Parents advocate Wi-Fi ban despite evidence

Ottawa Citizen ^

[matt04]

Although wireless Internet can be found everywhere from your corner coffee shop to your local dog park, a growing group of concerned parents across the country are urging health officials to keep it out of one place: schools.

And if this year was any indication, the chorus of opposition to the popular technology and its potential health effects is gaining momentum.

In September, at least 12 elementary and middle schools in Ontario and B.C. imposed sweeping bans on wireless Internet by not installing it or removing it completely from their classrooms. In May, the World Health Organization reclassified the radio frequency (RF) energy emitted through wireless devices such as cellphones and Wi-Fi connections as possibly carcinogenic.

Health Canada maintains that strong scientific evidence shows current exposure rates to these low-level frequencies is “not dangerous” and that there is no need for the public to take any precautions.

Still, those opposed to the technology urge for a more cautious approach to be taken with Wi-Fi, claiming the risks of long-term exposure in children are still unknown.

“This is not a question mark,” said Rodney Palmer with the Safe School Committee, a parents’ advocate group north of Toronto. “The idea is that we shouldn’t kill them to be online.”

Last year, Palmer’s two children aged six and 10, often came home from school feeling feverish. He says that the illnesses stopped when they were transferred this September to Pretty River Academy, a private school in Collingwood, Ont., which only uses wired Internet connections.

Palmer and other parents believe that Wi-Fi exposure can lead to an array of health symptoms including headaches, nausea and heart conditions.

“It’s very difficult to avoid Wi-Fi and it’s a huge problem in the classrooms, where the kids are for six hours a day,” said Magda Havas, a Trent University professor who has studied electronic-magnetic pollution since the mid 1990s.

“Then they go home and get exposed to another signal. It means their little bodies just can’t get rid of it basically.”

Havas cites past studies, which show that radio frequency exposure in rats led to an increase in tumours. A study she completed in 2010 also found a possible link between the frequencies and heart problems.

“I just can’t fathom how they can say that it’s safe,” she said.

But Dave Michelson, an associate professor of electrical engineering at the University of British Columbia disagrees.

Not only is wireless Internet safe; its opponents are doing the public more harm by spreading panic and misinformation, he says.

“This is the problem. These activists are good at intimidating,” said Michelson, who measures and researches radio-frequency energy.

“They have a deep-seated belief that it must be true. It becomes a matter of faith, not fact.”

[headsonpikes]

In B.C.’s West Kootenay, where I live, there is a well-organized campaign against cell-phone towers serving isolated communities, and also against wireless ‘smart meters’, which make the gathering of electricity consumption info cheaper and more useful.

But invisible radio waves are cooking our brains, apparently.

Public education is a wonderful thing.

[The_Media_never_lie]

School wiring eminates em waves.

[redgolum]

I am very aware of the black mold. It was all over the walls in old stone barns and such (mainly in the hog buildings). WW, you are correct that in the North, winter kills off a lot of the stuff.

Remember when hystoplasmosis was a big scare? My Dad's job sent him in to be tested, and they x rayed his lungs. The tech took one look at Dad's lungs and asked how long he was raising hogs!

Seems that if you have exposure at a young age, it doesn't affect you as bad. My local doctor laughed and said the same thing.

[RansomOttawa]

To how many watts of energy is someone exposed if they’re sitting, for example, 20 feet from a typical Wi-Fi router operating at 2.4 GHz?

And to how many watts are they exposed by standing in direct sunlight at noon hour?

If the power output of a Wi-Fi device is enough to make you sick, shouldn’t we expect more energetic visible light to be considerably more dangerous? Yet you never hear of someone bursting into flames because they went outside on a sunny day.

[Talisker]

To how many watts of energy is someone exposed if they’re sitting, for example, 20 feet from a typical Wi-Fi router operating at 2.4 GHz?

And to how many watts are they exposed by standing in direct sunlight at noon hour?

Yeah, because watts are the only relevent aspect of the energies involved, right?

Not, like, frequency or something else. Hey, if it don't give you suburn, what harm can it do, eh Bobby Joe Bob?

Sheesh.

[RansomOttawa]

Not, like, frequency or something else.

Microwaves have a frequency several orders of magnitude less than that of visible light (2 GHz for Wi-Fi as opposed to hundreds of terahertz for visible light) . . . let alone the really dangerous radiation like X-rays or gamma rays.

The same holds true for energy level: microwaves have a photon energy measured in thousandths or millionths of electron-volts, as compared to that of visible light which is a thousand times higher or more.

And yet, visible light is non-ionizing. It doesn't have enough energy to strip electrons from atoms and cause damage to tissue. So why should I expect radiation of a thousandth the energy level to do worse?

Hey, if it don't give you suburn, what harm can it do, eh Bobby Joe Bob?

Sunburn is caused by ultraviolet radiation, which is ionizing and capable of damaging tissue.

Sheesh yourself.