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GSM Association Slams Euro Call For Ban On Wireless In School
jhernik writes "The ongoing debate over the supposed dangers posed by mobile phone usage and wireless signals has exploded once again. An influential European committee has called for a ban on mobile phones and Wi-Fi networks in schools – the GSM Association has denounced the report as an 'unbalanced political assessment, not a scientific report.' The report made its recommendation to reduce mobile and wireless use in schools, despite admitting that there is a lack of clear scientific and clinical proof. However, it said the lack of proof was reason enough to restrict use, just in case, comparing mobile phone radiation to other things whose dangers were once unknown, such as asbestos, leaded petrol and tobacco."
So we have politicians making a political point with "data", and an industry lobby making a political point with "data", and nobody unconnected to the politics and the money doing any analysis on the other parties "data".
How about someone comes up with something scientifically significant without proving to be in bed with one side or the other?
A high school football player just last week died during practice. MANY kids are hurt doing team sports in schools. There's a KNOWN, DEFINITE health threat, proven beyond a shadow of a doubt!
If they can ban stuff based on the vague possibility of a problem, why not ban what is PROVEN to be one!
Except the "dangers" of cell phone radiation aren't unknown. Acording to the largest, longest, and most methodologically sound study on the matter, there is no elevated risk of cancer due to cell phone radiation.
http://www.rfcom.ca/programs/interphone.shtml
perhaps they haven't read the report.
How about someone comes up with something scientifically significant without proving to be in bed with one side or the other?
Without "bed" there is no funding to do studies.
that lack clear scientific and clinical proof.
Fruit and vegetables, they might cause cancer.
Reading and writing, who knows what damage they might be doing to people's eyes and wrists.
Wearing clothing, who knows what such an unnatural activity does to our skin.
No, some of us live in a scientific age, but many choose to live in a self-inflicted medieval age. Problem is, they want us all to.
Great Intellect...
A high school football player just last week died during practice. MANY kids are hurt doing team sports in schools. There's a KNOWN, DEFINITE health threat, proven beyond a shadow of a doubt!
If they can ban stuff based on the vague possibility of a problem, why not ban what is PROVEN to be one!
No, we need to BAN EVERYTHING!
It's the only way to be sure.
The trouble is if you ban bans, then you can't then ban anything else.
So you must ban everything, then ban bans.
If anything new comes up, you then refuse to acknowledge it exists. Shutting your eyes and covering your ears while yelling lalala at the top of your lungs is very helpful there....except that at that point, it's been banned.
The ban on breathing also places an upper limit to the effectiveness of the strategy, and the reign of any regime adopting it. For more information see Origin of Species (also banned unfortunately).
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Yep. Turn off your lights and stop staring at your computer screen. Don't go outside. Radiation is radiation. It's not like there's any difference between alpha, beta, gamma, microwave, and visible. Kind of like the no difference between liquid nitrogen and gaseous nitrogen. Both completely lethal/safe if inhaled.
I think "u" should head back to highschool English.
Radiation is Radiation
Which is why we should ban sunlight within a school zone, right?
Turns out, different portions of the electromagnetic spectrum have different effects, and are classified as such (Thermal, ionizing, etc). Saying radiation is dangerous without first analyzing power levels and the band of radiation emitted is knee-jerk and anti-science. We've had to deal with a nuclear fusion reactor above our heads for the whole of human existence, and it didn't kill us yet.
Will someone PLEASE think of the children????
It's gotten so bad by this point that children are emitters of infrared radiation.
Cell phone radiation, being modulated on GHz frequencies, is too high in frequency to mess with brain signals
Sometimes the frequencies have to get even higher to get into the brain. Radiation from the display runs in the 400 to 800 THz band, but think of the effect that the phone's display has on its user's concentration.
i think u should head back and do some chem 101 and physics: electromagnetism. Radiation is radiation, if its at a low frequency for a long period of time you will have molecular activity, specifically what is called molecular jitter or vibration.
If you're exposed to a higher frequency for a shorter period of time, you'll just get activity sooner.
That's quite wrong actually. You will get very different types of activity depending on the frequency, because the frequency determines the energy per photon, and a molecule can only absorb a photon of electromagnetic radiation if its energy corresponds to the energy gap between two quantum states.
For microwaves you're talking about the rotational states of things like water molecules, and for infra-red, the vibrational states of covalent bonds. What we feel as temperature. Over time, the temperature can rise to the point where a chemical change will occur, but those changes absolutely will not occur unless the irradiated area actually gets hot. The human body is also really good at spreading and dissipating excess heat.
Higher frequency radiation can to act on the electrons in molecules directly, starting with visible light which can interact with electrons in the large orbitals of highly conjugated long-chain molecules and bring about conformational changes (this is how your eyes work). Ultra-violet light can break a covalent bond directly, damaging tissue and DNA or creating free radicals which then go on to do this damage. X-rays and gamma rays can blow an electron right out of an atom, creating interesting and exotic ions which could wreak all kinds of havoc in the body.
The first category of electromagnetic radiation, which includes wi-fi and mobile phones, is only dangerous if it is intense enough do deliver energy to your body faster than you can dissipate it. For example, if you're standing near a large fire. The latter type can trigger a cancer with a single "lucky" photon, which is why you should always wear a hat and sunscreen to minimise that chance.
I really wish people would understand this. Radiation is Radiation.
No. It's not. Really. This is true even without getting into the differences between electromagnetic radiation, particle-based radiation (alpha and beta rays), and radioactive material -- all of which are referred to as "radiation" in the popular media.
Be careful. People in masks cannot be trusted.
Who gives a damn about peer review!
There is no need for cellphones in school. Parents want to contact a kid: Call the school. kids want internet: use internet via wires.
Therefore, banning wireless when there is no (or not enough) data to be certain of anything, is a good precaution.
But the schools shouldn't ban cell phones. They should install micro-cells that allow them to control what numbers are allowed to call in and out and when. For instance, anyone should be able to call 911, but do you really want people to be able to call the students other than the parents and fellow students?
Yes, obviously the right thing to do is condition our teenagers to believe that authority figures have absolute control over their ability to communicate.
Palm trees and 8
In the early 1990's I had the opportunity to work on a project developing calibrated, sensitive microwave thermocouple sensors to study the intensity of microwave radiation inside 'human head models generated by cellphones'. It is of possible interest that the work was funded by a major cellphone manufacturer, however, the source of the funding did not influence the integrity of the work. I also spent considerable time comprehending (at least, giving it a good try!) the mountain of literature of the epidemiological effects of electromagnetic fields. It is of particular relevance to the 'European committee's action that the following summary statement, from a review article by James Jauchem, published in the International Microwave Power Institute (Vol. 28, No. 3, 1993) is directed: "In fact, the absence of both a mechanism of interaction and a dose-response relation do not support classification of EMFs as a probable carcinogen" Also, citing Petersen (Bioeffects of microwaves, J. Occup. Med. (1983) and Foster (Health effects of low-level electromagnetic fields, Health Phys. 62:429-435 (1992) "effects" are not necessarily "hazards". Although moderate-intensity ELFs may be capable of producing biological effects, the distinction between these effects and health effects is important. Also it is important that in epidemiological studies, an association of a factor with a health outcome often does not reflect a causal relationship. Strong independent associations can arise solely as a result of the lack of control over confounding. Some authors even suggest that some over-hyped studies are really "scaremongering made respectable by the use of sophisticated statistical methods."
Please have respect for people with different abilities, especially children.
I think the problem here is that your definition of "lucky" is on the scale of all atoms on earth spontaneously decaying. Hey, did you know oxygen atoms decay, producing exactly the same kind of radiation found at Fukishima? Maybe to avoid getting "lucky" you should avoid oxygen.
"You're not really proving me wrong here"
um, yea he kind of owned you, ps celphones are not particle emitters, there is no physical bit of matter leaving your antenna, think of it as being shot in the face with an airzooka, vs being shot in the face with a bullet
C = lambda times nu...big deal, it's what I said without explaining how it works. You still haven't told me how an adverse effect is inversely proportional to a longer lambda. see I can use big words too. but still...explain if you want.
The thing is that there is a threshold. It's not just a direct proportionality. Photons with energy below the threshold of breaking chemical bonds aren't "a little bit dangerous" they're just not (individually) dangerous at all. Enough of them to cause heating can be dangerous, hence not standing near open furnaces nor putting oneself in the microwave, but at low intensity they just will not have the same effect on chemical substances that high frequency photons will have, no matter how long the exposure.
and if your standing near a particle emiter - such as a cell phone
A cell phone is not a particle emitter (in the sense of a particle being a thing with mass, not something with a localized wave-function). In general, high-velocity particles with mass (alpha and beta radiation) are much more dangerous than the photons you encounter in your daily life because they have vastly more energy.
if one lucky photon can on the off chance give you "cancer" what's the likely hood that prolonged exposure to radiation at a similiar frequency won't get you "lucky" again. really?
Similar frequency, sure. The longer you're exposed to UV radiation the higher the chance of something bad (e.g. melanoma) happening. However, if the photons are below the threshold of causing chemical change, as those from radio transmitters are, the length of exposure doesn't matter at all. None of the photons have enough energy to do anything significant.
If qualifications are important, I have a degree in physics and physical chemistry, but I got it a few years ago so I'll apologize in advance if the facts I "crammed" in there have faded a little.
Be careful. People in masks cannot be trusted.
if i was a world renowned physicist..
... you would know what you're talking about.
There is a proven possible danger from handsets. That is, there is a higher incidence of brain cancer in rats from massive exposures of mobile-band RF. And until we'll all been holding handsets to the side of our heads for 40 years that's about all the results we can reasonably expect from science.
But as any consideration of the inverse-square law taught in those schools' physics classes will show, exposure from laptops and access points is orders of magnitude less than handsets.
And that's what's really wrong with this proposal. Lumping handsets, laptops and access points all together shows a basic lack of understanding. Without understanding, we can't expect reasonable conclusions.
There is plenty of evidence for mutagenic and other negative effects of radio-frequency and microwave fields. Just a small sample: http://www.rrjournal.org/doi/abs/10.2307/3579911 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T2D-4G7NFGG-1&_user=10&_coverDate=06%2F06%2F2005&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=browse&_origin=browse&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=f82e85c25e8d4446ef498e2a2d93c83c http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8627134
So why is this not widely known? Because people tend to not look beyond the headline spin, the parent post being a good example thereof. But also because industry-funded studies tend to generate biased results http://www.seattlemag.com/article/nerd-report/nerd-report which are then touted as "proof" that there is no ill effect.
People need to understand this kind of shit is not based on science, on logic, but on people being irrational.
Here's a great example:
I work for the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at a university. This means faculty here have electrical engineering PhDs, they've take classes on radio waves, understand how they work. These are not uneducated people, and they are educated in a relevant area.
So a few years ago we got building wide WiFi. I mean complete, 100% coverage. Like 300-400 access points over 5 floor or something. This means they aren't just in out of the way places like closets and halls, but in offices too.
One of our faculty got all mad about this, and built a little shield for his. It is a small aluminium thing that is only open on one side. It does effectively prevent that unit from transmitting towards where he sits.
Well this is completely stupid because of course it is not harmful but for an additional reason: these things all work together. They adjust their signal strengths to make sure everywhere is covered. He blocks off his unit? The ones near it compensate. There is no net change in the levels where he is (yes I've measured it). What's more, his wife works at network operations so he knows this.
A PhD in EE, but acting like a moron. It is not science, it is voodoo that drives people to worry about this crap.
Except, you know, this is not a report from the European Union, it is from a committee in the assembly of the Council of Europe, which is an entirely different institution. It does not even rise to the level of a resolution and in any case those resolutions are always non-binding, as far as I can remember.
And for the record, they're based in Strassbourg, not Brussels.
..because kids are there to LEARN not to piss about on Facebook and their mobile phones.
Who gives a toss about the potential health issues, above is reason enough.
I'd even go a stage further and line all school buildings so they block all GSM & Wifi signals - make sure the school secretary & parents swap contact phone numbers in case of emergencies, problem solved.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
I'll assume you're ignoring factual errors. But to get to the heart of things, this is not a "bizarre pronouncement". There's a bunch of confusing studies out there that were not well executed and seemed to show some evidence for cell phone radiation being harmful. The public at large is not very science-literate, nor are most politicians, so it was inevitable that this would lead to some of them playing better safe than sorry.
In this, they are responding to actual concerns from the public at large, however misguided. And thus it's not bizarre nor overreaching, it's politics as usual.
And I sincerely doubt that people are losing faith in the EU because of a report by an entirely different institution. The EU is doing well enough on its own to shoot itself in the foot, they don't need other institutions to help.