WiFi isn't bad for health after all

"Wi-Fi cards are quite low power," says John Moulder, PhD, Professor of Radiation Oncology at Medical College of Wisconsin, and Director of the Center for Medical Countermeasures Against Radiological Terrorism. "Their peak power is comparable to, or somewhat below, that of mobile phone handsets. They also have very low duty cycles; they aren't transmitting most of the time. In most environments, the Wi-Fi signal is below (often far below) other RFR signals."

The Times of London quotes Dr. Michael Clark of the HPA (a UK health agency similar to the American CDC) as saying, "When we have conducted measurements in schools, typical exposures from Wi-Fi are around 20 millionths of the international guideline levels of exposure to radiation. As a comparison, a child on a mobile phone receives up to 50 percent of guideline levels. So, a year sitting in a classroom near a wireless network is roughly equivalent to 20 minutes on a mobile. If Wi-Fi should be taken out of schools, then the mobile phone network should be shut down, too - and FM radio and TV, as the strength of their signals is similar to that from Wi-Fi in classrooms."

Among the scientists doing research on the true amounts of Wi-Fi's emitted radiation is Dr. Kenneth Foster, a professor of bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Last year, Dr. Foster, who has published 100 papers in peer-reviewed journals, conducted a study into RF levels around the globe.

"In virtually all the environments I surveyed, the RF signal from WLANs was a small fraction of the total RF fields in the environment," Foster says. "Other sources included mobile base stations, and broadcast radio and TV stations in the region."

While the study was not designed to assess health risks to humans, the measurements taken by Dr. Foster provide clear data on real world exposure levels (versus lab environments or estimates.) Based on the levels he consistently detected, Dr. Foster concludes that there is no cause for concern.

"No expert review of the literature (by WHO or national health agencies) have indicated any cause for concern, nor do I know of any scientific papers in standard peer-reviewed journals that offer any evidence that would lead to concern," says Foster.

The Wi-Fi Alliance, whose primary mission is promoting interoperability between Wi-Fi products, has given some attention to the issues of health and safety. Its official position is that "although questions have been raised, there is no scientific evidence that these low-power wireless communications devices pose any health threat to the user or the general public."

Moulder, who has been studying RFR biology for nearly 25 years, concurs. "I know of no confirmed epidemiological evidence or experimental evidence that RFR exposures this low are of concern, and I know of no theoretical basis for thinking that such exposures would cause biological effects," he says.

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