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UK falls for Woo-Fi

Big Les

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The Independent, who really ought to know better, is running a front-page scare story on the health risks of wireless computer networks:

Wi-Fi: Children at risk from 'electronic smog'
::: Revealed - radiation threat from new wireless computer networks
::: Teachers demand inquiry to protect a generation of pupils
By Geoffrey Lean, environment editor
Published: 22 April 2007

Britain's top health protection watchdog is pressing for a formal investigation into the hazards of using wireless communication networks in schools amid mounting concern that they may be damaging children's health, 'The Independent on Sunday' can reveal.

Sir William Stewart, the chairman of the Health Protection Agency, wants pupils to be monitored for ill effects from the networks - known as Wi-Fi - which emit radiation and are being installed in classrooms across the nation.

Sir William - who is a former chief scientific adviser to the Government, and has chaired two official inquiries into the hazards of mobile phones - is adding his weight to growing pressure for a similar examination of Wi-Fi, which some scientists fear could cause cancer and premature senility.

Wi-Fi - described by the Department of Education and Skills as a "magical" system that means computers do not have to be connected to telephone lines - is rapidly being taken up inschools, with estimates that more than half of primary schools - and four-fifths of secondary schools - have installed it .

But several European provincial governments have already taken action to ban, or limit, its use in the classroom, and Stowe School has partially removed it after a teacher became ill.

This week the Professional Association of Teachers, which represents 35,000 staff across the country, will write to Alan Johnson, Secretary of State for Education, to demand an official inquiry. Virtually no studies have been carried out into Wi-Fi's effects on pupils, but it gives off radiation similar to emissions from mobile phones and phone masts.

Recent research has linked radiation from mobiles to cancer and to brain damage. And many studies have found disturbing symptoms in people near masts.

Professor Olle Johansson, of Sweden's prestigious Karolinska Institute, who is deeply concerned about the spread of Wi-Fi, says there are "thousands" of articles in scientific literature demonstrating "adverse health effects". He adds: "Do we not know enough already to say, 'Stop!'?"

For the past 16 months, the provincial government of Salzburg in Austria has been advising schools not to install Wi-Fi, and is considering a ban. Dr Gerd Oberfeld, its head of environmental health and medicine, calls the technology "dangerous".

Sir William - who takes a stronger position on the issue than his agency - was not available for comment yesterday, but two members of an expert group that he chairs on the hazards of radiation spoke of his concern.

Mike Bell, chairman of the Electromagnetic Radiation Research Trust, says that he has been "very supportive of having Wi-Fi examined and doing something about it". And Alasdair Philips, director of Powerwatch, an information service, said that he was pressing for monitoring of the health of pupils exposed to Wi-Fi.

Labour MP Ian Gibson, who was interviewed with Sir William for a forthcoming television programme, last week said that he backed proposals for an inquiry.
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Sigh.
 
While I have no great concern about existing wifi, we must establish the safety of future developments. Various new technologies are being rolled out to provide city-wide wifi .There may be legitimate questions about local power output levels.

Let's face it - there has to be some point at which exposure to 2.4GHz (or whatever) has actual, measurable physiological effects. That point may be far beyond anything proposed. It does no harm to establish that.

Up till WWII there seems to have been a tendency to suppose anything new and scientific was automatically good for you. This was nuts.
In the post nuclear world, we seem to assume the opposite- anything new is likely harmful. This is also nuts, but perhaps less nuts than the Pollyanna model.

Best if we can get the facts and proceed from there.
Personally, I suspect kids are far more prone to be affected (+/-) by the content than by the medium.
 
"Wi-Fi - described by the Department of Education and Skills as a "magical" system that means computers do not have to be connected to telephone lines... "
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Nice to know they've got a good understanding of the technology involved :rolleyes: .
 
Of course we should investigate and test it. It's "our children subject to wi-fi smog" headlines that make me (ironically) sick.
 
Rob Lister said:
Let it be written, let it be done

http://www.fcc.gov/oet/rfsafety/cellpcs.html

802.16a will set us free...so long as we don't leave the city.
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Rob -am I missing something in the link? It seems to deal with mobile phone rather than wifi transmission. Or do you just mean that the same principles apply?

I skimmed an item in a PC mag a month or two back about several proposed / experimental technologies being tested now to provide city wide wifi. It was someone else's mag and I didn't get much of the technicalities, but it seems reasonable that higher power levels will be involved that a home wifi set up, so safeguards are sensible;Let's face it, we are understandably doubtful of things we can't see. The thing is not to spook people with magical nonsense and new agey buzzwords.

Strange we rarely here people whine about the dangers of television radiation.
 
Soapy Sam said:
Rob -am I missing something in the link? It seems to deal with mobile phone rather than wifi transmission. Or do you just mean that the same principles apply?

I skimmed an item in a PC mag a month or two back about several proposed / experimental technologies being tested now to provide city wide wifi. It was someone else's mag and I didn't get much of the technicalities, but it seems reasonable that higher power levels will be involved that a home wifi set up, so safeguards are sensible;Let's face it, we are understandably doubtful of things we can't see. The thing is not to spook people with magical nonsense and new agey buzzwords.

Strange we rarely here people whine about the dangers of television radiation.
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...or the haze of known carcinogens all those worried mothers/fathers produce dropping their kids off at school:rolleyes:
 
From the Indy original article:

“Wi-Fi - described by the Department of Education and Skills as a "magical" system that means computers do not have to be connected to telephone lines - is rapidly being taken up inschools, with estimates that more than half of primary schools - and four-fifths of secondary schools - have installed it"

I cannot help feel that this feels very much like sloppy journalism. The term magical is quoted without any context. Did a DOE spokesperson say “the benefits that a Wi-Fi system can deliver are really quite magical” or did they say “Wi-Fi capabilities are delivered by magical tiny weenie fairies.” Using the word without any context is disingenuous at the least.

The remainder of the sentence doesn’t really give the author much credence either.
 
Uh oh, something is wrong. We have wifi downstairs, but up here in my office, my computer is connected to the router via a gasp! cable. Then the router is connected to the modem via a gasp! cable. Then the modem is connected to the external gasp! cable. At no point are phone lines involved. How do it work at all?

~~ Paul
 
The article seems to imply that there is scientific evidence that suggests mobile phones and power lines have adverse health effects for those in close proximity to them. Am I to take it that this is untrue?I suspect that it is, but I need to arm myself with the facts regarding this, because I've been trying to persuade my parents, who I live with, to switch to a wireless router. They both read the independent occasionaly and have recently become very quick to react to health scares in the news.
 
I always find the general perception of risk amusing. How many people are known to have died from exposure to any type of communication device? How many people are known to have died from crossing the road? Which one has more fuss made about it in the news? Utterly mad.
 
Of course the dangers of wifi should be investigated. If we get the world's top scientists on the problem they may even be able to formulate some sort of scientific law, relating power emission to distance, imagine what a break through that would be.
 
Paul C. Anagnostopoulos said:
Uh oh, something is wrong. We have wifi downstairs, but up here in my office, my computer is connected to the router via a gasp! cable. Then the router is connected to the modem via a gasp! cable. Then the modem is connected to the external gasp! cable. At no point are phone lines involved. How do it work at all?

~~ Paul
Click to expand...

I believe it has something to do with a series of tubes.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong but: While the quantity of devices has increased considerably, hasn't the overall wattage dropped significantly as well? I remember my dad's old bag phone pushing close to the limit, 5watts, to make calls. If anything, wouldn't we be seeing effects in those early users, who were expose to the high powered phones of yesterday?

If those old systems didn't give people illnesses, why would we expect the new 1-2watt systems to be more harmfull? Add to that the falloff of power over distance, then aren't they getting more "deadly waves" in five minutes on the phone than they are an hour in a classroom, some 10ft or more from the router?
 
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I would like to know how much radiation we get exposed to from new technologies (wi-fi, cell) compared to what we've had around since early 20th Century (radio, TV).

Is there some reason to think that the frequency matters?
 
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