UK Schools Bans WiFi Due To Health Concerns

Mantrid42 writes "Schools in the UK are getting rid of their WiFi network, citing health concerns from parents and teachers. The wireless emanations, parents fear, may be the root cause of a host of problems from simple fatigue to the possibility of cancer. A few scientists think younger humans may be more vulnerable to the transmissions, because of thinner skulls. From the article: "Vivienne Baron, who is bringing up Sebastian, her ten-year-old grandson, said: 'I did not want Sebastian exposed to a wireless computer network at school. No real evidence has been produced to prove that this new technology is safe in the long term. Until it is, I think we should take a precautionary approach and use cabled systems.'"

Comments

Come on....

[JackieBrown]

What doesn't cause cancer?

Re:Come on....

[diersing]

I wonder if young Sebastion is being protected from cell phone users? Someone call Youth Services and get someone other there pronto!

Re:Come on....

[TubeSteak]

What doesn't cause cancer?

Large values of 1
Small values of 0
Prime Numbers
Et cetera
/Learn Math, Prevent Cancer

Re:Come on....

[dthree]

Don't forget the cordless phones! Will someone please think of the children and get rid of the cordless phones?

Re:Come on....

[trewornan]

Have you ever tried turning on a radio, there's hundreds of stations - not many people seem to realise the danger but even the sun is producing radio waves, my god we're surrounded by wireless radiation - why isn't the government doing something, won't somebody think of the children!

Re:Come on....

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

Large doses of hydrogen cyanide.

I'm sorry, you did ask.

Re:Come on....

[ProfessionalCookie]

Young Sebastion ... Meme Alert.

Please everyone start using "Young Sebastion" to describe our vulnerable children.

Re:Come on....

[Wavicle]

Won't you think of Young Sebastion before starting another internet meme?!

ban wifi? what about other technologies?

[adam]

" No real evidence has been produced to prove that this new technology is safe in the long term."

I'm sorry, but we're not talking about kryptonite or magical dark matter here.. these are devices operating with known technology in a known spectrum-- and let me add, not the only devices in this spectrum. WiFi isn't the only technology to operate at 2.4ghz (and I think some of the standards.. 802.11a? operate at 5.8ghz) -- are these parents seking to ban microwaves and cordless telephones? Even cellphones (and I'm sure many of them at least use cellular phones around their kids, iand some no doubt actually provide their kids with mobile phones) operate on similar 900mhz / 1800mhz / etc frequencies.

Someone with more of a science background, please reply (and correct me if necessary), but whether or not wireless internet has been studied over the "long term" have not several other devices that operate in the same (or very close) sprectrums? How is this anything but FUD?

Re:ban wifi? what about other technologies?

[elysiuan]

I hope these kids don't have televisions, wireless phones, or god forbid cellphones. I also, for the sake of the CHILDREN, hope they don't go outside ever where they will be bombarded by RADIATION from a gigantic nuclear furnace! The horror!

I would say they should stay indoors but then they are still susceptible to all those cosmic rays!

Obviously, the only solution is to move everybody to New Zion right above the Earth's core.

Give me a break, this kind of thinking is why 3 year olds die from food posioning every year because its a political impossibility to get irradiated meat on shelves sans a gigantic radiation symbol.

Its ill-informed knee-jerk thinking of the most insipid kind.

Re:ban wifi? what about other technologies?

[goddidit]

We are talking about very different power levels, microwave oven 800 watts and the wifi transmitter/receiver that is measured in milliwatts. Your brain won't be heating up very much.

Re:ban wifi? what about other technologies?

[MightyMartian]

When you have a populace so absurdly uneducated as to buy into this nonsense, evidence and facts are meaningless. No doubt they're being whipped up some pseudo-scientific con-artist, and used their cordless phones to spread the news. Too bad gullability wasn't fatal. That would weed some of the most ludicrous ninnies on the planet out of the gene pool.

Re:ban wifi? what about other technologies?

[nosredna]

Gullibility is fatal. You just have to encourage it a bit.

Re:ban wifi? what about other technologies?

[Rolo Tomasi]

"The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim."

Re:ban wifi? what about other technologies?

[micheas]

If you do a lot of research you will find that studies that claim that there is a relationship between EMF forces and cancer are almost all fatally flawed, (the infamous 1972 Colorodo Powerline study that started the scare had the flaw of all the group with elevated cancer rates having being exposed to herbicides that are known carcinogens) to the studies funded by the manufacturer of low emf electric blankets after the product was on the market.

There is no evidence to support the parents beliefs that withstands scrutiny, despite 35 years of research. (there does seem to be a statistically insignificant negative corralation between cell phone use and brain cancers, but nothing that is not accounted for by socioeconomic variables.)

Re:ban wifi? what about other technologies?

[Robber Baron]

I hope these kids don't have televisions, wireless phones, or god forbid cellphones. I also, for the sake of the CHILDREN, hope they don't go outside ever where they will be bombarded by RADIATION from a gigantic nuclear furnace! The horror!Why do you think I'm down here in the basement where it's cool and dark?

Re:ban wifi? what about other technologies?

[Qzukk]

I agree, but don't you think that Michael Bevington is overreacting just a little bit?

Probably, but there's a simple way to find out, secretly turn off the network. If he makes the same complaints then you know it's not the wireless network.

Re:ban wifi? what about other technologies?

[modecx]

So yes, there are other technologies which operate right around 2.4 GHz, but wireless networks are one of the only technologies which operate at that precise wavelength (which interacts strongly with water and lipids), with those power levels, without shielding, and with long durations of exposure.

First of all, the idea that 2.45Ghz is the resonant frequency of water (or fats or sugars), and that 2.45Ghz was chosen because it was particularly effective at heating water is a complete myth. This frequency was chosen because it penetrates into food well enough that it can cook the interior of meats reasonably well, and yet it oscillates molecule dipoles fast enough to make heating, well, fast. This frequency is a compromise between a) heating evenly b) heating effectively and quickly

Huge industrial microwaves used for various purposes operate from the low 400Mhz range to 2.5Ghz (corresponding wavelengths between ~24-4 inches), and they can be doing anything from drying lumber to baking saltine crackers, and yet they're doing the same basic job--heating water. The advantage is that lower frequencies penetrate much better, and that magnetrons operating at low frequency are easier to build to put out MUCH higher powers, and industrial magnetrons can put out as much as 100KW per unit.

I'll concede that sitting in front of a household microwave might be bad for you. I'm not particularly willing to test it out. Nor am I particularly willing to sprawl my naked body out on the desert sand for a comparable length of time*.

*Hint: average total body surface area for an adult male is about 2m^2, solar power density near the equator at sea level is around 400W/M^2, average microwave output is about 1000W. Do the math.

Re:ban wifi? what about other technologies?

[zCyl]

I agree, but don't you think that Michael Bevington is overreacting just a little bit?

I felt a steadily widening range of unpleasant effects whenever I was in the classroom, he said. First came a thick headache, then pains throughout the body, sudden flushes, pressure behind the eyes, sudden skin pains and burning sensations, along with bouts of nausea. Over the weekend, away from the classroom, I felt completely normal.

Hey, if the man was getting sick, then he was getting sick. It's not an overreaction to want to get better, so if removing the network from his classroom made him not sick, then good for him. It wouldn't be very helpful to just tell him to suck it up.

It might be nice if someone in the area would contact him about setting up a controlled experiment where a router he is exposed to for a full day is turned on and off at random without his knowledge, and each day he records how he feels. If this were done for 10-20 days, the result would probably be pretty clear one way or the other.

Re:ban wifi? what about other technologies?

[trewornan]

sub-thermal interactions

What's one of them then?

Any interaction for which all of the molecules rotate in the same direction is not a thermal interaction

Why not - rotational energy *is* themal energy.

the thermodynamic limit

How is the thermodynamic limit relevant?

you can't even use the language of "heat" to describe the interaction at this scale

I can use the language of heat to describe interactions from the level of individual particles to the level of supermassive black holes, what scale is this at?

lipid bilayers are polar molecules which are aligned

Actually close to true - they are *roughly* aligned.

the effects of such rotations on the function of lipid bilayers is very poorly understood

At this level of heating it's quite well understood - there is zero effect.

It seems quite naive for the people in this forum to be dismissing the concerns of those parents as uneducated and unscientific

No it's the parents who are naive and their concerns *are* uneducated and unscientific.

There are serious unanswered scientific questions about the interactions and effects

There are serious unanswered scientific questions about almost everything.

you can't just wish or scoff them away

I wouldn't try to scoff away a serious unanswered scientific question - perhaps you can find one.

You try to sound like somebody using a scientific approach to the problem, but you just use "scientific " words in meaningless combinations.

Re:ban wifi? what about other technologies?

[Akaihiryuu]

The solution is to try to teach people exactly what radiation is, what its effects are, and what causes it. People also need to understand that we are *constantly* exposed to radiation from any number of different natural background sources. People also need to understand that exposing something (aka meat) to radiation does not make it radioactive or dangerous in any way (well, unless it gets contaminated by a radioactive material, but that's about as likely to happen in a meat plant as getting contamination from a smoke detector in your house). If they understood that irradiating meat isn't much different from putting it in a microwave, then maybe the irrational fear would go away...people just fear what they don't understand. Understanding the difference between particle and electromagnetic radiation would be a start. Oh noes, light is electromagnetic radiation, it's just like gamma rays only lower frequency! The horror! *runs and hides in the dark basement* Wait, as another poster pointed out, that's not even safe, there might be radon there!

Re:ban wifi? what about other technologies?

[denebian devil]

But how can you argue with this kind of logic??

From a teacher:

"I felt a steadily widening range of unpleasant effects whenever I was in the classroom," he said. "First came a thick headache, then pains throughout the body, sudden flushes, pressure behind the eyes, sudden skin pains and burning sensations, along with bouts of nausea. Over the weekend, away from the classroom, I felt completely normal."

Funny, I had the same reaction. But I don't recall there being wifi in my classrooms.

Idiocy

[mclaincausey]

Glad to see we don't have a monopoly on idiocy here in the States...

I fear little Sebastian...

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

Stands a greater risk of injury from tripping over the cables of a wired network than from the RF emitted from a wireless network. Our poor, ignorant UK friends...

wanna bet ?

[Duckz]

$5 bucks says she's talking on her cell phone with her little Sebastian within a few feet of her.

Trouble

[twebb72]

I haven't been able to pee since I installed my new linksys. This solves it.

Re:Acute symptoms

[Gordonjcp]

Having installed wireless networks in *dozens* of schools, this is pretty much the reaction I experience with a few hours exposure to schools.

Ridiculous

[FlyByPC]

Sounds like the grandmother needs the schooling at least as much as the kids. I suggest starting with a list of RF-producing devices, then move on to the inverse square law...

Wireless is minimal

[bluefoxlucid]

Wireless is minimal compared to everything else. We live in an electromagnetic world, with electromagnetic waves everywhere.

802.11-b/g operate on the same frequency as microwaves (i.e. in the microwave spectrum); a microwave is shielded by physical means (no, no magical force fields when you power it up), and if you toss a laptop inside (don't turn the microwave on!) you can still connect to it over wifi with good signal. The shielding lets more through than wifi.

We have TV stations and radio stations broadcasting electromagnetic signals everywhere. There's electromagnetic waves from these and the earth's magnetic field all through the air. There's even electromagnetic radiation from space penetrating the atmosphere, although in very very tiny quantities; without the atmosphere, direct exposure to the level of electromagnetism out there would cook you, kind of like direct exposure to the 1200 watt microwave in the kitchen...

Many cordless phones operate on the 2.4GHz range (some in the 5.0GHz range to avoid colliding with 802.11-a/b/g Wifi) and are everywhere. Cell phones operate in that range too. The police band, tower-to-air radio, and Ham radio wade around high frequency EM as well. Aside from simple cordless phones, these are all a lot stronger than a Wifi AP.

Any device with electricity running through it produces an electromagnetic field in some abstract frequency. You get 60Hz EMI coming out of power lines and power cables; once it hits a transformer you might get more, such as the 15MHz that comes out of a flyback transformer in a TV. You won't get the gigahertz range or anything, but you'll get some sort of electromagnetic field just the same.

You can't escape it. You can hide under a rock 500 meters in the ground but you'll still have enough of the earth's magnetic field to use a compass. What kind of idiot thinks Wifi is magically special?

Re:wow

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Fortunately, us stoopid Brits do understand enough statistics to know that drawing conclusions about the whole population from a sample of one is unlikely to give reliable results. :-)

Re:hospitals

[jrumney]

hospitals have wireless networks

people die in hospitals, these wireless network tubes must be dangerous things! won't anyone think of the children?

quite troubling

[drDugan]

any argument taken seriously that prevents young minds from communication is very troubling

the real issue here is NOT health - it is being driven by the idea that young minds have access to a world of ideas not under control from those in power. the Internet has a global set of ideas - empowering, liberating, libralizing, and educating ideasl this is quite contrary to the mentality in most lower schools which are follow the rules, learn/do what you're told, and tow the line.

the idea that kids the age of 8 or 9 or 10 (ish) are educated and empowered is deathly frightening to small minded parents, who are so childish themselves they can't deal with strong people. So instead, they cite some completely absurd health scare to keep kids from easy, broad access to online content.

it is sadly ironic that by applying an argument to protect their health, they will actually harm these children by limiting their access to the Internet

A bit excessive, don't you think?

[Robber Baron]

Why in hell can't they just wear tinfoil hats like the rest of us?

Re:ID-10-T Error

[Technician]

My favorite one is from many years ago. A ham radio operator moved into a new neighborhood and put up a tower and antenna in his back yard. The complaints came pouring in regarding to TV reception interferance problems, strange voices on the phone lines, voices on the intercom, etc. He replied to all complaints that he was sure his transmitter was not causing any of the problems and invited anyone to send a certified tech out to check for any out of band or excessive power transmission that could cause the problem.

Nobody sent a technician to check his station. This did not settle the complaints and the FCC was called out due to the number of complaints. The FCC sent him a letter in response to the complaints and they required of him to have his transmitter certified by the manufacture.

He wrote back and stated the transmitter was lost in shipping and he was waiting for the insurance to settle so he could purchase a replacement.

Meanwhile he documented and filed all the complaints as existing conditions to the new location prior to beginning operation.