To worry a bit about wi-fi radiation

[jinglebelly]

I've just read an article in one of those free family listings magazines about wi-fi and mobile phones and how they give off dangerous levels of radiation, DH says I'm being ridiculous but I can't help being a bit worried... I work on my computer and often hold my baby while working.. AIBU to be worried?!

The WHO did a comprehensive review of the science around the electrical and magnetic fields from power lines and the possible effects on health. The full report is available here.

Chapter 1 is a useful overview and concludes that there is no evidence of any health effects whatsoever for the average person with the sole exception of a possible, tiny, increase in the risk of childhood leukaemia associated with living close to high-voltage pylons.

But the evidence even for that is far from firm. There are a lot of confounding issues with such conclusions, not least that high-voltage pylons tend to be found more often in poor areas than wealthy ones. There is ample evidence that economic status has a significant effect on health.

There is some evidence that very powerful electrical fields - as experienced by, eg, power station workers - could have a variety of health effects. But these are at levels far in excess of what anybody will experience in their home or outdoors. It's like the difference between walking around in a sunny spring morning in England or being naked in Death Valley at noon during the summer.

Yanbu. A friend of mine set wifi up in his home and within a couple of months his pet rat had loads of tumours (cage right next to router)
The vet said he was seeing a lot of similar cases.

I'm not a panic merchant, it could well be circumstantial, and we have wifi (no rats!), but the router is not near where anyone sits and when I'm mumsnetting on my phone while feeding I do try to hold it away from DD, rather than resting it on her, say.

Suggest you all read the Bio-Initiative Report 610 pages www.bioinitiative.com which was not funded by the cell phone industry. The REPORT by 20 international scientists & EMR experts CONCLUDED UNEQUIVOCALLY that there is sound evidence of harmful long term biological effects which can damage the body's immune system and lower resistance to illness. Phoneshield-DAL.

healthpal.

no thanks, I'll take the WHO. You know, the actual scientists.

i cant write an educated reply to this as im currently using wifi and the smell of bacon is wafting out of my ears and distracting....

healthpal, I would except a) it's www.bioinitiative.org/ not .com and b) they're charging $2 to even get access to the website(!)

I had a quick google and Wikipedia's summary of the report throws up a load of objections by esteemed bodies all of which say that the bioinitiative report is very selective in what evidence it presents and it ignores anything that doesn't support its views. That's crap science.

By the way, why did you include "Phoneshield-DAL" in your message? Is that any reference to the frankly laughable Phoneshield nonsense, would it?

Sorry for the delay in replying jareth - I am a geochemist so know nothing about electricity!

Thanks for the link to the WHO report Snorbs.

Have to say I dont read it as saying it has found no evidence of adverse health effects - it mentions several - but what it says repeatedly is that there is currently very little evidence of adverse health effects because there has been very few studies carried out to gather the required evidence. This is a bit different to having gathered lots of evidence that shows there are no ill effects. There is a very long list at the end of Chapter 1 of the research it recommends should be done to address that.

Personally, I am more worried about the neurological effects on children's brains of chronic exposure than cancer and it says on page 16:

"Studies of adult volunteers and animals suggest that acute cognitive effects may occur with short-term exposures to intense electric or magnetic fields. The characterization of such effects is very important for the development of exposure guidance, but there is a lack of specific data concerning field-dependent effects in children...Behavioural studies on immature animals provide a useful indicator of the possible cognitive effects on children. The possible effects of pre- and postnatal exposure to ELF magnetic fields on the development of the nervous system and cognitive function should be studied."

And:

"There is some evidence of an increased risk of miscarriage associated with ELF magnetic field exposure. Taking into account the potentially high public health impact of such an association, further epidemiological
research is recommended."

Exposure limits are almost always revised downwards as new evidence is found - the WHO safe limit for blood lead in children (something I DO know something about) was 10 dl\l for years because that was the limit for the appearance of observable clinical symptoms - then research showed that there were long-term sub-clinical effects (ie adverse effects on brain development in children) at levels below that, and it has now been halved.

Sorry - long post - but I remain concerned because I just don't think we know yet if there are adverse effects or not (or even know what we are looking for!).

""" JarethTheGoblinKing

WinterOfOurDiscountTents Quite simply, you are wrong. My Dad (nuclear scientist who worked on the fallout from chernobyl, analysed radioactive samples, travelled all over the UK to take said samples) said that we will very likely see effects of any fallout from Japan over the UK. Not scaremongering as the effects are likely to be minimal, but just wanted to point out your wrongness """

It's amusing that you are wrong here and Winter is correct.

Before Chernobyl, Sellafield (Windscale back then), suffered a leak. Leaks are far more common than you think and can happen every decade. They are usually contained and cleared up without the public being aware.

That caused the higher pollution levels we saw on the west side of the Pennines. Fallout cannot travel from eastern europe, hit the Pennines, then rise over them and fall straight back down contaminating mainly Lancashire farmland.

Chernobyl was an easy scapegoat, rather than having citizens question their own countries nuclear commissions.

If your father ever wants to be educated instead of swallowing government propaganda, I can put him in touch with former employees of Windscale whom will tell you about the multiple leaks they have suffered.

I suspect he probably knows people at Sellafield, given that he visited on many separate occasions.

Are you saying that increased radiation in the area may have been blamed on fallout from chernobyl? I'm not sure why you're talking about the occasional leaks from Sellafield (and what about Dounreay?) Why can't fallout travel from Eastern Europe and his the Pennines AND Lancashire?

I said my Dad worked on the fallout from chernobyl. Directly after it happened he had to take samples from all over the north of the UK, Scotland and N Ireland to establish a level of contamination. Samples were periodically taken around sites like Sellafield and Dounreay too.

Sorry, I don't really understand what you're really trying to say, which bit of what I said was incorrect? Perhaps it's been a long day, but I never said that chernobyl was the only culprit of any increased levels of radiation, just that my Dad was involved in sampling and testing directly afterward.

Sorry, I'm rambling. Like I said, I'm rather tired.

p.s. my Dad isn't an idiot, he was a Senior Nuclear Scientist with the AEA

I never said your father was an indiot, just ill-educated on the subject of government propaganda.

The damage done to Lancahire and Cumbria grazing areas was caused by the Sellafield leak at the time, but Chernobyl was blamed for it.

But I never said any of that, and I've never said that my Dad thinks it either, I think you've misunderstood me. All I said was that he did sampling after chernobyl (as well as other routine sampling)

Oh, I give up...

Groan...

I hate when people say "there is no scientific evidence so it should be fine, you are being OTT". There was no scientific evidence that smoking caused cancer till people started seeing a pattern. It is early days yet, scientists may not fully know, and the one's that say it is harmless may be employed by the phone industry, the same thing that happened with the tobacco industry.

I'm not saying it is harmful, just better to be safe than sorry IMO.

you'd better get off your computer then, and put on your tin-foil hat. Better to be safe than sorry doncha know?

Yeah, its not about moderation, its all about tin foil hats, didn't you know

you didn't mention moderation did you? You likened it to smoking, is that generally held to be all about moderation? Don't complain to me if your analogies fall on their arses.

I haven't actually bothered to read most of this thread, but here're a couple of links about the danger posed by the Fukushima I problems.

First, here's a couple of articles from the Register: www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/25/fukushima_scaremongering_debunk/ and www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/21/fukushima_after_weekend_2/. In essence, there's an awful lot of scaremongering happening, and fear, uncertainty and doubt being spread.

Secondly, with respect to the danger posed by the radiation that has been emitted, xkcd has a brilliant infographic relating various dose potencies at xkcd.com/radiation/. The lowest one year dose that has been linked to an increased risk of cancer is 100mSv, whereas spending a day 50km from Fukushima is a thirtieth of that. And that's lowest detectable, not significantly increased.

Did you even deign bother to read the OP, g33k? your answer seems completely unrelated.

PrivetDancer. Yes, I get that this thread is about wi-fi radiation. However, there have been a few references to the 'crisis' in Japan, so I thought some information might be handy to dispel some of the panic and misinformation.

The xkcd link actually contains the line "Using a cell phone ([delivers a dose of] 0µSv) ? a cell phone's transmitter does not produce ionizing radiation and does not cause cancer". Mobile phones radiate in the microwave band, just as wi-fi devices do.

Free family listings - worth every penny.

Gosh, doesn't electromagnetic radiation sound scary?

Remember that the spectrum is radio, micro, infrared, visible light, ultraviolet, x, gamma. We really shouldn't fear anything with a longer wavelength than visible light. Visible light makes life on earth possible, so celebrate EM radiation rather than fear it.

As for nuclear fallout, you have to take the half-lives of the isotopes into consideration. Iodine has a half-life of 8 days, so is totally safe within month or two.

Not sure how it gets up into the jet stream, given that it is a slow leak rather than a huge vertical explosion as in Chernobyl.

Have you seen the massive headlines in the papers? The Council of Europe, the World Health Organisation, the British Medical Journal all suggest children shouldn't be exposed to Wifi.

There is masses of evidence out there.

Families magazines are actively campaigning on this really important issue. Read up on the topic and keep your family safe.
www.familiesonline.co.uk/radiation

www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8548725/Mobile-phones-possibly-carcinogenic-say-World-Health-Organisation-experts.html

www.wifiinschools.org.uk

Children have much thinner skulls than adults so are more affected.

There are over 150 pieces of research showing the dangers, how many more do we need? As parents, we need to investigate for the sake of our children.

Let's debate what you find out.