Wi-Fi: a warning signal

"Wi-Fi: a warning signal", BBC News, May 20, 2007,
Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programme...ma/6674675.stm

Britain is in the grip of a Wi-Fi revolution with offices, homes and
classrooms going wireless - but there is concern the technology could
carry health risks.

The Government insists Wi-Fi is safe, but a Panorama investigation
shows that radio frequency radiation levels in some schools are up to
three times the level found in the main beam of intensity from mobile
phone masts.

There have been no studies on the health effects of Wi-Fi equipment,
but thousands on mobile phones and masts.

The radiation Wi-Fi emits is similar to that from mobile phone masts.
It is an unavoidable by-product of going wireless.

In the last 18 months another two million of us in the UK have begun
using Wi-Fi.

Entire cities have become what are known as wireless hotspots.

Precautionary approach

In 2000, Sir William Stewart, now chairman of the Health Protection
Agency, headed the government's inquiry into the safety of mobile
phone masts and health. He felt the scientific research was sufficient
to apply a precautionary approach when siting masts near schools.

During that same year, the government sold off the 3G licences for
£22.5bn.

Sir William recalls: "We recommended, because we were sensitive about
children... that masts should not necessarily impact directly on areas
where children were exposed, like playgrounds and that."

But what about Wi-Fi? The technology is similar to mobile phone masts
and in use in 70 per cent of secondary schools and 50 per cent of
primary schools.

Panorama visited a school in Norwich, with more than 1,000 pupils, to
compare the level of radiation from a typical mobile phone mast with
that of Wi-Fi in the classroom.

Readings taken for the programme showed the height of signal strength
to be three times higher in the school classroom using Wi-Fi than the
main beam of radiation intensity from a mobile phone mast.

The findings are particularly significant because children's skulls
are thinner and still forming and tests have shown they absorb more
radiation than adults.

Safety limits

The readings were well beneath the government's safety limits - as
much as 600 times below - but some scientists suspect the whole basis
of our safety limits may be wrong.

Panorama spoke to a number of scientists who questioned the safety
limits and were concerned about the possible health effects of such
radiation.

"If you look in the literature, you have a large number of various
effects like chromosome damage, you have impact on the concentration
capacity and decrease in short term memory, increases in the number of
cancer incidences," said Professor Olle Johansson of the Karolinska
Institute in Sweden.

Another scientist, Dr Gerd Oberfeld, from Salzburg is now calling for
Wi-Fi to be removed from schools.

He said: "If you go into the data you can see a very very clear
picture - it is like a puzzle and everything fits together from DNA
break ups to the animal studies and up to the epidemiological
evidence; that shows for example increased symptoms as well as
increased cancer rates."

The clear advice from Sir William Stewart to the government on mobile
phone masts was that the beam of greatest intensity should not fall on
any part of the school grounds, unless the school and parents agreed
to it.

Yet the levels tested in the classroom from Wi-Fi were much higher -
three times the highest level of the mast.

Panorama contacted 50 schools at random - and found not one had been
alerted by the government to any possible health effects.

Philip Parkin, general secretary of the Professional Association of
Teachers said: "I think schools and parents will be very worried about
it...

"I am asking schools to consider very seriously whether they should be
installing Wi-Fi networks now and this will make them think twice or
three times before they do it.

"I think the precautionary approach doesn't seem to have worked
because it is being rolled out so rapidly...

"It's a bit like King Canute. We can't stop the tide and I am afraid
if schools are told that there is a serious health implication for
having these networks in schools, it is going to be a very serious
matter to say to schools, you have to switch them off."

Low power

At Washington state university, Professor Henry Lai, a biologist
respected by both sides of the argument says he has found health
effects at similar levels of radiation to Wi-Fi.

He estimates that of the two to three thousand studies carried out
over the last 30 years, there is a 50-50 split - half finding an
effect with the other half finding no effect at all.

But the Health Protection Agency has said Wi-Fi devices are of very
low power - much lower than mobile phones.

The Government says there is no risk and is backed up by the World
Health Organisation which is robust in its language saying there are
"no adverse health effects from low level, long-term exposure".

The scientist responsible for WHO's position is Dr Mike Repacholi, who
headed up the health organisation's research programme into radio
frequency radiation.

He was also the founder of the International Committee on Non-Ionizing
Radiation Protection (ICNIRP).

He said the statement of "no adverse health effects" was based on the
weight of evidence.

In order for a health effect to be established it must mean it has
been repeated in a number of laboratories using very good study
techniques. The findings of any published studies had been put in the
mix before reaching a conclusion, he said.

"It is called a weight of evidence approach - and if that weight of
evidence is not for there being an effect or not being an effect that
is the only way you can tell whether there really is an adverse health
effect," he said.