wifi in schools

[wholemeal]

There seem to be may views about the safety of WiFi in schools. I have recently seen the site wifiinschools.org.uk, which describes scientific papers suggesting adverse health effects from WiFi. They mention epilepsy, precocious puberty, cognitive impairment, pregnancy, male fertility and brain activity....
What are people's views? Is there anything that parents can do if they are concerned about their children using WiFi, but most schools have it?

Becky,

Which journals are not reputable or peer-reviewed? Have you read the papers? Which ones are 'wilfully misrepresented'?
I don't think there is evidence of WiFi having adverse effects yet, as the studies haven't been done. Technology is moving faster than the science. But there are studies using low power microwaves which do have adverse effects, so you might expect WiFi to. Better to be safe than sorry until long-term studies have been carried out. I'm not letting my children use it.

Don't you ever post about anything else???

Not at the moment . I was originally hoping that someone else might have found a way round the problem of what do you do if you don't want your child to use WiFi but so many schools now have it? I thought that the problem must have come up in other schools and some of them might have found a good solution. I'll just have to keep fighting to get the school to remove the WiFi, because there is no way that my children are going to use it.

The problem is, of course, that it is everywhere though. Short of wrapping your children in tin foil and moving to the top of a mountain, you probably can't get away from it.

The head of the Health Protection Agency, Sir William Stewart in 2000 said wi fi should not go into schools until it had been safety tested..There is no point burying our heads in the sands, there is an issue here..just look at what is going on in Europe: France has been taking wi fi OUT of libraries including the Sorbonne, a mayor in Normandy has stopped it in all the schools in his town and another Mayor has closed a school until a mast has been removed. -From what I have read the technology is the same and the intensity of the beam not dissimilar if there are 20 or so lap tops in a class room. The headmaster of my children's school did not take much persuading: He looked at the evidence and decided to go with the precautionary principle and removed all wi fi.

Have a look at www.wiredchild.org/schools for more information on wi-fi-in schools including governmental advice.

There is evidence of potential harm. Governments have so far shied away from legislation but many are advising against wi-fi in schools. The European parliament has voted for tighter safety standards.

The UK government, on the other hand, is actively encouraging schools to go wireless.
Our children are being used as guinea pigs in a global experiment with potentially serious health effects.

The reports I have read say there is no evidence of potential harm, but I can;'t remember where I got that from.

All the info I have read says that mobile phone signals are much stronger, so you'd have to deal with mobile phone signals first. The strength of the signals of mobile phone and wifi are both available if you do a google search.

...and as for the litany of problems cited in wifiinschools - precocious puberty, male infertility FFS - this technology has only been around for 5 minutes - how could they possibly have any meaningful evidence about such things?

I think it's all very well to suggest that we find out more about a new technology before rolling it out, but lets not just start making up scare stories about specific conditions...that's as bad as not doing any research at all!

Despite living in a detached house, I have 4 wifi networks in my house, from the neighbours! Don't see the point in worrying about 6 hours in school, when they are everywhere at home, and children spend considerably longer at home than they do at school. I think just to fight out about wifi in schools is a pointless and unwinable battle.

I read somewhere (can't remember, I'll have a look) that spending a day the day in a WiFi zone exposed you to the same amount of radiation as a two minute mobile conversation.

Exactly - not nearly so serious as mobile phones.

www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs304/en/index.html

Does this clear it up?

Of course it doesn't clear it up.

The International Commission for Electromagnetic Safety have said 'The non-ionizing radiation protection standards recommended by the international standards organisations, and supported by the World Health Organisation, are inadequate. Existing guidelines are based on results from acute exposure studies and only thermal effects are considered. A world wide application of the Precautionary Principle is required. In addition, new standards should be developed to take various physiological conditions into consideration, e.g., pregnancy, newborns, children, and elderly people' (ICEMS, 2008).

The International Bio-Initiative report (2007) states '..... what is clear is that the existing public safety standards limiting these radiation levels in nearly every country of the world look to be thousands of times too lenient. Changes are needed.'

The European Parliament Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety have said 'the limits of exposure to electromagnetic fields which have been set for the general public are obsolete'. It is calling for stricter exposure limits.

Sir William Stewart, the Chairman of the Health Protection Agency has stated that he thinks that the WHO are wrong to state that there are no adverse health effects from low level long-term exposure to wireless devices (Panorama, 2007).

Thousands of scientific studies showing damaging biological effects have been published in peer-reviewed journals. These won't disappear because people don't want them to exist. Damaging effects have been found. They weren't made up just to annoy people. It is an inconvenient truth that challenges people's lifestyles. But your health won't be protected just because you choose to ignore it.

My son was badly effected by the WiFi in his school
He was the worst affected in his class.
He used to come home with throbbing headaches and then began to get terrible nightmares. They got worse and worse all year until he would wake in the night with heart palpitations feeling sick and dizzy. He was 6 years old.
The doctors didn't know what was wrong
It wasn't until I took monitoring equipment into the school later in the year that I found that particular class had high levels of radiation from the WiFi and phone masts outside.
I then went to complementary therapists and sent his blood to Germany for analysis.
They all confirmed radiation damage.
We had to spend a lot of money on supplements and medicine to protect his liver from further damage.
Meanwhile the other children in the class suffered but from general low immunity resulting in frequent days off sick.
1000's of German doctors have signed petitions to their government to ban this technology citing all these symptoms found in their patients.
See the Freiburg Appeal and Bamburg appeals
www.planningsanity.co.uk/reports/md341.doc
www.mastsanity.org/index.php?option=com_ content&task=view&id=9&Itemid=54

Also Panorama did an investigation on WiFi which featured some top scientists voicing their concerns. It can be seen here
www.mastsanity.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=132&Itemid=113

I have Wifi in my home, there is wifi in libraries, coffee shops, MacDonalds and apparently a lot of stores use it so really anywhere you would take your child.

I have never heard of anyone being affected by it althoug I don't see the need for it in schools TBH.

"althoug I don't see the need for it in schools TBH."

The need is that rooming is often a big issue for many schools. Lots of schools are heavily oversubscribed and do not have room for designated computer rooms any more. So lots of schools now have laptop computers that teachers book out and then the computers get moved to the students, so that all students can have the chance to have IT lessons incoroprated into their other lessons. It is a lot more practical than trying to move 30 kids over to the other side of the school campus for one lesson - trust me!

Further, these days lots of teachers now do the registers online, again in the last school I taught at, every teacher had a laptop which they registered every lesson on. This allowed the school to be able to see immediately if a student was in the class they were supposed to be in, or had skipped a class and other important info that cannot be collated so easily if registers are being done on paper. Networking all classrooms just does not work, particularly in schools where there are lots of mobile classrooms, so wifi is the only way to make it practical really.

I think that's the main uses I've seen wifi in secondary schools.

re safety first.

This post is absurd:-

1. The frequencies used by wifi cannot cause "radiation damage" (in fact what is being described is radiation sickness.) WiFi wont cause this anymore than visible light will. (light is electromagnetic radiation too. Ban lightbulbs?)

1. if some one had found a "diet supplement" which prevents radiation sickness they would have won the Nobel Prize for medicine! If you posted in good faith you have been conned.

Of course microwave frequencies can cause radiation damage.
What else would you call it?
Microwaves are part of the spectrum along with radio waves, light, x rays and gamma rays.
They are all 'radiation'
Call it 'microwave sickness' if you'ed rather which is what the Russian's called it.
The point is that we have evolved in natural light form the sun but the background levels in the microwave band are virtually zero and now pumped up trillions of times on the assumption (with no safety testing) that this will not cause harm
Scientists used to claim that x rays were safe in 'low' doses and used to x ray peoples feet and pregnant women until an an increase in leukaemia was found.
Even then scientists and doctors ridiculed the ones sounding the alarm, just as they are doing now.
History repeating itself.
The radiation has been found to damage the immune system in literally 1000's of peer reviewed and published studies.
To strengthen the immune system one can take supplements but it would be better not to be irradiated in the first place.

nlondondad, microwaves have been shown to damage DNA in many studies, so far down to exposures 83 times lower than the UK current safety guidelines. OK so it may not be damaging it directly, but whether it is via increases in free radicals or another mechanism, it is being damaged in many cell types. Dead/damaged cells are being found in rat brains that have been exposed to microwaves at exposures 16000 times lower than the current safety guidelines (2 hour exposure). They are even found in rat babies when the mothers were exposed to microwaves for an hour a day during pregnancy (this is not normal). Since wi-fi exposures for people using laptops are reportedly somewhere between 10-600 times lower than the current (obsolete) safety limits (in V/m), it is possible that many of the types of damage described in the scientific literature could affect some people using wi-fi enabled devices. Why are we even considering taking these risks with children's lives? Let's make the 21st century a time when we are keen to make scientific and technological advances. But may we never aim for this at the expense of people's health, freedom or their lives.

If the government won't act to protect children in school, then perhaps parents could do something? Why not have a no-wifi day/week every term where parents keep their children out of the schools that use wireless technologies? A 'STOP our children getting cancer, dementia or infertility day'. It won't damage their education, will affect school attendance statistics and will show the school that people are concerned.

The Essex study was done by psychiatrists, not neuroscientist who would have better understanding and not to be sponsored by the phone companies to do it? Lets just think about this!

My partners account.

Until last summer I was, like most people nowadays, very fond of all my modern communication gadgets from wifi to mobile, from Palm to laptops and all their advantages.

From 2006 onwards I went several times to see a doctor for heart palpitations, but they couldn't find anything wrong with me.

Then in July 2008 I suddenly started experiencing dizziness on numerous occasions, till it got so bad one night, suffering even from speech problems, that I ended up in A&E thinking I had a stroke or heart attack; in the following weeks I underwent many tests. The results showed I was absolutely fine, but the symptoms stayed. The doctors told me I just had been stressed, but the thing is I wasn't stressed at all prior to this.

To my own shock and confusion I realized that my dizziness always occurred, when I was in close vicinity to Wifi, mobiles, Blackberries and mobile masts.
Other symptoms added themselves to the list: Headaches, excessive sweating during the night, memory and concentration problems, a pain in my head, and discomfort either side of my neck [Glands] pins and needles in my hands, a feeling of being static (I gave people electric shocks in that early period, when I shook their hands), prickly skin and even skin rashes. The latter, when I was sitting in front of my computer or the tv. Even certain light sources (energy saving light bulbs and neon lights) caused the skin problem to occur.

After medical professionals weren't able to help, I started my own research and found many websites and blogs by people, with exactly the same problems as mine. They are sufferers of electro-sensitivity (ES), a condition fully recognized in Canada and Sweden as a medical impairment (with 250.000 sufferers in Sweden alone) but unfortunately ridiculed in the UK. I had never heard of it (this to show I am not a hypochondriac), but once I realized that this was the source of my problems, I started clearing my home environment from Wifi, DECT phones and non-essential electrical items. My problems immediately started to get noticeably better.

Since I am suffering from this condition, I have spoken to many people about it and even if not everyone has fully blown symptoms of ES, I have encountered many people who have some of the described symptoms.

So the problem might lie on a bigger scale than the assumed 3-5% of sufferers worldwide. This is the main reason of me contacting you, as I have the feeling that more awareness needs to be raised, as many many people suffer of a small portion of ES symptoms. Especially prevalent seems the following:

Most men carry their mobile in their jacket or trousers for easy access. I used to carry mine in my motorbike jacket?s front left pocket. When I stopped doing that the unexplained palpitations I suffered from for 2 years vanished immediately.

In conversations with friends, colleagues and fellow bikers I heard that many of them experience similar symptoms like pain or tremors in the chest area or what the American media refers to as ?phantom text messages?. Every now and then I?d think I had a text message, when carrying my phone in my trouser pockets, but when I checked there was nothing there.
According to Swedish scientist and ES expert Olle Johansson this is caused ?by high intensity bursts of extremely-low frequency electromagnetic field charges that your phone is producing and (that are) affecting your nervous system.?

This seems to affect mainly men, as men are more likely to carry their phone on their body than women, who mainly carry them in their handbags.

Of course I don?t know, if carrying your mobile is a cause of ES or if these phantom text messages are just another symptom and the causes could lie somewhere else, like problems with your immune system for example, which could to make you more susceptible to all the electromagnetic radiation around us, but in any case I guess it can?t be good to have heart palpitations.

I know: I have heard every joke about ?vibrating pockets? and have been many times referred to Ben Goldacre?s ?Bad Science? column. There are definitely pseudo-scientists out there making a lot of money from scaremongering, but we have to distinguish between those and the victims in all this.

Retrospectively I am convinced that my heart palpitations were an early warning sign for what was happening later on. I might have been able to avoid to come to down with electro-sensitivity, if I had known more about it. And believe me: ES is not an easy thing to live with.

During all this happening I thought for a short period of time, that it might just be my ancient phone causing trouble, so I opted for an iphone, but that just made things far worse, which brings me to another issue of widespread problems nobody seems willing to be talking about.

Now I know that the radiation emitted from an iphone/ Blackberry is far higher than the one of my old Nokia. (Measured in SAR ratings: iphone a whopping 2.0, the ancient Nokia a mere 0.57) In the US for example the guidelines are much tighter, the iphone on the market there has a lower rating.

Since then I have spoken to many proud owners of their Powerful 3G Phones.

Many of them experience sleep problems (most of them seem to wake up in the early hours of the morning (around 4.30 am) and find it difficult to get back to sleep) and/ or feel ill. Even though some of them admitted, that their problems started shortly after acquiring their new gadget, they are of course unwilling to put two and two together. As I was when it all started happening to me.

Our fast communication tools are just so wonderfully convenient, that we are very reluctant to think, there might be a problem.

And I?m not talking about some weird conspiracy theory. Just the reluctance to let go of something making our lives so much easier. But maybe the price we are all paying on the long run will be too high?
Even though it should be said, that of course the revenue of the communications industry is vast.

But smoking used to be a relaxing pastime, didn't it?

If you are still skeptical, while reading this, maybe you can suspend your disbelief and convey an easy test: Maybe ask around in your office, if people are experiencing sleep problems and/ or the phantom text messages? Maybe ask willing participants to switch off their mobile and Wifi during the night, remove the DECT phone from the bedroom and not to carry the mobile on their bodies for a period to see if it makes any difference?

The phones, if kept switched on by your bed (i.e. used as an alarm clock) will not let your brain go into a proper sleep pattern and thus not allowing for your body?s necessary recuperation process to work over night.
There should be warnings on phones: Do not keep by your bed.
I am sure that the results of such a test will be very convincing.

Since all this has happened to me I have spoken to many fellow sufferers, as well. Many people, completely left alone by the NHS, forced to leave their jobs and in some cases even their homes. I am in writing contact with a woman who is now living in a tent, as it is the only place, where she can be symptom free. A desolate and lonely existence.

The people I have spoken to come from all walks of life: lawyers, bankers, actors, lighting technicians, librarians etc. They all suffer the same symptoms. If they were all hypochondriac, how come they all have the same set of symptoms? Surely this can?t be some sort of mass hallucination or hysteria.
Even the though numbers are growing ES sufferers and anyone trying to ask for more research are being ridiculed.

So far research hasn't come up with any conclusive results, but as a sufferer of ES I know, that has just to do with the fact that the scientists undertaking the trials don?t understand (or worse don?t take it seriously) and so the lab environment is a problem in itself for most sufferers.

The whole scenario reminds me very much of the case of ME (especially because of some of the similarities in symptoms between the two illnesses). Sufferers of ME were ridiculed for years as having ?yuppie flu?. Maybe there is even a link?

For more information:

2 British websites about ES:

www.es-uk.info

www.electrosensitivity.org

A Canadian website about ES:
www.weepinitiative.org

The Swedish website about ES:
www.feb.se/FEB/feb_techman.html

safeantenna.org/

fullsignalmovie.com /index.html

wifiinschools.org.uk/

The following website and articles are about the (proven!) negative effects of energy saving lightbulbs (for everyone, not just ES sufferers) and the planned ban of tungsten bulbs by the government this year:

www.spectrumalliance.org.uk
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/lifeandstyle/health/ article4915472.ec
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1161899/Low-energy-light-bulbs-cause-rash es-swelling-sensitive-skin-warn-experts.html

Recent articles in the press.

www.gq.com/cars-gear/gear-and-gadgets/201002/warning-cell-phone-radiation?currentPa ge=1

www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/mobile-phone-radiati on-wrecks-your-sleep-771262.html

www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/features/2552553/Wi-fi-wave s-make-top-DJ-Steve-Miller-sick-Steve-Miller-aka-Afterlife-Allergic-to-wifi-Wifi-allergy.html

htt p://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthcomment/geoffrey-lean/6175172/Mobiles-and-cancer-the-plot-thicken s.html

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6805895.ece

www.expres s.co.uk/posts/view/61725/Is-wi-fi-putting-our-children-in-danger-

www.nytimes.com/2010/01/ 02/us/02cell.html?hpw

www.express.co.uk/posts/view/149235/Police-force-sued-by-officers-wh o-claim-that-radios-are-making-them-ill-

Other problems to come include the widespread ideas of rolling out wifi over whole cities and the installation of so-called smart-meters, that will send your electricity usage reading wirelessly to the providers.

I am already scared, how I will be able to live my life and cope at my job with the increasing EMFs and Wifi everywhere.

Looking back it would have been great, if I had known more about the possible problems of overexposure to modern communication.

We all should be more careful until it is really proven that there are no dangers involved in using wireless technology to the extent we do at the moment.

Personally I'm really worried for the future of all my friends and family living in this country. I believe we are sleep walking into a really big problem for our health.

Please take the time to look at the sites above, and talk to others!

I really don't think you can credit Wifi for pregnancy. Seriously.

Extract from the 3G iphone manual?

iPhone?s SAR measurement may exceed the FCC exposure guidelines for body-worn operation if positioned less than 15 mm (5/8 inch) from the
body (e.g. when carrying iPhone in your pocket). For optimal mobile device performance and to be sure that human exposure to RF energy does not
exceed the FCC, IC, and European Union guidelines, always follow these instructions and precautions: When on a call using the built-in audio receiver
in iPhone, hold iPhone with the dock connector pointed down toward your shoulder to increase separation from the antenna. When using iPhone near your body for voice calls or for wireless data transmission over a cellular
network, keep iPhone at least 15 mm (5/8 inch) away from the body, and only use carrying cases, belt clips, or holders that do not have metal parts and that
maintain at least 15 mm (5/8 inch) separation between iPhone and the body.

If you are still concerned about exposure to RF energy, you can further limit your exposure by limiting the amount of time using iPhone, since time is a
factor in how much exposure a person receives, and by placing more distance between your body and iPhone, since exposure level drops off dramatically
with distance.

Take care, because they dont?

Extract from the 3G iphone manual?

iPhoneÂ?s SAR measurement may exceed the FCC exposure guidelines for body-worn operation if positioned less than 15 mm (5/8 inch) from the
body (e.g. when carrying iPhone in your pocket). For optimal mobile device performance and to be sure that human exposure to RF energy does not
exceed the FCC, IC, and European Union guidelines, always follow these instructions and precautions: When on a call using the built-in audio receiver
in iPhone, hold iPhone with the dock connector pointed down toward your shoulder to increase separation from the antenna. When using iPhone near your body for voice calls or for wireless data transmission over a cellular
network, keep iPhone at least 15 mm (5/8 inch) away from the body, and only use carrying cases, belt clips, or holders that do not have metal parts and that
maintain at least 15 mm (5/8 inch) separation between iPhone and the body.

If you are still concerned about exposure to RF energy, you can further limit your exposure by limiting the amount of time using iPhone, since time is a
factor in how much exposure a person receives, and by placing more distance between your body and iPhone, since exposure level drops off dramatically
with distance.

A good site. radiationresearch.org/

Extract from the 3G Iphone manual.

iPhone?s SAR measurement may exceed the FCC exposure guidelines for
body-worn operation if positioned less than 15 mm (5/8 inch) from the
body (e.g. when carrying iPhone in your pocket). For optimal mobile device
performance and to be sure that human exposure to RF energy does not
exceed the FCC, IC, and European Union guidelines, always follow these
instructions and precautions: When on a call using the built-in audio receiver
in iPhone, hold iPhone with the dock connector pointed down toward your
shoulder to increase separation from the antenna. When using iPhone near
your body for voice calls or for wireless data transmission over a cellular
network, keep iPhone at least 15 mm (5/8 inch) away from the body, and only
use carrying cases, belt clips, or holders that do not have metal parts and that
maintain at least 15 mm (5/8 inch) separation between iPhone and the body.
If you are still concerned about exposure to RF energy, you can further limit
your exposure by limiting the amount of time using iPhone, since time is a
factor in how much exposure a person receives, and by placing more distance
between your body and iPhone, since exposure level drops off dramatically
with distance.