A ticking time bomb?

Philip Parkin

When I wrote to Alan Johnson, then secretary of state for education and skills in April 2007, expressing my concern about the potential effects of Wi-Fi networks in schools, he replied, reassuring me that Becta, the government’s education technology agency, had a responsibility for e-safety and that there was “no consistent evidence of health effects from RF (radio frequency) exposures below guideline levels”, and that “exposures should be well within internationally accepted guidelines”.

Having spent two days in September at the Radiation Research Trust’s conference, EMF and Health A Global Issue, at which scientists on both sides of the debate expressed their views, I find that I continue to have concerns.

I am not a scientist and cannot claim to understand all of the science, but when world-renowned experts in their fields are unable to agree, I understand enough for it to raise concerns with me.

There was general agreement at the conference (including the representative of the mobile phone industry) that two issues are of particular concern.

First, the health effects of long-term use (over 10 years) of mobile phones. Professor Hardell, from Sweden, reported on his research which showed that people who started mobile phone use before the age of 20 had a more than five-fold increase in glioma (a cancer of the glial cells which support the central nervous system).

Second, the use of mobile phones by children and the risk of cancer. There is disregard and ignorance of the current Health Protection Agency guidelines in this country. Clearly the current generation of children is likely to be the first to have used such devices from an early age and to be those who will use them in the long-term. As well as the risk of cancer, there is concern that such exposure, when children’s nervous systems are still forming and their skulls are thin, can affect cognitive development and cell structures.

Dr George Carlo from America stated that: “When a signal is picked up by a cell membrane it is seen as an environmental stressor which increases the permeability of cell membranes.”

Professor David Coggan, chair of the UK Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research Programme, said that he would at some point like to be able to fund a study of cognitive development and symptoms in secondary school pupils.

He also highlighted the need to monitor the incidence of childhood cancers at different ages.

A number of other issues raised also failed to reassure me that there is nothing to be concerned about. Not least that international guidelines are out of date and inadequate and some scientists at the conference made it quite clear that they had little faith in them.

Exposure levels are only half the story; length of exposure being the other half. Long exposures at lower intensity levels may be as damaging as high exposure levels for short periods. Hence my concern about wireless networks in schools and nurseries.

Also, that cell changes caused by electro-magnetic radiation are not regarded as health effects despite them having potentially long-term genetic consequences. I noted that David Carpenter, from America, said that there was an overwhelming body of biological evidence which suggested a need to protect children. This was supported by Russia’s Professor Yury Grigoriev, who said that the potential risk to children’s health was very high and was a completely new problem; and that it was necessary to develop special standards for the protection of children.

And that exposure to mobile phone base stations is not voluntary (unlike the use of phone handsets) and is continuous, 24 hours a day; and that locating in sensitive areas, such as near schools, should be avoided.

I continue to take the view, until someone convinces me otherwise, that there would appear to be enough accumulating evidence to suggest that a precautionary approach to these matters would be wise; and that the potential long-term effects upon children need serious and sustained scientific study.

• Philip Parkin is general secretary of the Voice education union.

Visit www.voicetheunion.org.uk/wifi