That’s what you get for catering to pseudoscience – more pseudoscience.

[progressoid]

A Los Angeles middle school has turned WiFi off in a classroom to accommodate a teacher, Anura Lawson, who believes she has electromagnetic sensitivity. Now Lawson is petitioning to have WiFi turned off in every classroom in California. That’s what you get for catering to pseudoscience – more pseudoscience.

Electromagnetic (EM) sensitivity is a controversial disorder; well, controversial in that the scientific community has investigated it and concluded that it does not exist, but some individuals still believe they have it. Like many spurious disorders, the symptoms are mostly non-specific. Lawson claims she experienced, “dizziness, migraines, and heart palpitations,” while her daughter claims that her “brain was running slower.”

...

The evidence is very consistent and shows that people who self-identify as having IEI-EMF will get symptoms when they think they are being exposed to EMF, but when blinded cannot tell if they are or are not being exposed. This fits my general rule of thumb – if a phenomenon disappears under proper blinding, then it likely does not exist.

The scientific community has performed due diligence here and adequately studied the question with a clear result and solid consensus: true electromagnetic sensitivity does not exist. People who believe they have EMF sensitivity should be counseled that this is the case. Journalists reporting on this phenomenon should also clearly convey this fact.

...http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/fight-over-wifi-in-public-schools/

[DetlefK]

1. Metal can block electromagnetic radiation. For example tin. Spread out as foil. Worn on the head.

[progressoid]

3. Sadly, her kids are going to need some too.

[Archae]

2. What they should do is an experiment, not turn off the WiFi and tell her they did.

Even money her "symptoms" would disappear as soon as she was told the WiFi was shut off.

[DetlefK]

4. She would just let her Smartphone search for a WiFi-connection.

I still think the tinfoil-hat solution is best. It only costs a few cents and is way more convenient for the vast majority of people.

[SheilaT]

5. Here in Santa Fe we've been dealing for several years with an idiot

who claims that sensitivity, and has tried to sue a neighbor because she uses a cell phone. Unfortunately, a local judge has allowed the suits to proceed.

Here's a link to a recent NYTimes article about this: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/24/science/when-science-is-lost-in-a-legal-maze.html

[progressoid]

6. Ugh, that's depressing.

Hopefully the suit will end in failure.

[SheilaT]

7. His harassment of his neighbor is very depressing.

Plus, he's gotten away with not having to pay any legal costs.

These claims also show an amazing lack of understanding of how these electromagnetic waves are all around us, all the time. Those with the supposed sensitivity just don't show the kind of symptomology that would truly be there if it were real. In the same way, supposed multiple chemical sensitivity is largely a figment of the imagination.

Unfortunately, the power of suggestion can never be underestimated.

The placebo effect is so strong, that unless a new medication or treatment is at least 30% better than the placebo, it's probably not actually better. So any time someone claims that something (food, medicine, whatever) is 20% better than the old way, don't even bother.

[LeftishBrit]

8. If the daughter's 'brain was running slower' that may be caused by the rubbish it was having to

absorb from Mother Dear.

[Orrex]

9. Honestly I'm amazed that we don't see more of this at DU

With the abundance of people who claim hypersensitivity to all manner of mundane stimuli, I can't believe that EM sensitivity doesn't already have its own DU group.