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"

me thinks you work for the industry DominiConnor - it tends to be only those in the indutry that spout as much rubbish about the risks not being great as you are...
the precautionary approach was requested 7 years ago and it has never been applied why becuase it would cost the Government and Industry £.

any concern over the techonology would cost both £ and hence the need to go to lengths to muddy the water over which EMFs are the major concern. You bore me, you are not offering any meaningful facts.

PS: and why bring race into it?

I do not work for the industry, although in full disclosure, 23 years ago I worked for 6 months for a firm which 15 years later did wireless incompetently.

I have produced facts, like the grave errors in basic science and procedure that are so bad that the producers have since apologised for.
They didn't even get the journalism right, and "with the benefit of hindsight" they realised that getting readings made by a lobbyist and styling him as an independent expert, probably wasn't on.

I used the holocaust as an example of something that is strongly argued against, but only by twats.
Holocaust denial uses the same fake science to explain how it couldn't have happened.
It is of course legitimate to argue on any side of any position, even when you're wrong.

If doing a programme on a historical event that was disputed, they'd have got experts, and labelled lobbyists as such.

But my point, which you're trying so hard to miss is that the BBC produced a dishonest programme based upon simple incompetence and prejudice. They had made up their minds long before they made the programme, I know this because I saw the interview with the arts grad who made the programme. He talked of the "script", and how they got their message across.
In other words they did a smear job.

If you'd bothered to read my post I'd have said that I genuinely didn't know, and didn't trust the government to tell the truth, and thought there should be more research.

Hardly an industry apologist.

and you don't think that apology was forced because the government stepped in and the BBC is funded by the government? and the government and the industry are protecting their £. why else has the Governmnet not implimented the suggestions of the Stewart report of 7 years ago? why pay someone to do a report and then ignore it?

the government and the industry pay for all the research so it's not really surprising there's nothing concrete out there as yet is it? but by the same way there isn't anything concrete out there that it is safe so ...

i wouldn't call anyone who is paid by the industry an expert either, they are paid to speak what the industry wants to hear are they not? (and therefore by the opposite side of the cinn not much difference to the "independent" expert/lobbyist

EHS poeple are affected by all EMFS but i still say you have tried to muddy the waters between the two different sorts of EMFs and the affects these differents EMFs have on the body.

No, I don't think it was "pressure" from the industry.
I've been a journo, and if I had produced such shoddy work, would expect a bollocking.

You're simply wrong that someone who works for an industry can't be an "expert", that is where most of them are to found.
They are of course not independant, which is something Panorama failed to understand

But there's loads of academics, who aren't dependant upon the industry. Medical researchers for instance, and strangely we didn't hear much from them, did we ?
How about academics from other countries, who presumably don't fear the UK government ?

Loads of independat voices.

Let's turn it the other way round.
Imagine the BBC was doing a documentary saying WIFI wasn't dangerous.
Imagine that they got someone who sold WiFi gear to do measurements to "prove" they were safe.
Would you think that good journalism ?

I'm not trying to muddy the waters, I've explained each term I've used, and entirely kept within science that really ought to be part of general knowledge.

It is very basic physics that being further away makes the signal drop off very quickly.
So basic was it that when the BBC artsgrad was challenged over it, he floundered quite visibly. What was quite transparent was that he lacked the basic ability to understand what the experts were saying.
No one knows about everything, but he clearly had no one in his team who could understand.
Reckon there was anyone with a science degree on the payroll ?

It simply is a grey area. It ought to be less grey, and again I say proper independent research is needed.

see this link in response to Bad Science article:

response to bad science comments

just thought it fair to give this on this thread.

Here's how to understand BBC Science & Health programmes:
WifFi is Evil

The PowerWatch response starts off with a straight lie. They sell stuff for money. That is not independent.

He uses a stupid non-sequitur saying he is not a campaign er, but is qualified. I can't see why qualified people can't be a campaigner.

"Electronics and agricultural equipment"
Hmm, that's a qualification for understanding health effects of radiation is it ?

In other parts of the site he dismisses criticism on the grounds that they use "American spelling". Really.

In his own words he goes into the aluminium foil world, not the best defence unless you really have lost the plot.
Do a google on "mental illness" and "aluminium foil"

To be fair, if I was doing the tests, I would use large files. Actually that's not quite true, I know enough technology to do something that will ramp the equipment up to full load.

That bit of technology isn't completely trivial, since Wifi links actually spend nearly all their time waiting for something to do.

He shows that if you're far away from a phone mast you get less power. Is this not bloody obvious ?

He's flat wrong in saying A level students could not offer valid criticism.
I did the inverse square law at the age of about 13 or 14. By the age of 17 it is a reflex to anyone with any hope of doing science. The makers of Panorama seem to regard it as such advanced science that they can't be expected to hear of it.
It is such basic physics, that it is part of geography teaching, let alone science.

In his "equation" he doesn't quite explain what he's doing, but I can't for the life of me work out how he gets to the dose received by the child.