Am I being Unreasonable to worry about the longterm effects of wifi and mobile technology on my kids

[Noellefielding]

with information like this out there?

I do think there might be an issue if you hold your mobile close to your head

I agree. You can't see the screen properly and may accidentally send out mass invites to CandyCrush resulting in death by stoning.

namechange

Blood brain barrier? Changes to the permeability.

The light from a 60W bulb is not as intense when it hits you.
Being close to a source of non ionising radiation for extensive periods - where the intensity is high but then decreases rapidly as you get further away.

A mobile phone emits non ionising radiation. You are up close to it for extensive periods.

I think it's easy to dismiss such concerns like that. There's a difference between the wi-fi in the air and having a source close to your brain for a long time.

Is candy crush that bad, we could have more fun by freezing dihydrogen monoxide in the cyclopentane heat pump thing in the food production room and then crushing the lumps

The evidence currently does not seem to support a health danger of extensive mobile use.

But I personally would not use my mobile for a long time near my head.

www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/radiation/cell-phones-fact-sheet

I'll just keep exposing myself to other carcinogens in the environment instead.

A mobile phone emits non ionising radiation.

Do you know what that means?

Do you know what that means

Umm. Let's see. M.Sc Clinical Biochemistry.
8 years working in the NHS
Working in cancer research
Working with a range of analysers.

Yes. I can say quite confidently I know what that means.

But you keep on implying that the intensity of non-ionising radiation, or the duration of exposure, affect things. They simply don't: non-ionising radiation isn't "ionising if there's lots of it" or "ionising if it persists for long enough". It's non-ionising, full stop.

If thermal effects on the blood brain barrier were an issue, then why wouldn't the same effects be seen by walking around in the sun for a day, or from mild exercise, both of which will raise the temperature of relevant parts of the body by at least as much as a couple of watts of RF? And why wouldn't people who live around large TV transmitters, like the population of Sutton Coldfield, have experienced this for the past fifty years?

*non-ionising radiation isn't "ionising"

True - but the intensity of the radiation is very intense if it's close to you for a long time. I'm not talking about the ionising effect. Because it can't.I'm talking about any effect.

But high intensity radiation close up - who knows if it has an effect?

The data seems to be unclear

www.theguardian.com/science/2011/may/31/mobile-phone-radiation-cancer-risk

You can't definitively rule out the possibilities. There may be dangers. Which is why more research is carried out.

I presume you know about how the intensity decreases massively with distance.

"In designating radio-frequency fields as "possibly carcinogenic", the WHO has put them on a par with around 240 other agents for which evidence of harm is uncertain, including low-level magnetic fields, talcum powder and working in a dry cleaners.

The report found no clear mechanism for the waves to cause brain tumours. Radiation from mobile phones is too weak to cause cancer by breaking DNA, leading scientists to suspect other, more indirect routes.

"We found some threads of evidence telling us how cancers might occur but there are acknowledged gaps and uncertainties," Samet said."

So the evidence and mechanisms are unclear.

I presume you know about how the intensity decreases massively with distance.

It's worth reading up on near field and far field, however. Near field effects only scale linearly, and are potentially quite powerful: it's how contactless payment cards are powered, for example. It's only far field effects which scale with the inverse square law, and for 900MHz GSM the transition region is at least a foot away from your head.

Near field effects only scale linearly, and are potentially quite powerful

So near field effects are important. The point is there's no clear definitive evidence. So to be on the safe side, I'd limit mobile phone use.

Has anyone mentioned pineapples and bananas yet? Or Aberdeen?

@Lurking Husband - That's not a good example as, above the protective shield of the ozone layer, the radiation from the Sun is harmful to us. I believe it has a measurable impact on airline pilots and cabin crew, for example, not to mention those who go slightly higher up.

Similarly for microwaves. If one of these is broken then it can leak radiation which can make people unwell.

So clearly radiation at some frequencies/wavelengths is harmful, and it's just that those used for telecommunications are at wavelengths that are not.

The point is there's no clear definitive evidence. So to be on the safe side, I'd limit mobile phone use.

For better or worse we've run the experiment now, with at least fifteen years of mass usage of mobile phones. So far no sign of an explosion in the numbers of cancers in right ears. with apologies to lefties

I know! I just ingested :

Ethanol
Propyl acetate
2-Methylpropyl acetate
Propanol
n-Butyl acetate
2-Methylpropanol
2-Methylbutyl acetate
n-Butyl propanoate
n-Butanol
n-Pentyl acetate
2-Methylbut-3-enyl acetate
2-Methylbutanol
3-Methylbut-3-enyl acetate
3-Methylbut-3-enol
3-Methylbut-2-enyl acetate
n-Pentanol
n-Hexyl acetate
E-Hex-3-enyl acetate
Z-Hex-3-enyl acetate
Hex-4-enyl acetate
E-Hex-2-enyl acetate
n-Hexanol
Z-Hex-3-enol
E-Hex-2-enol
n-Hexyl-2-methylbutanoate
n-Heptanol
Camphor
n-Octanol
n-Oct-2-enol
1 -Methoxy-4-(2-propenyl)-benzene

Or, as it was shockingly labelled.....an apple. I washed it in dihydrogen monoxide before eating as well.

As I like to remind the natural crunchy brigade, cyanide is natural. So is arsenic. And asbestos. Natural does not equal good and synthetic does not equal evil.

Everything is chemicals or energy. Wifi is just another bit of the electromagnetic spectrum, like radio waves or visible light. There is a whole woo-based industry dedicated to scaring people about wifi etc.

I actually know a bloke who was commissioned to zap C. Elegans (small type of worm, common lab model) with mobile phone frequencies a few years back. Nothing happened. He did it for years. Nothing continued to happen.

It's fine. :)

Are they talking about tissue heating and acoustic neuromas? I thought that was debunked a while back ?

I also wouldn't be taking the grauniad very seriously as a source of science journalism. They're... Well... Not exactly fabulous.

Skiptonlass

this is the internet. Push off with your facts - as any fule nos, you can prove anything with facts.

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I actually know a bloke who was commissioned to zap C. Elegans (small type of worm, common lab model) with mobile phone frequencies a few years back. Nothing happened. He did it for years. Nothing continued to happen

And that proves what?

There are other studies that show effects.

In the laboratory, EMF can cause increases in mammary tumors in animals and in vitro systems in which human breast cell tumors are grown in culture. Importantly, effects in rodents are found in some strains of animals but not others, indicating that subtle differences in genetic background might make some animals more susceptible to the carcinogenic effects of EMF (Fedrowitz, 2004). In an in vitro cell system, EMF exposure of human breast tumor (MCF-7) cells led to an activation of genes that have been associated with the induction of metastasis in breast cancer cells (Girgert, 2009).

www.breastcancerfund.org/clear-science/radiation-chemicals-and-breast-cancer/nonionizing-radiation.html

But yes, we are exposed to a range of chemicals daily. Some are synthetic, some are found in nature. Love the apple chemistry.

Saying "it's fine" is not science.

I'm not saying it's dangerous. I'm also not saying it's fine. Personally I think we don't know.

Centre for Disease Control

www.cdc.gov/nceh/radiation/factsheets/224613_faq_cell-phones-and-your-health.pdf

None of the official bodies say it's fine nor do they say it's dangerous.

They say more study is needed.

I am sure there are sites out there that are more active in their opinions. Wise not to quote them.

Similarly for microwaves. If one of these is broken then it can leak radiation which can make people unwell.

Well, it can burn them. It's not a matter of some super-subtle effect that science barely understands causing subtle long-term harm, it's straightforwardly the case that if you whack a couple of kilowatts of energy into human tissue, it heats up and cooks, just like your bowl of soup. The cataracts that might be a risk from staring into the door long enough are the same effect: heating. It's well understood. If mobile phones came with a battery the size of a breeze block, and WiFi routers had mains leads with 13A fuses in them, they'd potentially burn you as well.

In other news, "staring into the beam of a Class 4 laser is a bad idea, torches not so much."

In simple terms, something which is ionising has the ability to turn an atom into an ion. An ion is a charged particle which has lost or gained electrons.
If something is non ionising then it cannot produce an ion from an atom. My shoe is non ionising . If I have lots of shoes then they do not suddenly become ionising.

This is year 10/11 physics.

The issue of ionising / non ionising is irrelevant.

There may be other mechanisms at work. Or maybe not.

What I would do, if I was worried, is limit my exposure to wifi. More importantly I would try to eat healthily, take exercise and drive carefully and encourage my family to do the same

There might be, yes you are right. I am sure there are a lot of mechanisms which exist that we are not aware of. Yet (hopefully)