How Bad Can Wi-fi Be?

An anonymous reader writes "Sunday night in the UK, the BBC broadcast an alarmist Panorama news programme that suggested wireless networking might be damaging our health. Their evidence? Well, they admitted there wasn't any, but they made liberal use of the word 'radiation', along with scary graphics of pulsating wifi base stations. They rounded-up a handful of worried scientists, but ignored the majority of those who believe wifi is perfectly harmless. Some quotes from the BBC News website companion piece: 'The radiation Wi-Fi emits is similar to that from mobile phone masts ... children's skulls are thinner and still forming and tests have shown they absorb more radiation than adults'. What's the science here? Can skulls really 'absorb' EM radiation? The wifi signal is in the same part of the EM spectrum as cellphones but it's not 'similar' to mobile phone masts, is it? Isn't a phone mast several hundred/thousand times stronger? Wasn't safety considered when they drew up the 802.11 specs?"

Comments

Leukaemia

[weliwarmer]

My son was diagnosed with leukaemia (AML15 for those interested) on his 1st birthday. My first trip home from the hospital I turned of the wireless router, cordless phones and my mobile/cell. He's now 3, built like an ox and hopefully fixed for good.

My neighbours all have wireless, cordless and mobiles so I eventually turned all mine back on. Two years on and no-one else in the house, including my 2 other boys, have cancer.

Who knows what caused it. Live life to the full, make the kids smile and if low power wireless gadgets worry you, please get out more.

Re:Eek!

[Xest]

Well again, on the show they said the woman in question was able to tell when wifi was on or off 2/3rds of the time in tests, 66% isn't really a high enough chance for me to believe hers is a real known problem, particularly when they didn't explain her testing methodology, if they only ran 3 tests for example then get 2 out of 3 right is in the correct range of a 50% chance of getting it right by mere guessing should she have got a 4th test wrong.

They did however mention that Sweden recognises electro-sensitivity as an official disability so there is perhaps some credibility in the whole idea, how much is still questionable of course.

Re:What crap.

[vertinox]

All day we're around Microwaves, XRays, High voltage lines, lights, televisions and Radio signals. There are TONS, of course... but how much more is actually from outside the atmosphere?

Actually, in the late 1890's and early 1900's people who worked in the field of XRays often died from over exposure of radiation. They simply didn't know what they heck they were working with. Thomas Edison was so horrified of what happened to his worker Clarence Dally due to radiation poisoning that he abandoned any further research with X-rays. Not to mention Marie Curie death due to exposure to radiation and countless others that worked in her field.

Back then of course people thought drinking radium was a good health product and that shoe sales man could operate their x-ray on a casual basis to fit shoes giving them more REM exposure in a day than a modern nuclear power plant worker is allowed a year.

I'm not saying that WiFi is dangerous, but as a precedent people have often generally underestimated some dangers with emerging technologies and we should never discount such a thing could happen. Of course we due scientific study than complete news worthy paranoia.