Wi-fi
Wi-fi technology is being rolled out in our towns and cities, our schools, our workplaces, and in more and more devices. But how safe is it? Wi-fi is unregulated, largely untested for safety, and possibly more dangerous than many people realise. Just as there have been long-standing concerns about the safe use of mobile phones, which the government now recommends that children should not use, there are safety fears about wi-fi devices emerging. Both mobile phone masts and wi-fi devices use high-frequency microwaves which are pulsed on and off rapidly to transmit data.
Wi-fi was originally invented to connect together cash-registers at check-outs, but it is now an ubiquitous technology used in baby monitors, Bluetooth devices, cordless phones, and in computer networks and laptop computers. Wi-fi enabled laptops are now owned by a staggering one in five UK adults.
One of the areas of greatest concern is the use of wi-fi in schools, as growing children may be more vulnerable to the potentially harmful effects of wi-fi radiation than adults. Remarkably wi-fi, unlike new drugs, has not undergone any safety tests, because the team who developed it, led by Dutch military radar engineer Vic Hayes, used an unlicensed part of the radio spectrum. Concerns were first raised in the year 2000, when some of the engineers installing wi-fi in schools began complaining of headaches. A report on the problem by the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (BECTA) was eventually leaked to the ?Times Educational Supplement? seven years later. In 2006 the issue was highlighted when a school in Chichester agreed to remove a wi-fi network after lobbying from teachers and parents. A Panorama investigation in 2007 found that radiation from a wi-fi enabled laptop was in some cases higher than that measured in the beam of a mobile phone transmitter mast. On the programme, the chairman of the Health Protection Agency (HPA), Sir William Stewart, stated that the radiation could trigger cancer and changes in mental functioning. The HPA is now carrying out belated research into wi-fi.
The German government has already advised the public there to limit their exposure to wi-fi radiation, and in Austria, the town of Salzburg is so concerned about the radiation from phone masts that it has set limits on radiation way below the international standard. The Swedish and Australian governments have also expressed their concerns about microwave radiation generally.
Sources of microwave radiation:
Mobile phone ? 10-150 v/m
DECT Cordless phone ? 10-80 v/m
Microwave oven at one metre ? 1-6 v/m
Wi-fi laptop ? 1-5 v/m
Wi-fi router at 0.5 metres 1-2 v/m
Mobile phone mast at 150 metres ? 0.5 ? 2 v/m
DECT base unit at 0.5 metres - 0.5 ? 2 v/m
Baby monitor 1 metre from baby ? 0.3 ? 2.0 v/m
Bluetooth device at 50cm ? 0.3-0.7 v/m
DECT base unit at 3 metres ? 0.2-0.4 v/m
Wi-fi router at 5.0 metres ? 0.1.0.2 v/m
Source: PowerWatch
Further reading:
Safe Wireless Initiative: www.safewireless.org
PowerWatch: www.powerwatch.org.uk
December 2007/January 2008 issue of ?The Ecologist?, article by Mark Anslow
HESE: www.hese-project.org |