Is Wi-Fi Bad For Your Health?

May 22, 2007 | by Christopher Nickson

A BBC television show has found elevated levels of radiation in a school using Wi-Fi, prompting a debate about the safety of wi-fi. But is it all just hype?

We all know the benefits of Wi-Fi broadband – the ability to check your e-mail in a hotspot or use your laptop anywhere at home, for instance – but a British television program has contended that Wi-Fi could be dangerous to your health. But is it all a storm in a teacup?
 
The BBC Panorama show tested radiation levels in English one school equipped with Wi-Fi and found them to be three times that of radiation emitted by cell phone masts. That’s prompted a debate about the long-term safety of Wi-Fi, although it’s still 600 times lower that the radiation safety levels issued by the British government.
 
Wi-Fi uses low intensity radio waves, whose wavelengths are similar to those found in microwave ovens, although 100,000 times less intense.
 
While Sir William Stewart, head of the Health Protection Agency, said that there should be a review of the long-term effects of wi-fi, his own agency has calculated that you’d need to sit in a Wi-Fi hotspot for a year to receive the same dose of radio waves that you’d absorb for a 20-minute cell phone call.
 
To date, there is no indication that low-level exposure causes any short or long-term damage to tissue, and Professor Lawrie Challis, chairman of the Mobile Telecommunication and Health Research program management committee, noted that “Wi-Fi exposures are usually very small - the transmitters are low power and some distance from the body.”
 
He did, however, advise that as safety precautions, children should not make long calls on cell phones, and that they should rest laptops on tables, rather than on their laps.
 
The debate continues.

Post Your Comment...Comments

Ethan on May 22nd, 2007 at 4:36 PM:

Are they serious? If Wi-Fi is bad for your health, imagine what radiation you are getting from the signals the military uses - that you don't know about!

Sam on May 22nd, 2007 at 10:03 PM:

Hah! We'll die from global warming before we die from Wi Fi radiation.

Richard on May 24th, 2007 at 4:54 AM:

I work in the field of EME and human health, for a Telco company, so you might say I'm biased but the simple fact is my children use Wi Fi and I have no concerns about their health. This is cereal packet science. There is no debate amongst serious scientists. It is populist hogwash.

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