Posted:
05/14/2014 12:48 pm EDT Updated: 05/14/2014 12:59 pm EDT
Wireless Radiation Environmental Health Devra Davis Barack Obama Mobile Phones Environment Wireless Schools Environmental Health
Trust Cell Phones Wireless Radiation Safety Wi Fi Radiation Children World Health Organization Health
Before this
nation makes Wi-Fi in schools like it is in coffee shops, as the president
recently urged, we need to consider what this could do to our children's brains
and bodies. Three years ago the World Health Organization declared cell phone
and other wireless radiation a "possible
human carcinogen," --
the same category as some pesticides, lead and engine exhausts. Since then evidence
has mounted that such
radiation can profoundly affect human biology, altering brain
metabolism, damaging
animals exposed during pregnancy and reducing sperm count. Before blanketing our pre-schools,
kindergartens and middle schools with wireless radiation, we need a full
life-cycle assessment of economic and health costs and benefits of wireless
technology.
As you have
said in other contexts, "Just because we can do something, does not mean
that we should do something."
The notion
that the fast developing brains of children benefit from digital devices flies
in the face of what experts in neurodevelopment understand. Your pledge to put
wireless in all schools for children from pre-K on does not rest on any proof
that such technology is safe or that children actually learn better using such
technology.
While our
nation excels at many things, our wireless based Internet connection is
inferior to a slew of other countries, including Korea, Latvia, Romania, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic -- all of which have invested in
Fiber To The Home (FTTH) rather than wireless Internet connections. Wireless
routers are costlier, less reliable and can be between three to 10 times slower
than wired systems that can operate at speeds of up to one gigabyte a second --
as other technologically savvy nations appreciate, there are also important
health risks posed by classrooms full of closely held wireless devices.
Growing
numbers of experts in telecommunications understand that plans to phase out
wired phone lines or have energy systems rely on wireless metering are frankly
ill-conceived and uneconomic. A parallel interdependent network of wired
fiber-optic cables is faster, safer and more secure against criminal or
terrorist attacks or wide swings in weather. It is more difficult to hack into
or take down a wired network rather than a wireless one, especially if the
latter has not been properly encrypted. Bravo to Google for recently
announcing its expansion of wired services in many major cities.
Studies
finding wireless radiation tied with serious biological impacts have moved
governments in Israel, Canada, Australia, Korea, India and Finland, to advise reducing children's
exposures. Following actions in Turkey, France and other
nations, the Health
Minister of Belgium recently banned
the sale of cell phones for children ages 7 and younger. What does she know that you
don't?
Ignoring
these serious concerns, the mobile phone industry has treated reports of risks
of cell phone radiation as inconveniences to be rapidly undermined using
science as a form of public relations. When confronted with the possibility
that cell phone radiation could damage the brain cells of rats way back in
1994, Motorola wrote a memo to its public relation's firm noting the need to
"war-game the science." More recently,
in response to the WHO declaration of possible dangers of cellphone radiation,
the Global Manufacturers' Forum set up a quarter of a billion dollar fund to
produce defensive information -- effectively attacking the credibility of the
WHO and its scientists, and promoting other expert reviews that counter and
undermine the WHO.
We are
flying blind here, as there are no studies on the safety or efficacy of
microwave based learning for young children, nor is any planned. Despite
repeated advice from expert groups, the U.S. has no training or research
programs underway in this field and is forced to rely on outdated science and
foreign reports. One way to fund such programs would be to impose a one dollar
fee (split between consumers and industry) on every phone for five years to
fund much-needed independent training and research to evaluate and improve the
technology.
Until we
have better information at hand, you should encourage the growth of fiber optic
cables and order the FCC to drop wireless expansion into schools with young
children -- relying instead on wired systems and keeping wireless tablets on
airplane mode if they have already been purchased.
Years ago
the philosopher Immanuel Kant noted that "What man must do, he can
do." But the opposite is not true. A rigorous analysis of the full costs
and benefits of wired and wireless InfoTech is long overdue.
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