Wi-Fi Sickness Sweeps the Nation

RUSH: You ready for this one? This was the lead story, it still is the lead story at the Drudge Report. CBS News New York, Eyeball News 2. "Woman Says Her Wi-Fi Connection Is Making Her Sick." Now, this is one of those stories, see the headline, you might read the first paragraph. And you think, okay, here comes another kook. She may be, probably is, but that doesn't mean that this story's gonna go away and die. I mean, look where you cannot smoke now if you're a smoker because people claiming to be 300 feet away from you can smell it when they are indoors.

So if you have some Looney Tune coming along here claiming that Wi-Fi is making her sick, and if she lives in an apartment complex, don't be surprised if she makes a move someday to have Wi-Fi disconnected in her building because she shouldn't have to endure being made sick. Here are the details.

"From using cell phones and computers to watching movies online, wireless technology has made life easier. But now, some say there is a serious downside." No matter how good we make it, no matter how much progress there is, technological or otherwise, no matter how much better our standard of living gets, there's always gonna be a malcontent that the media finds that wants to wipe it out.

"As CBS2’s Maurice Dubois --" I remember Maurice when I lived in New York. He was a cub reporter on weekends. I guess he's now running the stable. "As CBS2’s Maurice Dubois explained, there are those who claim that exposure to wi-fi is making people sick, and some people don’t even know it."

How does this become news? One person. How did Maurice DuBois find this wacko? Seriously, you've got one person who has made a headline on the Drudge Report, one person has become a national news story: Wi-fi is making her sick. Suzanne Hoyt is this woman's name, and she says the symptoms are "brain fog. That's my worst problem. A brain fog."

Suzanne Hoyt said that "nothing prepared her for the rush of symptoms that she suddenly developed. 'Headaches, perspiration, pain in my jaws and my heart. It’s like physical expansion of the heart,' she said. Hoyt said it all started when she installed wi-fi throughout her apartment. 'I started to be very uncomfortable, and I didn’t know what it was,' she said. With wi-fi everywhere, from parks to restaurants and taxis it turns out Hoyt is not alone."

Okay. Now we learn she's not alone. "It was like a deep burning sensation in my face, in my nose, my jaw, it was like a deep burning sensation," she said. Yeah, that's what it was. It's like a deep burning sensation out there, and it has a name. "It's called Wi-Fi sensitivity, and doctors say it's a very real condition with serious consequences," even though we are just hearing about it. What "doctors say it's a very real condition with serious consequences"?

Well, the doctor quoted here is an environmental science doctor. He's "an environmental scientist and expert on Wi-Fi's effects said the scientific link between Wi-Fi and health is clearly emerging." His name is Dr. David Carpenter, an "environmental scientist," which, to me, disqualifies him immediately. Environmental scientist just means he's a paid-for toady of the left, and he's out pushing climate change -- and to push climate change, you have to be critical of progress.

So Dr. David Carpenter has found (somehow) Suzanne Hoyt, and together we have a new national plague that we're only now learning about: Wi-Fi sensitivity. He's "an environmental scientist and expert on Wi-Fi's effects." He says, "There is a body of evidence that is strong. It's not 100% understood..." Just like when climate change first started. "We can't prove it! We can't prove it! But if we're right, we've only got 20 years to save the planet." That's what they said in 1982.

"We can't prove it, but if we're right, we've only got 20 years. So we can't wait!" Well, this guy's "an environmental scientist and expert on Wi-Fi's effects." He says, "'There is a body of evidence that is strong. It's not 100% understood, but it's strong evidence that this is a real syndrome that causes real harm to real people.' Dr. Carpenter said it's a significant problem for about 5% of the population, many of them have no idea that Wi-Fi is to blame."

We have all of this suffering going on out there -- heart expansion, burning jaws, burning nose, burning face, burning teeth, deep burning sensation -- and everybody who has it is clueless! They do not know it is their Wi-Fi router that's causing it. "They walk around feeling ill and they don't know what to do about it," said the environmental scientist who's the expert on Wi-Fi sickness. However, here at the end of the story it says this:

"Other doctors counter that the evidence connecting Wi-Fi to illness just isn't there. It's a psychological phenomenon,' neuropsychologist Dr. William Barr said."

Oh, an actual brain doctor! Oh, the actual doctor says it's a psychological phenomenon. The environmental sciences doctor claims that it's a malady that's affecting 5% of the population, and they don't know it.

Ladies and gentlemen, do you know...? Have you ever stopped to think of the radio waves bombarding you at all hours, constantly, that you cannot see? Have you ever stopped to think of it? You've got... I can't name them all. Every AM radio station where you live, that station's signal is passing right through you. It's butting up against your brain, it's getting into your science cavities, it's getting into your sexual organs!

All of those weather satellites, if your phone can pick up a satellite signal or something, you are in the middle of them, too. The only reason you can't pick out what's in these radio waves is your brain doesn't have a frequency response capable of translating the data in those waves to information that you can understand and hear. That's why you need a radio to hear what's on AM waves. That's why you need a radio to understand what's on FM waves.

It's all different. It's the reason why there's different signal noise ratios and one sounds better than the other, and it's the reason why AM goes gangbusters at night because the signal comes off the bottom of the tower; it's much more conductive to the ground. FM, high frequency, there is no ground conductivity. It takes power to get an FM signal 30 miles. But if your radio can pick it up, you're being bombarded by it.

Television stations? If you're in a town with multiple TV stations, every one of those signals is bombarding your precious bodily fluids with its own waves! The police? Every radio in your town, whatever the frequency spectrum, you are being bombarded by waves. You're being bombarded by the Bluetooth in your phone, by the Bluetooth in your iPad, by the Bluetooth in your car, by the Wi-Fi in your home. By all of it.

Now out of all of that here comes an environmental scientist who claims of all of these radio waves, it's the Wi-Fi waves that are making people sick. How in the world can they possibly...? They can't. This is just more of the same gobbledygook, crisis-creating and panic-mongering that we get every day, every week from our dear friends on the left. And I haven't even gotten close to describe all of the different radio waves that are bombarding us thousands of times a day, constantly.

RUSH: I did a little research here, folks, on this environmental scientist who claims to be an expert in the damage Wi-Fi is inflicting on people. It turns out that this guy, Carpenter? "His research includes studies on the adverse effects of hydraulic fracturing," i.e., fracking. So he's anti-fracking, farmed salmon, and electromagnetic fields. "He has said that up to 15% of cases of childhood cancer might be caused by exposure to magnetic fields from power lines."

He's obviously pro-solar and pro-wind and all of that, and in order to advance his other work... This is classic. This is exactly what they do, folks. This is a great lesson for you to learn about how the left does things. They've got an issue that's in trouble, global warming. It's at the bottom of everybody's list of things they care about. It has long since been a panic. It isn't getting warmer. Every prediction they've made that would happen by now, isn't happening.

They're in such bad shape, Obama has to chastise the Coast Guard graduating class that they're derelict in their duty if that do not fight climate change, while ISIS has taken over in the Middle East! This is how desperate they are. So they've been unable -- despite all of these efforts they've made over 25 or 30 years they've been unable -- to make climate change and global warming the number one issue that they want people thinking about. That equals growth of government and higher taxes.

So the way they try to get you concerned about it is to invent an illness. Nobody wants to be sick, do they? They invent a new illness. Yeeees! They invent a new illness, and it's got symptoms that you could have any day of the week, and it's blamed on what? Your Wi-Fi! Wi-Fi equals progress and high-tech. This is how they try to "raise consciousness" when all their other lies have not worked, and that's exactly what's going on here.

RUSH: Interestingly, I got some e-mails during the break, "What do you mean we're all being bombarded with radio waves?" You are. We all are. I mean, it's indescribable how many. I mean, a police car goes driving by; they receive radio waves. They've got two-way communication going, walkie-talkies, radios in the car. If their equipment can receive the signal from headquarters, it's hitting you. Every radio station in town, every TV station in town, every power station, every electricity pole.

You've got so many radio frequency waves bombarding you, you can't begin to count them. The only reason you can't hear radio waves is because your brain doesn't have the equipment in it to translate what's on the waves. FM frequency modulation means you modulate the carrier with frequency, which does not have nearly the power range. AM's radio's amplitude modulation, meaning you modulate the carrier off the tower with voltage. That's what amplitude is, voltage. The higher you go frequency-wise...

Every signal from radio tower has a sky wave and a ground wave. The ground wave is what your radio hears and what's bombarding you, because radio is line of sight. It does not follow the curvature of the earth except at night, and it doesn't really do that. It bounces off the ionosphere at night. That's why you can pick up San Francisco and Chicago in New York or St. Louis at night, and you can't in the daytime. The ionosphere at night is such that AM signals will bounce off.

It doesn't really follow the curvature of the earth. No signal does. It's all line of sight. The higher the frequency, the less the ground wave. FM is high enough frequency that there's very little ground wave at all. That's why a building getting in your way will interrupt your FM signal and an AM signal will go right through the building. It's simply because the sky wave is not nearly as penetrating and powerful 'cause it's going straight up for the most part, where the ground wave is actually on the ground.

The lower AM frequency... You can have a 5,000-watt radio station at 1550 and it will only go on 30 miles perform. A 5,000 watt station at 630 on the AM dial will go 130 miles. Same transmitter, same everything. But if you're in the midst of it, these signals are all hitting you, and they've been hitting you your whole life. They were hitting you when you were in the womb. Your cell phone is emitting radio waves and receiving them like you can't believe

They've tried to convince you that your cell phone is causing brain cancer. The way the left works on this is they've got their cause -- in this case, global warming. You don't believe it. The vast majority of the American people are not believing it because the claims they've made are not coming true. It isn't getting warmer! There aren't more and more destructive, violent hurricanes. They're fewer and fewer. Everything they predicted is not happening. There's more ice in the Antarctic, the South Pole.

There's more ice at the North Pole. It isn't happening! They can't give up, though. It's too many people's way of life. It's their living. They depend on grants. Besides, it's a liberal cause celebre. It's how you get to big government, how you raise taxes, how you guilt people into supporting all that by convincing them they're responsible for destroying the climate. So you get 'em driving stupid little cars nobody would otherwise drive and doing other things in their lives they wouldn't otherwise do.

You convince 'em that that is penance for all the destruction that they've done, and then you get 'em to go along, vote Democrat, raise taxes, and that's how they pay the price for the damage they've done. And then they join your army and start ripping other people. And your kids watch all this crap on TV and start blaming you for destroying the planet and killing the polar bears! Well, if none of that's working -- and it isn't now.

As evidenced by the fact that Obama has to go the Coast Guard Academy graduation and tell them -- these graduating cadets at the Coast Guard -- that their number one enemy is climate change, and if they don't fight it, they're derelict in their duty. That's patently absurd. But they have to save the issue. So along comes this Carpenter fellow, who is a research specialist in environmental science, and out of the blue he finds a woman who's got every symptom you have during the day.

Everybody feels like they're on fire once a day, especially a pregnant woman. Everybody feels they have pain, aches in their joints. Nobody is perfectly feeling great 100% of the time. So you find somebody who's got some maladies and blame it on their Wi-Fi. What the left does is take something that is universally popular, universally necessary -- represents progress and forward advancement -- and you attack it, and you blame it for people's sicknesses and their illnesses and so forth.

You claim that all of this is somehow related to climate change or global warming. This is how you recruit believers for your cause, and it's common. It's a common practice. It's what the left has always done. In fact, do any of you watch the TV show Better Call Saul? It was the spin-off of Breaking Bad. The lawyer in Breaking Bad, Saul Goodman, the shyster lawyer who worked with the meth king and so forth? Well, they've given him a series, and the first season is over with.

It starts way back before the period of time of Breaking Bad, before Saul Goodman was Saul Goodman. He was Jimmy McGill from Chicago who moved to Albuquerque 'cause he's a shyster, and he's starting all over, and he's got a brother who is a respected lawyer in a very respected firm in Sante Fe. It turns out brother of his is an absolute fruitcake nutcase wacko, and they portray him that way. This guy is afraid of electromagnetic waves. He will not turn on a light in his house.

He's quit the law firm. He runs around with lamps, kerosene lamps in his house. He will not go outside. He will not let anybody in his house with their cell phone. They have to put their cell phone and their car keys (if they're digital and electronic) in his mailbox. If he does go outside, he puts on this cape made of tinfoil from head to toe that rejects all of the electromagnetic waves. Now, that is exactly what we're talking about, except in that show they did the right thing and made a joke of somebody who believes this.

This guy was scared to death of all the radio waves hitting him and claiming it was making him sick and giving him incurable diseases. They correctly made a joke out of it and identified it for what it is. It's a psychological disorder. Except now we have a respected earth sciences or environmental sciences doctor claiming now that Wi-Fi is responsible for 5% of the population having these symptoms -- and look, it makes the number one story on Drudge.

That means a lot of people are gonna click on it, and the little seed is going to be planted in there that Wi-Fi could make you sick. That's all the left needs, and they're off to the races, taking that one little bit of information that's fraudulent, not even anywhere close to true. And everybody's health is the most important thing to them. So just create all kinds of doubt and crisis about progress.

And it serves the left's purpose of backing up and getting rid of progress and getting back to things that did not cause global warming. "A more simpler life," all this cockamamie BS that they advocate. They never take a day off; they never rest. Every day we're treated, every week we are treated to something like this that is given credence by somebody in the media somewhere, and they're off to the races.

So, what about the little mobile units transmitting through the brain-cases of those who use them most of each day and night for babbling?

They are limited to 1/4 Watt (+24 dBm) transmit power, and EVERY single cell phone for sale in the United States (and every other wireless device in contact or in proximity with humans) has to, by law, go through Specific Absorption Rate and Maximum Permissible Exposure Testing. I know-- I supervise those tests for my own company, for whom I design wireless transmitters and receivers.

RF exposure can indeed be hazardous. There’s been cases of Cops frying their nuts keeping speed radar guns in their laps - still, that’s up in the GHz range admittedly.

Yes, that was at 10 and 24 GHz, with antenna gains of up to 20 dB (horn antennas). Also, back then, the receivers were so insensitive that the transmitter had to put out 0.1 Watt just to get a readable return signal off a car passing in front of the cop. (My senior design project in college was a doppler radar, and I worked in ELINT/EW/radar for 11 years... I know this stuff.)

But you make a point: radiated emissions is one reason most police no longer use radar, but use lidar (laser radar).

Most likely, others are close by you on the same channel.

Spread spectrum is supposed to allow multiple users to share the same channel, but it doesn't work too well in close proximity; there is still interference.

Try getting an directional antenna that points your router's "beam" in one direction, and make it the most "lived in" part of your house.

"They are limited to 1/4 Watt (+24 dBm) transmit power,..."

Just when I was starting to have some fun. Oh, well. Maybe I'll get this brain excited, if I go out on the tower here and put my head in front of the big wireless dish.

[Little humor there. That's low power, too, but reaches 22 miles.]

LOL. I know the "aliens watching TV" thing is fun to think about, but it just isn't practical.

If our putative aliens on Alpha Centauri had a dish the size of the one in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, and we could line the dishes up for a short time, we MIGHT be able to communicate. Maybe. With the right signal.

But not video.

Putting up a very long, low antenna here in the middle of nowhere, as soon as the rain and snow stops. Looking at a chart to make it either full wave or half wave for 80m (trying to adjust length for 40m, too). But that will only transmit whatever little power straight up from a 10-watt radio. Not many usable repeaters for higher frequencies around here.

"LOL. I know the "aliens watching TV" thing is fun to think about, but it just isn't practical."

Ah, yeah--"I Love Lucy." And even though the ionosphere absorb or reflect VHF much except for times of sporadic E, it would seem that it would mess it up some.

Oops.

Ah, yeah--"I Love Lucy." And even though the ionosphere won't absorb or reflect VHF much except for times of sporadic E, it would seem that it would mess it up some.

Time to finish up some hobby figuring and kick back for a while.

Interesting. Or should I say “fascinating”.

Would any of our terrestrial broadcasts of the past 50 odd years be able to penetrate 10 or 20 light years without being lost in background noise? AM, FM, shortwave?

Frequencies can affect people.

Find a resonating frequency with enough power, around a piece of glass or crystal sometime.

A burning laser that injures or destroys something operates on a frequency. A therapy laser that heals operates on a different frequency. Certain radar frequencies can fry birds in the air with enough power behind them. Other devices that emit frequencies can screw up navigation.

Sond waves are just different frequencies than light, on microwave, or gigahertz frequencies. Just wavelengths of energy in a different frequency range. Why there cannot be a small minority of people that are overly sensitive to radiation in the gigahertz bandwitdh, to dismiss all of them as loons, is ridiculous.

The cell phone companies now know and warn people about cellular radiation (frequencies the phones use) and brain cancer. How long did it take them to finally come around and agree with the data that had been accumulating.

Who said anything about oven design and safety interlocks? Compare a >3 yo oven to what that woman is complaining about. Microwave ovens never leak? Net outputs that are negative dB over Wi-Fi transmitters? If that was true I wouldn’t have to find, measure and account for ovens in heat maps when designing Wi-Fi networks to avoid outright jamming and throughput-reducing interference.

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