Panorama - wi-fi network radiation risks

[WendyWeber]

Tonight's programme - says "radio frequency radiation levels in some schools are up to three times the level found in the main beam of intensity from mobile phone masts"

Wendy: children have been exposed to radiation from mobile masts since the early 80s though.

there has been a study which showed some effects with frequencies and signal strengths above a certain level though.

I'll see if I can find it.

Fauve: if the scientist was setting up a study then he wasn't browbeaten by anybody surely? Only a maverick scientist would claim that something definitly causes cancer at the beginning of a study to test it.

Me too SP. Unnerving, eh?

here is an article which reviews other studies.

As the article says, some studies have found a link between exposure to radiofrequency transmissions, but there is so much inconsistency of results as to make them unreliable. Further studies found no link.

tamum.

Well, he seemed rather shamefaced and was at great pains to say that although there was evidence of increased rates of tumours, it didn't mean that mobile phones caused cancer. It just looked pathetic, really, that he felt he had to spell that out so carefully. Otherwise the industry would have been down on him like a ton of bricks, wouldn't they? It was his demeanour which was so craven.

I'm concerned about DC's bollocks, actually. I wish he'd put that laptop on a table, like they recommend, not on his lap. (If it's Wifi, that is.)

but the evidence is very mixed and doesn't prove that mobile phones cause cancer. if it was more decisive this scientist would have had his funding cut, surely?

Isn't the point that there is very little funding for scientific research unless it comes from industry - and that's why most studies will show no risk, or no proof of risk?

I think in general the problem with industry funding is that studies which show a result favourable to the industry are more likley to be published. This is the case in the pharmaceutical industry anyway.

But in this case the funding is public anyway in most cases isn't it?

I'm not sure where the money is coming from for this ten-year study, but I think it is a government study; although what that means in terms of funding, I don't know. The point is that they have found that people who use mobiles a lot are more likely to get these brain tumours: apparently that is a fact, and so the govt must look into it. I suppose that's how research into tobacco finally took place - when the link with cancer was so obvious and incontrovertible that it had to be looked at seriously.

I suppose I phrased that badly: more people who used mobile phones a lot got brain tumours than people who didn't.

no, but it isn't a fact though.

some studies have found a link, some haven't. the evidence is inconclusive, and if there is a risk it is highly unlikley to be a very big one or the previous studies would be more consistent.

I don't think that's generally true about research done in the public sector- the majority of stuff in this kind of field is funded by government or charities. Very nice of you to be charitable about DC's bollocks though

I know, his bollocks do cause me consternation.

see this website:

powerwatch

should give you a bit more info as will radiationresearch.co.uk
and MAST - MASTS

but bascically anything that is emitting a digital pulse (DEC phone, mobiles and their base stations, WIFI, digital baby monitors) is giving off EMFs (as do all electrical appliances but its the ones listed that have the pulse that effects the brain more because of their frequency. TETRA that the police etc use is even worse as is 3G mobile technology compared to 2G.

someone before said that we'd know about long term problems beacuse they've been around 15 years and we do, it's just because of the governments stance of them doctors can't attribute symptoms to it. the other point is that for the first time poeple are being exposed to it (on unprecedented scales) since birth.

the problem with campaigning websites is that they usually do exactly what they accuse others of doing: they publish selective evidence. I note none of the articles linked to on that powerwatch site failed to find evidence of a link between radiofrequency exposure and cancer. Yet I found several such studies within 5 minutes of Googling the subject. I wonder why that is?

Don't get me wrong: just because there is no conclusive evidence does not mean that a risk does not exist. But there would be more evidence by now if the risk was great. Someone mentioned the smoking/cancer link: that was not like this at all. Almost all studies on smoking and cancer found a very strong link between smoking and specific forms of cancer. These studies don't all find a link at all, and those that do find weaker links with wildly varying diseases.

Good point. It's interesting how the number of years for "long term exposure" is raised to exactly the point where we allegedly don't have evidence.
It's interesting that none of the pressure groups saw fit to mention microwave ovens.
These are in roughly the same range as phone, wifi etc, but are vastly more powerful. A phone is a few watts and is battery powered, using not enough energy to get warm, yet ovens are 850 watts.
Of course ovens are shielded, but they leak...
Actually when they first came out for commercial use, they didn't have doors, and people got hit by doses hundreds of times that of phones. And this was the 50s and 60s, plenty of time for consequences to show up.

Also, it's worth pointing out the issues with Radium girls. Firstly, cancers are caught much earlier these days, not in every case sadly but that long ago cancers were often spotted as great lumps, not by subtle blood tests. If that was happening today to lots of people we would not have to wait 20 years to notice.
It's also the case that things that "take 20 years to show up" are almost unknown, actually I can't think of one.
Everything I know of that has a long lead time has that as an average. To be sure some carcinogens are known to take decades before symptoms show up, but if you have a large population exposed to then, some people will shoe effects much earlier, and of course some much later, averages are like that.

aLO

DominiConnor

7 years ago the stewart report stated the precautionary principle should be applied and yet WIFI is being rolled out across schools?????

this is children we are on about and until the scientists can prove it's 100% (and they can't) why the hell are we not being precautionary - because of £ to the industry and government

and why are only certain things being mentioned, no-one is saying electrical appliances don't all give off EMFs it is the digital pulsing of the likes of WI-FI and mobile phones that are causing the problems. MIcrowave ovens - you can choose to have one in your house, you can't choose mobile phone mast output and next doors WIFI or DEC phone coming into your house. it's being forced on us. there is no escape out shopping, on planes, where you sleep and to people who can feel the radiation and hear the pulsing(EHS sufferers) it's hell.

we are in a country where people can not get help for their very real symptoms (unlike Sweden) and research is funded by the government and industry together...

also look at what you said they made a MISTAKE about Microwave ovens to start off with... because of the convenience of mobiles and WIFI people just want to stick thei heads in the sand about this.

so you prove to me 100% it is safe and I'll start taking what you say seriously, until then the Government needs to be making sure industry starts behaving socially responsibly ie apply the precautionary approach to WIFI and mobile technology and lower the emissions of all masts.

Mylittleimps, you can't prove anything of any kind is safe. You can't prove any negative, that's Science 101.

Everything gives off microwaves. You are giving them off now.
Radiators in homes increase the amount of microwaves by at least a factor of 100.

Male teachers give off more microwaves than women, as do black people, and all of these people by coming near your child increase their exposure.

I can't prove this level is safe, actually it's basic undergraduate physics to show that a cup of tea will emit radiation of a kind that we know for a fact causes cancer.

I would ask you please to read my posts.
I'm not saying WIFI is safe, I've explicitly said that I don't know. However, I find it hard to see how it can be very dangerous.

What I am sad about is the arty hysteria over the whole thing, when there are vastly greater risks that are known, and ignored.

What I have railed against is the poor quality of debate by the anti-wireless groups and the BBC. Maybe there are risks, certainly we need research.

Arts bashing again. Never tire of it?

No.
At least not whilst people who equate radiation with a dark lurking evil get to make health programmes.

Okay... but the guy doing the radiation measuring also runs PowerWatch, a website dedicated to publicising the problems associated with mobile phone masts/Wifi. He also sells 'anti-electromagnetic paint' at £50 a litre.

Regardless of the rights and wrongs of the program, this was a serious conflict of interest. More on www.badscience.net/?p=415

One can of course make coatings that shield against radio frequencies. Must say that my chemistry tells me to worry about the chemicals in that.
But the fault is not his.

If Panorama was doing an arty thing like an expose of Holocaust Deniers, it would at least have checked which side this bloke was on.

But it's science, it doesn't matter to Horizon if they get it right, or the talking heads are plausible.

As in other BBC documentaries, the script was written before they'd talked to anyone who had any knowledge of the subject.

If every expert they'd found had said "nah mate it's bollocks", do you think that's what would have ended up on screen ?
No, they'd either not do the programme, or do what their daytime & breakfast TV colleagues do, and find some mothers with had lost a child who were "sure" that radio/wifi/cheese had killed their kids.

It seems that the arts graduates at the BBC can't even be competently dishonest whilst peddling fake "scares".
Kids see through arts graduates