Wi-fi in schools continues to evoke protest

People worried about the dangers of wireless Internet now have a new concern. Reports are surfacing that some Internet service providers in the United States will be discontinuing dial-up access, creating a dilemma for those who have continued to use a wired connection in order to avoid exposure to wireless.

Numerous people report feeling unwell around wi-fi and wireless networks. Others are just wary because, as with cell phones, they have heard that wireless is thought by some to be unsafe.

This week a story ran in the Mail Online, reporting that teachers in the U.K. have escalated their campaign to eliminate wi-fi from schools because it is dangerous to the health of children (not to mention adults).

“Wireless ‘wi-fi’ technology should be removed from schools to prevent millions of children suffering a heightened risk of cancer and sterility, teachers have demanded.”

“The Association of Teachers and Lecturers called for classroom wireless networks to be suspended immediately until research has properly considered the threat to health.”

“Colin Kinney … said research from Sweden had warned about the increased cancer risk and the Government there now funds shielding agents, such as foil covered rooms and anti-radiation point.”

“Mr Kinney said a Government scientist from Austria had called for wi-fi to be removed from schools claiming there was evidence of ‘increased symptoms as well as increased cancer rates’”

“He said Sir William Stewart, chairman of the Health Protection Agency, had called for a precautionary approach when siting masts near schools.”

Closer to home, residents of the Slocan Valley in West Kootenay – who have to date successfully repelled attempts by Telus to install cell phone service – are now gearing up to prevent the BC government from installing wi-fi in their schools (I wonder where the election candidates stand on that issue? hmmm…)

According to Art Joyce, a New Denver freelance journalist, the Parental Advisory Committee at the Lucerne School in New Denver recently convinced the school board to keep wifi out for now. A conference call with Magda Havas at Trent University, one of Canada’s foremost experts on the subject, helped win the day for the precautionary principle.

The Slocan happens to be home base for the Valhalla Wilderness Society, who have become somewhat of an expert on the health effects of electropollution. They have been following the U.K. teachers’ wi-fi issue since at least 2007.

Valhalla has been researching and actively campaigning against a pack of related technologies that, it says, all pose similar dangers.

Physicist Andrew Michrowski of Ottawa has been researching the problem for many years. He says that when the sum of all these different sources of pollution is considered, the microwave exposure in some parts of urban areas in Canada exceeds Canadian government safety standards. That is pretty astounding when you consider that those standards were set on the basis of the amount of microwave energy needed to heat tissue, the only officially accepted measure of harm.

Of course, those standards are quite old now, and since the advent of electrobiology in the 1980′s — begun by Robert O. Becker — it has become well established that very low levels of microwave exposure can cause numerous serious kinds of damage to living cells.

For instance, just 2 minutes of cell phone exposure can make the blood-brain barrier permeable. Cell phone exposure has also been shown to create leaky cell membranes.

Are we crazy? How can there be so much information around about the serious health impacts of microwave-emitting devices, but as a society we don’t even acknowledge it. We just keep on microwaving our food, frying our brains with cellphones, mutating our children’s DNA with wi-fi networks in schools, and just go right on using those portable phones and wireless routers, wireless Internet connections, satellite TV and satellite dishes.

Now BC Hydro are getting ready to install “smart meters” for everyone. They conveniently neglect to mention that they are microwave transmitters, similar to cellphones, and that they send out a pulse of microwaves every 14 seconds, day and night, although a truck will only drive by to pick up those signals every month or two. Meanwhile we all bathe in their microwave soup — including those who are especially sensitive and/or vulnerable to such pollution and have no way to escape. BC Hydro and other electric utilities have no right to do this without our consent, but are people complaining? Do people even know these basic facts? Mostly not.

The second-hand microwave pollution issue is not unlike second-hand cigarette smoke, except possibly more dangerous. If you really want to destroy your health with this stuff, keep it away from me. Make sure you do it in a shielded private room where no one is involuntarily exposed. And if you are going to be so stupid, pay your own health-care costs — don’t shove them on the thinking people who are trying to make their bodies last.

Ashland, Oregon plans to put two big new towers, one at each end of town, so everyone can enjoy the ‘benefits’ of wi-fi. But other places, notably schools, have been alerted to the dangers and are banning public wi-fi networks.

Lakehead University has banned wi-fi, comparing it to second-hand tobacco smoke, and saying that the jury is still out on its safety.

The only solid argument for wi-fi and similar technologies seems to be convenience. But what could be more convenient than having a healthy body, without which it is not much fun being on this planet? I think the practical priorities are obvious.

If low-level microwave exposure is so unquestionably safe, then why do they disguise cell towers as trees? Even that didn’t stop a French court from ordering one to be dismanted a few weeks ago after residents sued over health dangers, and the court agreed with their precautionary-principle argument.

CVNews related links:

• ‘Wi-fi networks must be removed from schools to stop children getting cancer,’ teachers insist
• Children and Wireless Technology
• New problems with Cellphones
• Health concerns limit wireless Internet at Lakehead University
• Suing Over Wi-Fi: Illinois parents sue school over wireless plans
• New Mexico group tries to ban Wi-Fi: ‘Electro-sensitive’ citizens claim cover-up on health effects
• Schools ban wi-fi networks after safety fears
• Germans told to dump Wi-Fi: Environment minister warns of potential health risk