting source was as powerful as it is when the allergy subject was within 2 or 3 feet away, then yes, they wouldn’t be able to go anywhere without being affected.
However, as the strength reduces significantly the futher away one happens to be from the source, then it means that people like me are only affected if we’re close to or touching the transmitting device.
I really wish some of you could go through what I do if I’m stupid enough to get very close to WiFi, DECTs, and mobile phones.
BTW – ref Ian’s original DT blog. I’ve solved my problem of using a laptop around the house without having to use it wirelessly.
I purchased one of those ethernet plug extenders – where it uses the home’s electrical wiring circuit to send the broadband signal around the house.
It works fantastically, and as yet I’m not able to detect any microwave effects.
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