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The Independent, 22/4/07

NIñOS EN PELIGRO POR CONTAMINACIÓN ELECTRÓNICA/ Wi-Fi: Children at risk from ’electronic smog’. Danger on the airwaves: Is the Wi-Fi revolution a health time bomb?

Martes 29 de mayo de 2007 · 1845 lecturas

THE INDEPENDENT

WI-FI: NIÑOS EN PELIGRO POR CONTAMINACIÓN ELECTRÓNICA

 La radiación procedente de las nuevas redes inalámbricas de ordenadores es una amenaza.

 Los profesores piden una investigación para proteger a toda una generación de alumnos

Por Geoffrey Lean, editor de medio ambiente.
Publicado el 22 de Abril de 2007

El máximo guardián de la protección de la salud de Gran Bretańa está presionando, según ha podido averiguar The Independent, para que se realice una investigación detallada de los riesgos del uso de los sistemas inalámbricos de comunicación en las escuelas, en medio de una creciente preocupación porque puedan estar causando dańos a la salud de los nińos.
Sir William Stewart, presidente de la Agencia de Protección de la Salud quiere que se controlen los efectos adversos sobre los alumnos de las redes inalámbricas- conocidas como WI-FI - que emiten radiación y que se están instalando en las aulas por toda la nación.
Sir William, antiguo consejero científico jefe del Gobierno, que ha presidido dos investigaciones oficiales sobre los riesgos de los teléfonos móviles, apoya con su autoridad la creciente demanda de que se realice una investigación similar sobre el WI-FI puesto que algunos científicos temen que podría causar cáncer y senilidad prematura.
El WI-FI, que el Departamento de Educación describe como un sistema “mágico” por permitir que los ordenadores funcionen sin estar conectados a las líneas telefónicas, se está implantando a gran velocidad en los colegios y se estima que más de la mitad de las escuelas primarias y cuatro quintas partes de las escuelas de educación secundaria ya lo han instalado.
Sin embargo, algunos gobiernos provinciales europeos han tomado medidas para prohibir o controlar su uso en el aula y Stowe School lo ha desmantelado en parte debido a la enfermedad de un profesor.
Esta semana, la Asociación Profesional de Profesores, que representa a 35.000 docentes de todo el país, dirigirá un escrito a Alan Johnson, Secretario de Estado de Educación, pidiendo una investigación oficial. Apenas se han realizado estudios sobre los efectos del WI-FI en los alumnos, pero éste produce una radiación parecida a las emisiones de los teléfonos móviles y las torres de telefonía.
Recientes investigaciones, han asociado la radiación de los móviles con el cáncer y con dańos cerebrales. Muchos estudios han descubierto síntomas preocupantes en gente cerca de las torres de telefonía.
El profesor Olle Johanssson, del prestigioso instituto Karolinska de Suecia, y que está muy preocupado por la expansión del WI-FI, dice que hay miles de artículos en la literatura científica que corroboran los efectos nocivos para la salud de las radiaciones. Y ańade: “¿Acaso no sabemos ya lo suficiente para decir ¡Parad!?”
Durante los últimos 16 meses, el Gobierno Provincial de Salzburgo en Austria ha estado aconsejando a las escuelas que no instalen WI-FI y está pensando prohibirlo. El Dr. Gerd Oberfeld, su director de salud medioambiental, considera “peligrosa” esta tecnología.
Sir William, que tiene una postura más enérgica sobre el tema que su agencia, no se hallaba ayer disponible para comentarlo, pero dos miembros de un grupo de expertos que él dirige sobre los peligros de la radiación, hablaron de su preocupación.
Mike Bell, director de la Fundación de Investigación sobre la Radiación Electromagnética, dice que Sir Willian ha estado muy a favor de que se someta el WI-FI a examen y de que se tomen medidas. Y Alasdair Philips, Director de Powerwatch, que es un servicio de información, dijo que estaba haciendo presión para que se controle la salud de los alumnos que expuestos al WI-FI.
El miembro del Parlamento, el laborista Ian Gibson, a quien se entrevistó conjuntamente con Sir William para un próximo programa de televisión, dijo la semana pasada que él apoyaba las propuestas a favor de una investigación.

©-2007 Independent News y Media Limited

Wi-Fi: Children at risk from ’electronic smog’
::: Revealed - radiation threat from new wireless computer networks
::: Teachers demand inquiry to protect a generation of pupils
By Geoffrey Lean, environment editor
Published: 22 April 2007
Britain’s top health protection watchdog is pressing for a formal investigation into the hazards of using wireless communication networks in schools amid mounting concern that they may be damaging children’s health, ’The Independent on Sunday’ can reveal.

Sir William Stewart, the chairman of the Health Protection Agency, wants pupils to be monitored for ill effects from the networks - known as Wi-Fi - which emit radiation and are being installed in classrooms across the nation.

Sir William - who is a former chief scientific adviser to the Government, and has chaired two official inquiries into the hazards of mobile phones - is adding his weight to growing pressure for a similar examination of Wi-Fi, which some scientists fear could cause cancer and premature senility.

Wi-Fi - described by the Department of Education and Skills as a "magical" system that means computers do not have to be connected to telephone lines - is rapidly being taken up inschools, with estimates that more than half of primary schools - and four-fifths of secondary schools - have installed it .

But several European provincial governments have already taken action to ban, or limit, its use in the classroom, and Stowe School has partially removed it after a teacher became ill.

This week the Professional Association of Teachers, which represents 35,000 staff across the country, will write to Alan Johnson, Secretary of State for Education, to demand an official inquiry. Virtually no studies have been carried out into Wi-Fi’s effects on pupils, but it gives off radiation similar to emissions from mobile phones and phone masts.

Recent research has linked radiation from mobiles to cancer and to brain damage. And many studies have found disturbing symptoms in people near masts.

Professor Olle Johansson, of Sweden’s prestigious Karolinska Institute, who is deeply concerned about the spread of Wi-Fi, says there are "thousands" of articles in scientific literature demonstrating "adverse health effects". He adds: "Do we not know enough already to say, ’Stop!’?"

For the past 16 months, the provincial government of Salzburg in Austria has been advising schools not to install Wi-Fi, and is considering a ban. Dr Gerd Oberfeld, its head of environmental health and medicine, calls the technology "dangerous".

Sir William - who takes a stronger position on the issue than his agency - was not available for comment yesterday, but two members of an expert group that he chairs on the hazards of radiation spoke of his concern.

Mike Bell, chairman of the Electromagnetic Radiation Research Trust, says that he has been "very supportive of having Wi-Fi examined and doing something about it". And Alasdair Philips, director of Powerwatch, an information service, said that he was pressing for monitoring of the health of pupils exposed to Wi-Fi.

Labour MP Ian Gibson, who was interviewed with Sir William for a forthcoming television programme, last week said that he backed proposals for an inquiry.

Danger on the airwaves: Is the Wi-Fi revolution a health time bomb?
It’s on every high street and in every coffee shop and school. But experts have serious concerns about the effects of electronic smog from wireless networks linking our laptops and mobiles, reports Geoffrey Lean
Published: 22 April 2007
Being "wired-up" used to be shorthand for being at the cutting edge, connected to all that is cool. No longer. Wireless is now the only thing to be.

Go into a Starbucks, a hotel bar or an airport departure lounge and you are bound to see people tapping away at their laptops, invisibly connected to the internet. Visit friends, and you are likely to be shown their newly installed system.

Lecture at a university and you’ll find the students in your audience tapping away, checking your assertions on the world wide web almost as soon as you make them. And now the technology is spreading like a Wi-Fi wildfire throughout Britain’s primary and secondary schools.

The technological explosion is even bigger than the mobile phone explosion that preceded it. And, as with mobiles, it is being followed by fears about its effect on health - particularly the health of children. Recent research, which suggests that the worst fears about mobiles are proving to be justified, only heightens concern about the electronic soup in which we are increasingly spending our lives.

Now, as we report today, Sir William Stewart (pictured below right), the man who has issued the most authoritative British warnings about the hazards of mobiles, is becoming worried about the spread of Wi-Fi. The chairman of the Health Protection Agency - and a former chief scientific adviser to the Government - is privately pressing for an official investigation of the risks it may pose.

Health concerns show no sign of slowing the wireless expansion. One in five of all adult Britons now own a wireless-enabled laptop. There are 35,000 public hotspots where they can use them, usually at a price.

In the past 18 months 1.6 million Wi-Fi terminals have been sold in Britain for use in homes, offices and a host of other buildings. By some estimates, half of all primary schools and four fifths of all secondary schools have installed them.

Whole cities are going wireless. First up is the genteel, almost bucolic, burgh of Norwich, which has installed a network covering almost the whole of its centre, spanning a 4km radius from City Hall. It takes in key sites further away, including the University of East Anglia and a local hospital, and will be expanded to take in rural parts of the south of the county.

More than 200 small aerials were attached to lamp posts to create the network, which anyone can use free for an hour. There is nothing to stop the 1,000 people who use it each day logging off when their time is up, and logging on again for another costless session.

"We wanted to see if something like this could be done," says Anne Carey, the network’s project manager. "People are using it and finding it helpful. It is, I think, currently the largest network of its kind."

Not for much longer. Brighton plans to launch a city-wide network next year, and Manchester is planning one covering over 400 square miles, providing free access to 2.2 million people.

So far only a few, faint warnings have been raised, mainly by people who are so sensitised to the electromagnetic radiation emitted by mobiles, their masts and Wi-Fi that they become ill in its presence. The World Health Organisation estimates that up to three out of every hundred people are "electrosensitive" to some extent. But scientists and doctors - and some European governments - are adding their voices to the alarm as it becomes clear that the almost universal use of mobile phones may be storing up medical catastrophe for the future.

A recent authoritative Finnish study has found that people who have used mobiles for more than ten years are 40 per cent more likely to get a brain tumour on the same side of the head as they hold their handset; Swedish research suggests that the risk is almost four times as great. And further research from Sweden claims that the radiation kills off brain cells, which could lead to today’s younger generation going senile in their forties and fifties.

Professor Lawrie Challis, who heads the Government’s official mobile safety research, this year said that the mobile could turn out to be "the cigarette of the 21st century".

There has been less concern about masts, as they emit very much less radiation than mobile phones. But people living - or attending schools - near them are consistently exposed and studies reveal a worrying incidence of symptoms such as headaches, fatigue, nausea, dizziness and memory problems. There is also some suggestion that there may be an increase in cancers and heart disease.

Wi-Fi systems essentially take small versions of these masts into the home and classroom - they emit much the same kind of radiation. Though virtually no research has been carried out, campaigners and some scientists expect them to have similar ill-effects. They say that we are all now living in a soup of electromagnetic radiation one billion times stronger than the natural fields in which living cells have developed over the last 3.8 billion years. This, they add, is bound to cause trouble

Prof Leif Salford, of Lund University - who showed that the radiation kills off brain cells - is also deeply worried about wi-fi’s addition to "electronic smog".

There is particular concern about children partly because they are more vulnerable - as their skulls are thinner and their nervous systems are still developing - and because they will be exposed to more of the radiation during their lives.

The Austrian Medical Association is lobbying against the deployment of Wi-Fi in schools. The authorities of the province of Salzburg has already advised schools not to install it, and is now considering a ban. Dr Gerd Oberfeld, Salzburg’s head of environmental health and medicine, says that the Wi-Fi is "dangerous" to sensitive people and that "the number of people and the danger are both growing".

In Britain, Stowe School removed Wi-Fi from part of its premises after a classics master, Michael Bevington - who had taught there for 28 years - developed headaches and nausea as soon as it was installed.

Ian Gibson, the MP for the newly wireless city Norwich is calling for an official inquiry into the risks of Wi-Fi. The Professional Association of Teachers is to write to Education Secretary Alan Johnson this week to call for one.

Philip Parkin, the general secretary of the union, says; "I am concerned that so many wireless networks are being installed in schools and colleges without any understanding of the possible long-term consequences.

"The proliferation of wireless networks could be having serious implications for the health of some staff and pupils without the cause being recognised."

But, he added, there are huge commercial pressures" which may be why there has not yet been "any significant action".

Guidelines that were ignored

The first Stewart Report, published in May 2000, produced a series of sensible recommendations. They included: discouraging children from using mobiles, and stopping the industry from promoting them to the young; publicising the radiation levels of different handsets so that customers could choose the lowest; making the erection of phone masts subject to democratic control through the planning system; and stopping the building of masts where the radiation "beam of greatest intensity" fell on schools, unless the school and parents agreed.

The Government accepted most of these recommendations, but then, as ’The Independent on Sunday’ has repeatedly pointed out, failed to implement them. Probably, it has lost any chance to curb the use of mobiles by children and teenagers. Since the first report, mobile use by the young has doubled.

Additional reporting by Paul Bignall, Will Dowling and Jude Townend

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