{"id":1220,"date":"2010-10-18T21:38:15","date_gmt":"2010-10-19T04:38:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/?p=1220"},"modified":"2011-03-29T14:10:51","modified_gmt":"2011-03-29T21:10:51","slug":"bc-student-effected-by-wifi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/?p=1220","title":{"rendered":"BC Student affected by WIFI"},"content":{"rendered":"

http:\/\/www.globalnews.ca\/story.html?id=3687888<\/a><\/p>\n

Parents concerned over Wi-Fi health risks<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Gaia Willis-Owen, Global News:\u00a0Monday, October 18, 2010<\/p>\n

Hundreds of parents across the country are speaking out against what they fear may be an invisible threat to their childrens\u2019 well being: Wi-Fi in schools.<\/p>\n

McKenzy Honing, 16, says school makes him feel sick. The Grade 11 British Columbia high school student <\/strong>came home complaining of headaches and heart palpitations. \u201cIt felt like my heart was skipping beats,\u201d he said. But on the weekends? \u201cI\u2019d start to get better. And by Sunday I\u2019d start to feel normal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just a typical kid trying to get out of class? Maybe. But McKenzy\u2019s mom, Lynda Honing, doesn\u2019t think so. She thinks her son\u2019s health is at risk. And she\u2019s just one of hundreds of concerned parents across the country speaking out against what they fear may be an invisible threat to their childrens\u2019 well being: Wi-Fi in schools.<\/p>\n

Global News\u2019 current affairs program, 16:9 The Bigger Picture, wanted to find out just how much radiation laptops and routers in schools could be emitting. So 16:9 asked Kavinder Dhillon, president of LabTest Certification Inc., to test radiation levels in a simulated typical, active wireless classroom. The result? A reading of 113.8 microwatts \u2013 well below Health Canada\u2019s recommended threshold of 10 million microwatts.<\/p>\n

Just outside the classroom in the hallway, the radiation reading near the router hit 2600 microwatts. That\u2019s 20 times higher than inside the classroom. While it was still low by Health Canada standards, Dhillon expressed some discomfort. \u201cThe people who are in the industry, who are testing this,\u201d he told 16:9, \u201cthey feel this is a high level. This is very high.\u201d<\/p>\n

16:9 investigated further with another test to see how a person might react in proximity to radiation levels Health Canada considers safe. Professor Magda Havas, a Trent University environmental scientist, used a wireless computer and a router on an adult male subject who calls himself \u201celectrically sensitive.\u201d In a blind test, Prof. Havas exposed him to microwave radiation at levels similar to those in an average wireless classroom. She found the closer the router, the faster the subject\u2019s heart rate. Although the levels she used in the test were under Health Canada\u2019s limit, Prof. Havas has a theory that may explain her findings. \u201cSome percentage of the population is reacting to this microwave radiation,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

But could trading chalkboards for laptops make kids sick? 16:9 asked the Wi-Fi Alliance to comment on wireless products\u2019 possible health effects. The Alliance responded with a written statement. \u201cWi-Fi technology meets all national and international safety requirements,\u201d it said, \u201cand emits signals that are typically hundreds to thousands of times below the safety limits.\u201d<\/p>\n

Health Canada says parents shouldn\u2019t worry. In fact, Beth Pieterson, a Health Canada representative told 16:9 the amount of radiation children experience in a typical wireless classroom is in no way responsible for the headaches, nausea and hyperactivity some kids say they experience. \u201cThere\u2019s no scientific evidence,\u201d said Pieterson, \u201cthat those kinds of effects are caused by the energy limits the kids are exposed to by Wi-Fi.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Dr. David Carpenter from Albany, New York, a world-renowned expert in environmental toxins, told 16:9 he disagrees with Health Canada\u2019s analysis. \u201cThe weight of the evidence demonstrates clearly that exposure to RF radiation causes disease,\u201d he said, adding, \u201cthe evidence is strongest for cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Canada races to go wireless, in other parts of the world, Wi-Fi has worn out its welcome. Herouville-St.Clair, France is the first municipality in the world to remove W-Fi from schools and public buildings. Mayor Rudolphe Thomas told 16:9 he\u2019s not willing to gamble with childrens\u2019 health. In other European countries, wireless technology is still prevalent, but it’s increasingly treated with caution. In Germany, Wi-Fi is still in use but the government recommended children limit their exposure. And in Britain, some public schools independently decided to remove it altogether.<\/p>\n

Here, the current precautions are few and the Wi-Fi hotspots are plenty. Parents like Honing are concerned we\u2019re sacrificing our kids\u2019 health for convenience. She says she doesn\u2019t want to wait. She doesn\u2019t want her son to be an experiment. Dr. Carpenter shares her concern. He told 16:9 it\u2019s time for Canada to stop turning a blind eye to Wi-Fi\u2019s possible risks. \u201cYou don\u2019t want to wait until you can count the bodies before you tell the public that there is a serious potential of harm,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd with regard to the issue of Wi-Fi in schools, this is exactly where we are.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a9 Copyright (c) CW Media Inc.<\/p>\n

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http:\/\/www.globalnews.ca\/story.html?id=3687888 Parents concerned over Wi-Fi health risks Gaia Willis-Owen, Global News:\u00a0Monday, October 18, 2010 Hundreds of parents across the country are speaking out against what they fear may be an invisible threat to their childrens\u2019 well being: Wi-Fi in schools. McKenzy Honing, 16, says school makes him feel sick. The Grade 11 British Columbia high […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,5,3,23,7,12,4],"tags":[38,93,37],"class_list":["post-1220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bc","category-ehs","category-health_and_safety","category-school","category-wifi","category-wimax","category-wireless_devices","tag-school-2","tag-student","tag-wifi-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1220"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2339,"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1220\/revisions\/2339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}