Crumbs
Rich T finds some tasty titbits you might have missed in the week's news
Tuesday 21 November 2006, 11:29 AM
Schools panic over WiFi
So schools are abandoning wireless LANs, thinking they are like mobile basestations, according to Monday's Times newspaper.
It seems to be a case of the tail wagging the dog (and a pretty ignorant tail as well).
While hundreds of angry parents lobby headteachers to remove wireless networks from their children's schools, one classics teacher has taken the situation rather too far.
Mr Bevington, a leading academic at the prestigious Stowe School in Buckinghamshire, has suffered "sudden flushes, pressure behind the eyes and burning sensations," from the network, he claims.
Assuming Mr Bevington hasn't surgically attached an access point to his head, this seems an interesting revelation.
Two schools were reported in the article as spending taxpayers' money (and parents' school fees) ripping out their wireless networks and replacing them with cables.
The headteacher at the Prebendal School, a prep in Chichester, Sussex, didn't really have any reason for doing so other than a) angry parents told him to, and b) the WLAN hadn't been installed properly.
And at Ysgol Pantycelyn, a Welsh comprehensive, the headteacher turned off the wireless network after parents pressured the governors.
The frightening thing is, those who have applied the pressure seem appallingly poorly informed. "It's like having a phone mast in the classroom," said one mother, who argued rather weakly that it must be dangerous because no-one has proven that wireless is safe.
No-one has proven that it's safe to cross the road, but that doesn't stop us.
So I have news for you, Ms Uninformed Parent.
At this rate, we'll have to strip out all mobile basestations, all access points and all long wave radio masts from anywhere where it could transmit signals to a school.
Then we'll have a planet where there won't be any radiation.
But kids will still be bought a mobile phone for their sixth birthday. That could be interesting.
PreviousComments on this post
"sudden flushes, pressure behind the eyes and burning sensations," -- sounds more like a hangover to me.
"Mr Bevington, a leading academic at the prestigious Stowe School in Buckinghamshire, has suffered "sudden flushes, pressure behind the eyes and burning sensations," from the network, he claims."
So does this happen every time he walks down a street where there is Wifi present, or 2.4GHz based CCTV, or Bluetooth etc.?
What a load of stupid idiots. It's people like this who ruin it for everyone else.
Samtheman1k, your thoughts are shared. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who think all mobile and WiFi radio waves are dangerous (yet strangely FM radio waves are not...). How do we change these people's minds?
Hi Richard,
It is interesting that you claim that these parents are uninformed when you don't actually know how informed or otherwise they are. There is plenty of evidence to support that there may well be risks from mobile phones and from phone masts. I agree that there is almost no research (in fact, I have yet to find any published papers at all) on Wireless networks and health, however they are very similar to base stations in a number of ways (signal type, signal frequency, pulsing nature of signal etc..). FM radio waves used for TV and Radio are very different in a number of potentially important ways, and cramming the technologies all into the same box is both scientifically poor form and slightly ignorant.
I'm not trying to jump on the "alternative, scare-mongering" bandwagon here, as no doubt you are probably thinking. I am keeping my personal opinions close to myself at this stage, but to be honest the tone of your article irritates me just as much as the uninformed public crying risk at things they do not understand - It is equally uninformed, equally unbalanced and equally without merit as an argument. I accept that you have a responsibility to explore the relative merits of technology, but that does not mean that you, because of lack of research on your part, should be ridiculing a whole (albeit small) subset of population that believes there to be a risk, especially as there have not been any papers to date to confirm or undermine their fears in wireless networks.
The truth of the matter is the jury is still out on these technologies - no-one knows whether they are harmful or not. From a mechanism point of view there is almost nothing suggesting how harm could be happening based on these microwave transmissions. From an epidemiological point of view there is steadily growing evidence that both phones and masts are a risk, and this is steadily being backed up by some fairly strong lab work (albeit at higher power than typical base station exposure -- not higher than normal mobile phone exposure however). In a classroom of wireless enabled laptops accessing a wireless network, the signal strength in the data pulses is in the order of several volts per metre and usually higher than living close to a cellular phone basestation.
I suspect harm will not be admitted until the mechanism of action is known, but just because it isn't known doesn't necessary mean that the effect is not real, especially when it appears to be being replicated.
Perhaps the aim here shouldn't be to "change people's minds" so much as what to see what the truth is first?
Best Regards,
- Graham Philips
PS Here is a list of some recent research papers that support my points if you are interested in some further reading, with the PubMed IDs so you can quickly find them on there ...
17045516 - Panagopoulos DJ et al - Mutation Research - October 2006
Fruit flies exposed to GSM 900 MHz and DCS 1800 MHz from common digital phones had a large decrease in oviposition due to degeneration of large large numbers of egg chambers after DNA fragmentation of their consitituent cells. This is a mechanism where the radiation appears to be causing cause actual DNA damage.
16962663 - Abdel-Rassoul G et al - Neurotoxicology - August 2006
Found headaches, memory changes, dizziness and tremors to be significantly higher among people living near base stations than controls, and gave significantly lower performance in one of their attention / memory tests. Both results were statistically significant.
16878295 - Nylund R and Leszczynski D - Proteomics - September 2006
Again, a lab experiment that found gene and protein expression changes from exposure to mobile phone radiation, but with different lines reacting differently, suggesting that cell response may be dependent on genome and proteome content - this could go some way to explaining why different people react differently.
17034627 - Hardell L et al - World Journal of Surgical Oncology - October 2006
Statistically significant increased risk was found for all brain tumours from mobile phone usage, mainly acoustic neuroma and malignant brain tumours. Odds Ratio increased with latency period, especially for astrocytoma grade III-IV.
16954120 - Yurekli AI et al - Electromagnetic biology and medicine - 2006
Highly significant (p < 0.0001) increases in oxidative stress was found in labatory rats from exposure to simulated base station radiation at levels far below guideline levels (converted SAR value 0.011 W/kg - far below most phones).
This comment has been deleted at the users request
Sadly it is all part and parcel of this ridiculous cult of the "New Age". Seems that reading chicken giblets is a more trusted authority than Scientific research. I wonder if those affected have had this malady seen by a GP or was it the local Shaman who diagnosed it as electromagentitis?
It also goes part of the way to explain the constant erosion of technology and science undergraduates, where our kids dream of a career in the media and regular communal colonic irrigation sessions to keep them in touch with their inner self.
The way to solve it is by explaining what the technology is all about. An access point is not the same as a basestation in every classroom, they have significantly less power levels to start with.
Rather than just give in to the sensationalists, the head teachers (or board) need to learn about the technology and pass this information onto the parents, somehow without scaremongering them. After all, there is a reasonable chance that many of these same parents have Wifi in their homes, but that is okay no doubt? I guess it is built into our culture that anything new must be bad ;)
Also I think that there may of been a bit of media hype in the original Times story. One point was that one of the schools was having problems with the network anyway, so was happy to remove it. But the Times picked up on the attention grabbing WIFI CAUSES BRAIN DAMAGE headline.
Obviously I don't know Mr Bevington, but as I said, Wifi, and other COFDM/DSSS 2.4GHz signals are everywhere. The Cloud, HotSpots, CCTV, Bluetooth, MEA, Home LANs, Zigbee, TV repeaters...the list goes on (not to mention the non-2.4Ghz COFDM/DSS stuff, i.e. Digital video + DAB radio. There is probably not a single place in the UK that doesn't have some sort of 2.4GHz signal. So why does this particular place cause these symptoms? Is it an ongoing thing? Does it happen all the time whenever he goes into his local cafe/library with Wifi? It just sounds to me like there are deeper problems, and Wifi is being used as the scapegoat.
Hi samtheman1k,
You are correct that wireless access points do not use as high power levels as you would find from a typical mobile phone base station, but then you also don't normally have base stations within the room you are spending your time working.
Aside from inverse square rule calculations on power density, in classrooms with wireless laptops and a wireless access point I have measured electrical fields considerably higher than would be expected from the background levels of being "near" a base station (excluding situations where you might have a picocell on the outside wall of the room for example).
Certainly, the fields measured are higher than those that have been found to increase adverse health effects in people (statistically significant results -- citations available at request), and this I would suggest may be cause for concern.
As with so many things, this is confounded by the fact that most people appear to have no negative response whatsoever to WiFi radiation - but similarly most people don't react negatively to Penicillin, yet you would not give that to someone with an allergic reaction to it.
I think you'll find that the Times article was not "WIFI CAUSES BRAIN DAMAGE", but in fact "Health fears lead schools to dismantle wireless networks" -- somewhat less sensationalist I'm sure you'll agree.
I will also testify that the people I have come across that consider themselves "Electrically Hypersensitive" do find a number of places (particularly internet cafes) unpleasant to stay in for a period longer than a few minutes, and I have never come across one with a wireless network in their home - in fact, I have never come across one that owns a mobile phone either for the same reason.
It is easy to allow our personal prejudices to sway our issues on these contentious issues (especially when the potential benefits are very high), but I think it is important to try to maintain a balanced viewpoint where possible.
- Graham
I'm reminded of the introduction of radio broadcasting in the UK, where people went sick, saw flocks of birds struck down from the sky and all manner of terrible things - all of which stopped happening after a while. Same with microwave ovens, which were the subject of an exactly analogous health scare in the 1970s.
With enormous amounts of data in (people have been doing studies since at least the 1950s), we can say for sure that if there is a health risk from radio technology it is statistically insigificant -- and certainly less than many other environmental risks to which we give no thought.
But if a load of bonkers mothers want to stop their kiddywinks using technology because their personal astrologer saw something nasty in the tea-leaves, then by gum they should. Leave the good stuff for the rest of us.
Graham, I understand your point...at the end of the day, nothing is safe until it is proved to be so, and 2.4GHz RF hasn't been proven to be safe. In fact, has any RF ever been proved to be safe? Are cables safe?
Anyway, what would be your resolution to this? Wireless access is in use and is likely to be here to stay. Kids need to learn about this technology in order to be up to date with technology. In addition, if this provides network access in the classroom, like virtually all businesses do, then that is a good thing as it provides them with the skills required when they venture into the big wide world. So what would you do? Would you remove all Wifi access in school? Just remove it is classrooms, but keep in libaries? Or allow it throughout the school?
Actually, I will have to disagree with you on a couple of points Rupert. There is an enormous amount of data in regarding various aspects of Microwave frequency radiation as a whole, but there is still very little data regarding the radiation from phone masts and phones, and almost none regarding WiFi networks. That's not to say it is harmful, but it also cannot be discounted either.
According to a presentation at a recent Belgian University by bio-engineer Jean-Luc Guilmot, 8 of the 10 epidemiological studies on base station radiation found on the WHO EMF database and PubMed (combined) show a statistically significant adverse health effect. That's 80% of the published science, which is an extremely high proportion. It's only 8 studies of course, but it is still well worth a level of prudent concern at the very least.
I personally hope you are right, I would love to have a wireless surround sound system connected to speakers all over my house controllable from my wirelessly networked laptop in whatever room I'm in -- convenient and cool -- but I think it is premature to write the concerns off at this stage.
To use separate concerns, asbestos and tobacco also took a long term and a lot of interestingly contradictory research before it was finally accepted there was a risk, so you can use perfectly good case examples on both sides!
** Sorry, edited to included a reply to samtheman1k **
Yes, I understand it is a difficult situation for schools to be in. Whilst wired networks are a perfectly reasonable alternative that appear to have no concerns attached, I would use this method under the basis of prudent avoidance. I actually would look at using dLAN devices which seem to be very reliable, and have (apart from a small amount of radio-frequency noise into the mains) no side-effects that I am aware of. It also gives the advantage that it networks the entire power circuit which for homes is fantastic and for schools I suspect will also be very good. A dLan unit and switch (or two) in each classroom would I suspect be not significantly more expensive than wireless networks, and removes the need for the long-distance infrastructure often required with wired networks.
- Graham
Sorry, to follow up:
It is of course completely impossible to prove something safe, nor would I expect it to be done with any of these issues. In fact, I would go so far as to say we assume safety without evidence otherwise.
In this case it seems the prudent response would be to recognise that there are health concerns over similar technologies and to "proceed with caution" - in this case to use alternatives where viable until research has been conducted specifically into WiFi technologies.
- Graham
This comment has been deleted at the users request
Exactly why I would recommend not using it at the moment, until something more definitive is shown.
Not so much scare-mongering as prudent prevention. If it turns out there is no risk then nothing is lost other than minor short time wired inconvenience.
I'm a long sufferer from various kinds of radiation, I have a form of electrosensitivity, and wireless networks do cause me pain and discomfort.
The ignorant people who shout that RF radiation is "harmless" should camp for a night 1 foot away from a radar dish or TV station antenna or of course a cell base station.
These are the same kind of people who for decades were blowing smoke in people's faces and saying smoking is not dangerous, it's not been proven.
For those still interested and following this topic, there is a fantastic set of good references (amongst a mass of verbiage) posted by Rod Read of Electrosensitivity UK at the bottom of a set of Guardian Blog comments:
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/technology/archives/2006/11/25/
wireless_technology_made_me_sick_claims_author_kate_figes.html
(link broken due to odd display behaviour)
