Antinuclear

Is classroom exposure to electromagnetic radiation a danger to kids?

IT MAY be invisible but it’s everywhere — in our homes, parks, workplaces, shopping centres, hotels and schools.

Wi-fi has become a way of life — accepted, convenient and fundamental to how we live.

A type of electromagnetic radiation — the same as emitted from mobile phones — wi-fi, shorthand for “wireless fidelity”, is a means for computers, smart phones and other devices to wirelessly connect to the internet or communicate with each other. Data is transferred via radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF) instead of through wires. Wi-fi has the same frequency and wavelength as the microwaves used in ovens, but is not contained within a closed unit, routers are usually permanently switched on, and they have a range of 30 metres or more.

The technology, which took hold in the early 2000s, is now widely seen as integral to education. All Queensland state schools have wi-fi access and there is a widespread rollout across schools of Bring Your Own Device schemes, starting in many primary schools from grade four.

But a growing body of researchers, educators and parents is concerned about the future effects of exposing children to long hours of wi-fi. In 2011, RF-EMF were classified by the World Health Organisation’s International Agency for Research on Cancer as a 2B carcinogen, or “possibly carcinogenic to humans”,placing them in the same category as lead and diesel engine exhaust. And the Australian Radiation Protection And Nuclear Safety Agency, the federal government body responsible for setting safe exposure standards, says a lack of research means “it’s impossible to be completely sure there isn’t some risk” — particularly to children.

Professor Ian Lowe, a member of the Radiation Health and Safety Advisory Council that advises ARPANSA, says current standards do not distinguish between adults and children and are under review. “There’s absolutely no doubt we should have different standards for children than those for adults,” says Lowe, who is also emeritus professor at Griffith University’s School of Natural Sciences. “Children are potentially more sensitive than adults to any form of radiation because their bodies are smaller and their bones are thinner and more plastic.”

American scientist Dr Devra Davis, an outspoken critic of exposing children to wireless radiation, last year co-wrote in the Journal of Microscopy and Ultrastructure that children are more at risk because “their brain tissues are more absorbent, their skulls are thinner and their relative size is smaller”. “The risk to children and adolescents from exposure to microwave radiating devices is considerable,” Davis’s report warned. “Adults have a smaller but very real risk, as well.”

This year, ARPANSA will review classroom levels of RF-EMF from wi-fi equipment. “We have learnt in other areas of public health that there’s often a long time lag between people being exposed to something that is harmful to their health and the evidence of that becoming apparent. The most obvious example is tobacco,” says Lowe. “The levels of radiation we allow miners (to work in) in uranium mines are much less than what people were exposed to in the 20th century. We allowed solariums until it became apparent that they were causing melanomas. All we can say is that at the moment there is no evidence that (wi-fi) does (harm). Certainly, some people are arguing that if there is even a tiny probability that it might be harmful, then we shouldn’t have wi-fi in schools. You can defend that approach.”

February 25, 2015 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, health