Monday, April 30, 2012

Is Wi-Fi Safe for Children?

Is Wi-Fi Safe for Children?

We fully support the use of computers and the promotion of technology in education, but we believe that it must be implemented in a SAFE manner. We should not expose our children to unnecessary health risks by Wi-Fi, while there are hardwired options available.
FRIDAY, APRIL 27, 2012
BC Chief Medical Officer Dr. Perry Kendall's Letter on Wi-Fi for Schools: Erroneous Representation of Radiation Data.
Dr. Perry Kendall's letter sent to the Ministry of Education and all the School Districts included a statement that Wi-Fi exposure is "less than 1% [ WRONG ! ] of what is received during typical cellphone use." http://www.sd62.bc.ca/portals/0/PDFs/IT/WiFi_Letter.pdf

He quoted a study by Foster (2007):
"Foster measured Wi-Fi radiofrequency levels at 53 sites in Europe and the US, and found that levels were below those contributed by other radiofrequency sources (typically including cell phone base stations, FM radio transmissions, and radiofrequency emissions from microwave ovens).
Also, in an interesting comparison with a pre-cell phone world, Foster showed that the median power density measured over 70-3000 MHz was similar to what was measured over 50-900 MHz in 1980 in US cities (Foster, 2007)
".

Dr. Kendall's "less than 1%" is inaccurate. Using the Foster study to back up his assurance to school trustees, school administrators and parents is more than inappropriate.
This is Foster's 2007 study: http://www.medfordumc.org/celltower/wifirfexposure.pdf

P.2 "This study, supported by the Wi-Fi Alliance [
companies that manufacture and sell Wi-Fi products]...
"The locations were chosen... in part to benefit from assistance of employees of member firms of the Wi-Fi Alliance to help with local arrangements.

"No attempt was made to provide a statistically valid sample of RF energy from WLANs in all environments in which a person might be located, however that may be defined.

P.7 "If there were a scientific need to obtain a statistically valid sample of all WLAN fields in the environment, that would require a study of different design than the present survey.

Measuring routers: P.3  "an access point 
[router] could be identified protruding from the ceiling or mounted on a wall, and measurements were made... usually by holding the meter at waist height while standing near the AP. In other cases [how many?]... no APs were visible and measurements were made in a convenient [unspecified] location.

Measuring laptop: P.10 "All of the present measurements were conducted at distances of approximately 1 m 
 [1 meter / 3.3 feet]  or more from the client card in a laptop computer...The user of a laptop would be exposed to stronger fields than reported here, particularly if the antenna in the client card were close to the user’s body. No attempt was made in this study to assess near-field exposures to a user of the laptop itself.
P.9 "if the AP or client card were transmitting with a high duty cycle, its output would be
comparable to that of a mobile telephone in use."

First, this study (survey?) was not conducted with children in mind. 


Second, this study was not done for a classroom scenario** where there are multiple wireless laptops close to students' bodies, where there are iPads in their hands and smart phones in their faces. In the study they measured AT LEAST ONE METER FROM A LAPTOP. Do our children have arms longer than one meter (3.3 feet) to type on the keyboards of their laptops, tablets and iPodTouches? Even adults would not be sitting "at least 1 m" from their laptops, which often rest right on their laps. This is a ridiculous way to measure radiation. While public health officials preach about the need for proper study-design, they seem to have no problem accepting this kind of industry-supported psuedoscience, and cite it repeatedly to the unaware public. Is children's safety really their priority? 

Third, this study was done in 2006 when the use of wireless was a lot less extensive than now, 6 years later. With the Ministry of Education encouraging students to use more tablets and electronic devices in the classrooms ("BYOD" - bring your own device), we need to be realistic that transmission duty cycles are getting higher and higher. Foster said it:
Comparable to that of a mobile telephone in use!


Dr. Kendall, please correct your numbers.

No comments:

Post a Comment