New Mexico group lobbies to ban Wi-Fi in public buildings

A group of "electro-sensitive" Santa Fe residents has asked the city government to ban Wi-Fi from public buildings. The group's members attribute a range of symptoms, such as chest pains and headaches, to the electric fields produced by Wi-Fi routers and cell phones.

The citizens claim that Wi-Fi networks in libraries and other civic buildings constitute discrimination as defined in the Americans with Disabilities Act. The city attorney is looking into the matter and expects to make a legal recommendation by the end of the month.

This isn't the first report of a so-called "gadget allergy." We mused on the subject about a year ago, when the Daily Mail ran a story about a woman who experienced a severe allergic reaction to a broad range of electromagnetic fields. And even earlier, scientists at the University of Essex found sufficient numbers of people claiming to suffer from "electromagnetic hypersensitivity" (EHS) to launch a scientific study of the matter.

It's worth noting that the World Health Organization currently doesn't give much credit to EHS claims: "Well controlled and conducted double-blind studies have shown that symptoms were not correlated with EMF exposure." Judging from the comments on the original news story, the average citizen doesn't, either.

[ironman5000]

i hope to god they dont enact the ban. They shouldnt bend over backwards for .01% of the population.


haha, no public wifi...ya ok...lets go back to 1993. dumb *****

[castrensis]

Well, the point isn't that we shouldn't make reasonable accommodations for people who have legitimate medical conditions. What the WHO is telling us is that when similar luddites were put in a room and exposed to EMFs there was not a correlation between exposure to EMFs and manifestation of symptoms. The medical establishment calls it a "psychosomatic" illness. Most grounded folks call it what it is: faking it.

[zgreenwell]

Hypochondriacs.

[b_baggins]

this is bogus. If these people were so allergic, they'd have been getting sick every time their cordless phone rings.

[bLaCkAnGeL07]

Antigens that enter the body through main portals of entry (i.e. nose, mouth, eyes) cause allergies. This is a couple of hypochondriacs associating their health problems (probably something minor nonetheless) with something they don't use or know anything about obviously. This claim is ridiculous and these people should be educated.

[Raymond Lui]

Ridiculous

There GSM, CDMA signals all over the place, DTV broadcast, countless of others going all over the place

And ban Wi-Fi?

Well, how about this,
the government could create an area for them in Alaska or Nevada that's free of EMFs .
No TV Broadcast, no Cellphone Coverage.
Now they can have a good sleep then. Right?

[Composer_1777]

Instead of trying to ban wi-fi maybe these people and others should work on getting our government back into the hands of the people and help stop communist laws from passing rather than waste time and money on something so absurd, so rediculous, so unbelievably stupid that it is beyond comprehension. This will never pass because i'm sure the majority of people in Santa fe will be outraged.

[i_am_still_wade]

Remind me again how a 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi device causes people to feel sick and yet how no other wireless radio wave does? I would like to do a blind study on these people. Put them in several rooms, don't tell them which has Wi-Fi and which doesn't, and see how many times they get it right. You have to do it many times to eliminate randomness.

I think what they really are allergic to the odors of people in confined spaces. If someone wears perfume or cologne or burns incense, I sneeze a lot and will eventually get a headache. So, maybe I should ask Santa Fe to ban perfume and cologne based on the ADA.

[Lemon5]

I think these people are just being stupid now. I mean come on, does your microwave screw with you? Do radio waves screw with you? Cell phones have been around for awhile now, do they screw with you? I am saying these people are idiots for one thing. Another thing is that the next thing they are going to do is sue someone for some insane amount of money. It is a very sad cycle that always seems to happen in the US. It really needs to stop.

[derrp]

I'm sorry the needs of the 99.999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% of people outweigh the 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001%
of people that have this condition, if they do, (Probably just nuts and imagining the ch1t, but for the 1 (one) person in billions who legitimately (still doubt it , anything is possible?
) I say . LEAVE.. the US needs to build a wireless infrastructure and it's happening so go to some remote island, or stop your b1tching, or live in a Faraday cage? I dunno but DON"T STOP WIRELESS FOR MILLIONS because maybe 1 person who i suspect is just mental is saying they have health effects ... ridiculous ... that 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000001%
is not worth it to our: economy, technology infrastructure etc, already it's hard to compete with the world without theses whiner's/ :-/