Wifi Worries.

[Jill9999]

Hi guys,

Just wanted some feedback/feelings from other ladies in a similar position, I've got a one year old boy and am becoming increasingly concerned about wifi around him and my iphone, I have some friends with older children who have got their own tablets and are hooked up to the house wifi all the time, but some things that my husbands friends have been hinting at recently have really worried me (one of them works in the wireless industry) so I started googling and found this study and web page:

generationzapped.com/trailer/

stopsmartmeters.org.uk/9th-grade-student-cress-wifi-experiment-attracts-international-attention/

My husbands friend used the tobacco industry as an analogy, apparently smoking used to been seen as healthy, doctors recommending it to people!!! Fact! It was a huge industry making billions (much bigger than it is now) the manufacturers suppressed studies that showed it was bad for health for ages until they couldn't hide it anymore but by then the health of many had been ruined beyond repair.

Wireless is a new technology, the industry makes trillions and apparently studies into the bad effects are being kept quiet, I love my iphone, would have it surgically implanted into my right hand if I could, but I waited so long for Charlie I just don't want to take any risks with him, am I being paranoid or healthily cautious? (first post so be kind )

and another showed nil or negligible effect.

its really hard not to be supercilious on this thread, and initially I had a lot of sympathy for jil (I also take sensible precautions like not sleeping with a mobile by my head or in my pocket when pregnant) - after all we all want what's best for our children and to optimise their health and development. But having spent a significant number of years of my life doing science O levels, A levels, a BSc and an MSc (like many others on this thread I am sure) it gets a little frustrating when people won't educate themselves to understand the level of risk. Or at least try.

The vast majority of people choose to disregard this simply because its too inconvenient. It's easy to say 'this is not proven' than to ask your child to not use the iPad. It's not very different from say those who may have laughed at farmers for growing organic crop or people who chose to consume them a few decades ago.

I was myself quite ignorant about this subject until we wanted to buy a house which was 50m away from a railway line & was warned by 'believers' that this could be a problem. So after doing my own research, speaking to several experts from the train & EMF industry, decided it was not worth the risk unless I could be 100% sure. So had an EMF surveyor come over & do real readings for me. Not just the train but also within the house, from appliances & airport RF.

Those ego work in the world of EMF are not laughing the way some of the posters here are. The risks are real, though small, but they do build up. More so for young children who have a lifetime of exposure to look forward to, whilst their cells are still developing (unlike us adults). So it's well worth taking a few precautions, no point feeling sorry after 2 decades when the world wakes up to this like they did with smoking.

Artistic, why do you believe that wifi base stations present more of a risk than the portable devices?

YABU.

Charlie is at more risk from drinking fruit shoots and eating Greggs sausage rolls, then crossing the road to get home again than he is from wifi IMHO.

how and why do you think trains and trainlines generate electromagnetic fields Arctic? Do you ban fridge magnets? Are you fundamentally opposed to one of the fundamental forces of nature in our universe (everywhere). What's next? no gravity?

I wish we could stick to worrying about one thing:

WiFi
mobile phones
cordless phones
fruit flies
Electromagnetism

they're not all the same thing

Artistic sorry

Howard - in simple terms - base units transmit big pulses to ensure wifi is alive. Receivers are only 'seeking' the network & connect to the closest point they can find. While both are non ideal, the receivers are transmitting less than the base for this reason.

When we did the EMF readings at my house, when on the first floor the readings shot up quite a bit at the exact point above the location of the base unit on the ground floor. Without being told the engineer was able to say 'is this where your wifi router is on the floor below'. Incidentally it is below DD's room, so firstly we moved it away from the side of her bed, and then we switch it off at night.

Forago - trains do have EMF owing to the electricity that charges them. Depends on whether they are AC or DC lines & also whether they are overhead or third/fourth rails. Luckily in our case it was a DC third rail which meant that the EMF 'died' at a distance of 10m from the tracks. Also the quantum of EMF is low incase of DC. Fridge magnets are a cause for concern but they are momentary & low impact.

So I can live with a few lesser evils.

And yes - as you've listed below, there are several different risks. Why wouldn't you worry about most/all? Just because you don't meet with a road accident one day, would you be ok to attempt food poisoning by eating soiled food? I don't think so. So why the need to have a set number of risks only?

Interesting. Particularly so when you read ETSI EN 300 328. That fun little document is the EU standard that specifies the radio spectrum license conditions for 2.4GHz 802.11b/g/n WiFi. Essentially, you want to sell WiFi kit in the EU, by law you have to follow this standard. There are effectively identical standards in the US albeit with trivial differences over allowable frequency ranges.

If you have a look at EN 300 328 on page 10, section 4.3.1.2, it says (and I quote) The equivalent isotropic radiated power (e.i.r.p.) shall be equal to or less than -10 dBW (100 mW). This limit shall apply for any combination of power level and intended antenna assembly.

Note that it doesn't say "Base stations can massively exceed this limit but end devices have to conform to it". It's 100mW no matter which end you are. Section 5.7 of that document covers how the testing is done and, again, there is no mention whatsoever of different limits for base stations vs end devices or even different test protocols. This is not surprising if you understand how 802.11 works as the differences between the base stations and the receivers are primarily higher up the stack than the radio hardware. The beacon signal you were alluding to is still limited to the same 100mW cap as everything else.

But then based on what you've written it's pretty clear you don't understand how 802.11 works. I do. It also suggests very strongly that the people you paid money to for your EMF reading don't really understand it all that well either or even understand the inverse square law for radiated signals. Because if they did they'd know that you will almost certainly absorb more energy from the aerial in your portable device than from that in the WiFi base station simply because you're closer to your portable device than you are to the base station.

There is another possibility of course - these EMF surveyors do understand all this but find they get more money from people like you if they lie to you.

I wonder which it is?

Those ego work in the world of EMF are not laughing the way some of the posters here are

Of course they aren't. They wouldn't be able to make money from the gullible otherwise.

Of course there is measurable electro-magnetic radiation from electric railway lines, wifi routers, etc. If there wasn't they wouldn't work.

For what it is worth wifi base stations do not transmit big pulses. Exposure to wifi continuously for one year results in the same amount of radiation as a single 20-minute mobile phone call.

Artistic - like the EMFs around the electricity lines in your house?

What's "the quantum of EMF" dare I ask?

This thread is better than watching Dave

Make sure you don't feed Charlie with anything that's been wrapped in plastic......

www.parent24.com/Getting_pregnant/fertility_problems/Male-infertility-20081103

I just know that Jill9999 will come back with the study from the list of 34 that she thinks is the most persuasive. We merely have to be patient.

Yeah, as soon as s/he's actually read them and chosen the most rigorously controlled, clearly defined, scientifically credible... Oh, wait.

Only a matter of time...

Any minute now, Jill9999 is going to come back with her favourite science paper from the ones she's linked to. I just know she will.

This is brilliant

I know nothing about science.

But even my tiny brain can comprehend that dodgy sites who sell stuff probably don't have your best interests at heart.

Thank you genuine science people for explaining everything.

Your wasting your time though methinks

OP, since your starting point seems to have been a Daily Mail article, have a look at this - www.anorak.co.uk/288298/scare-stories/the-daily-mails-list-of-things-that-give-you-cancer-from-a-to-z.html/

What do you plan to do about the fact that the Mail reckons bottle feeding and breastfeeding give you cancer? That menstruating, the menopause and missing periods give you cancer? Though I fear that, for you, it's a bit too late to do anything about the 'fact' that pregnancy and babies give mothers cancer.

A year ago or so I was bf newborn DD late in the night and came across a similar thread. Where were you all then? I was hoping for some reassuring posts (especially as two people close to me who work in the industry keep going on about the effect of radiation and I have been ignoring them). Most responses back then were supportive of the OP's concerns. I got so stressed out thinking all the MNing during bf had done damage to my precious newborn. I felt so quilty I actually could not go back to sleep that night...

Cancer is not on the rise, we're just getting better at detecting early stages of it, so we are seeing more early cases than later stages thst are too late to treat.

If anything, I can see how growing up with instant gratification can be detrimental, since most careers you slowly work your way up the ladder and most big projects take time to kick off. But it's not causing physical harm.

Also, for what it's worth, my parents didn't have computers before I was born and I still got LD's. They're hereditary things that have basis in genetics, not radiation.

Radiation is all around up and it was all around the first people millions of years ago. Most things radiate, even little Charlie radiates.
There are particles called nutrinos that come from the sun that go right through you, then they carry on and go right through the earth.
At night they come the other way. Through a kangaroo, through the planet then through you.
Is it worth worrying about ? well it didnt stop those first people and there is nothing we can do about it, so do not worry.

It's the same with wifi. There are natural sources of radio frquencies and they never harmed us before, why would they do so now ? I have a million generations behind me saying 'you'll be ok, just dont go out in the sun without your sunscreen on'

Those risks are well known, dont get sunburned, dont stand in front of a big radar dish, dont stick your head in the microwave.

We also know where there is no risk, the generations tell us. we love our children, we radiate, but we cuddle them

I'm very disturbed by some of these comment. Do people really think that wifi or any wireless device works by MAGIC? I highly recommend people watch vimeo.com/54189727
I recently signed up for the Babysafe Project every mother owes it to their child to do a little research on the subject
www.babysafeproject.org/