Rolling out Wifi a health hazard for some - should Church rethink this?

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HeijdemannCO
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Rolling out Wifi a health hazard for some - should Church rethink this?

#1

Post by HeijdemannCO »

Ever more people in the world are found to be electrosensitive, and to have their health negatively affected by different kinds of wireless signals, including things like wifi signals.

And now it has been announced that 85% of Church buildings will be given high-speed internet - undoubtedly with the use of a wifi router.

I know people personally for whom the world is already becoming an scary and unhealthy place to live because of all the wireless signals everywhere. Should the Church really add 85% of Church buildings to those unhealthy places for these people, and prevent them from having a healthy worshipping experience on Sunday?

If anyone thinks that we're only talking about a few people, and that this is a very rare condition, think again - it's estimated to be about 2.5% of the world population. So that would mean that the Church could potentially harm the health of more than a quarter million members when they go to Church.

Ironic for a church with a health code!
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Mikerowaved
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#2

Post by Mikerowaved »

Electrosensitivity (or electromagnetic hypersensitivity) is a controversial subject and, if I may quote the Wikipedia article on it...
The majority of provocation trials to date have found that self-described sufferers of electromagnetic hypersensitivity are unable to distinguish between exposure to real and fake electromagnetic fields,[2][3] and it is not recognized as a medical condition by the medical or scientific communities.[4]
The signals emitted from the wireless devices the church uses are several orders of magnitude below the (very conservative) established safe human exposure limits and should not pose any sort of health risk to the membership.

We will allow a SMALL amount of discussion here, but this forum is really not the place for subjects such as this. There are plenty of forums and blogs around the Internet that will be happy to delve into these topics in more depth.
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crislapi
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#3

Post by crislapi »

If and when this issue presents itself, I'm sure the local leadership is fully capable of making a rational decision to deal with it. I for one am glad to have high-speed internet available in my meetinghouse and welcome this decision.

As an interesting side note, I work in a hospital. There are all types of wireless devices and several different wireless internet connections available everywhere in the entire hospital, so honestly I'm not worried about this at all.
jdlessley
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#4

Post by jdlessley »

Your statements, heijdemannco, most definitely can and will engenger debate about the health risks associated with WiFi transmissions. The longest running debate with regard to radio wave heath concerns has been around since the early days of cell phones. The scientific research results on cell phone use have been inconclusive. I have not seen any results, inconclusive or otherwise, for WiFi.

My interest with your statements is the source of your information. Can you provide conclusive, authoritive, references for the claims stated? Please avoid speculative argument or debate in response.
heijdemannco wrote:Ironic for a church with a health code!
First time I have ever heard the Word of Wisdom referred to as a health code. I don't see what the irony is. To me this would presume that there is in fact a health hazard known to result from the use of WiFi and then the Church ignores this hazard while advocating the avoidance of such a hazard.

There is only debate as to whether there is, or even could be, a health hazard associated with the use of WiFi. There are some institutions concerned with the potential of a hazard that have taken action to avoid exposure should there be a risk. They have taken this action only as a precautionary measure without a real hazard being fully and scientifically tested with conclusive results. To date there is no scientific evidence provided to support these concerns. Without any evidence as to the nature of a health hazard how could the Church advocate avoiding this unknown and then knowingly expose people to it?
JD Lessley
Have you tried finding your answer on the ChurchofJesusChrist.org Help Center or Tech Wiki?
jbstanford
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#5

Post by jbstanford »

It is helpful to remember that the new routers will have the ability of having WIfi Access controlled at the local level - so if such a rare situation were to arise, someone with access can create settings to disable the wireless during certain time periods or so on. The church isn't "forcing" anything on any wards :)
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