Promotes
WiFi in Schools. Denies Health Risks.
Wifiinschools.ca
is a new website set up to promote the use of WiFi in schools:
“Because our kids need it!”
The
author of Wifiinschools.ca, Clint Lalonde, wrote, “I started this
site because I have 2 children in the public school system.”
Mr.
Lalonde forgot to mention that as the Client Service Manager,
Curriculum Services & Applied Research at BCcampus,
working primarily on open
education projects, his job is predicated on
keeping wireless on campuses.
There
are grossly untrue statements on Wifiinschools.ca. We'd like to address a few
here:
Access
to the Internet and Teachers' Unions
“Increasingly,
I see that [public education] threatened as anti-wifi activists
advocate removing access to the internet from our schools – the one
place in our society where access to high quality educational
learning material is needed the most. ”
We have not heard
of any WiFi opponent asking for “removing access to the
internet”. Would like the source. “Access to high quality
educational learning material” can be done by wired internet,
which is what we support. With his wireless-focused background, Mr.
Lalone thinks that “high quality educational learning” is only
available from wireless laptops and iPads. However, many teachers do
not agree with this theory.
Here's a recent article written by Ms. Tara
Ehrcke, President of Greater Victoria Teachers' Association. Ms. Ehrcke
is a highschool Computer and Math teacher.
Why Educators
Should Resist Educational Technology
This
is a letter published in the BCTF Teachers News Magazine:
Wi-Fi
Technology In schools: Is It Time To Reconsider?
And this is the Masters' Thesis of Mr. Tobey Steeves (a secondary school teacher of Social Studies and Communication) about the electronic-focused 21st Century Learning campaign. Mr. Steeves argues that "this relative devaluation of teachers and their work provides a basis for increased school conflicts, contributes to elevated stress among teachers, and may encourage teacher ‘burnout.’" He also sketches "an alternative vision of the role of teachers’ work that is grounded in democratic values and practices."
(De/Re)-constructing teachers and their work : a discourse analysis of British Columbia's 21st-century policy agenda
On
March 16-19, the BCTF (British Columbia Teachers' Federation) will be
voting on a few resolutions regarding WiFi in schools. Teachers have
started to be aware of the health risks brought by WiFi radiation and
are asking for the choice to not be exposed daily, in a high
data-traffic classroom situation.
March
7, 2013 - United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA), the union which
represents over 40,000 teachers and other workers in LAUSD, passed
the following motion by a sweeping majority:
“I
move that UTLA will abide by current National NEA Policy for
Environmentally Safe Schools which states that all employees and
stakeholders should be informed when there are changes in their
exposure to environmental hazards including electromagnetic radiation
and that all stakeholders and the public should be notified of any
actual and potential hazards. UTLA will advocate for technological
solutions that maintain technology upgrades while not increasing
employees exposure to electromagnetic radiation.”
A
recent article published by VOICE
UK (The Union for Education Professionals):
“In
the last few years there has been a great weight of evidence from
around the world which suggests that exposure to electromagnetic
radiation can have long-term health impacts, particularly on
children, and that exposing young children (from birth to 12) to
electromagnetic radiation (EMR) can produce changes in cell
formation, genetic changes, and potential cancers.
Exposure
levels are only half the story; length of exposure is crucial too.
Long exposures at lower intensity levels may be as damaging as high
exposure levels for short periods hence our concern about wireless
networks in schools and nurseries.
It
is a considerable concern that in schools we are installing wi-fi
systems and we have no clear evidence that they are safe. Our
concern is that until they are declared to be safe and proven to be
safe we should not be installing them in schools.
The
difficulty is that once installed in schools, they are switched on
constantly. Whether the children are using them or not, they are
exposed to that level of radiation.
Voice
has advocated that new wi-fi systems should not be installed in
schools, that existing systems should be turned off when not required
and that schools should consider whether they really need to use
wi-fi, which was developed to facilitate Internet access on the move
rather than to be used as a convenient alternative to cables in
dedicated IT facilities.”
The
Bank of France
France
Telecom Orange
L'Oréal
(Cosmetics giant)
The
City of Paris
RATP
(Autonomous Operator of Parisian Transports - a state-owned public
transport operation)
Geodis
(A leading Transport and Logistics company in Europe)
The
Bibliothèque Nationale de France (National Library of France)
All
these unions are informed about the health risks of WiFi and
cellphones and are fighting to protect the health of their adult
members in the workplace.
Why
would we choose to increase the exposure to school children?
RF/EMF
as 2B Possible Carcinogen
Wifiinschools.ca:
“”So, let’s cherry pick a couple of other items on the class 2b
list, like coffee [which causes
urinary bladder cancer], pickled vegetables, coconut oil
[Wrong citation. The item is
cocamine DEA: a diethanolamide made by reacting the mixture of fatty acids from coconut oils with diethanolamine, not coconut oil],
talcum powder, and nickle. When you say WiFi is as dangerous as
coffee or pickles, the comparison seems a lot less ominous.”
This is a typical
industry tactic to downplay the severity of toxicity. Reason? Not
good for business.
First, the above
substances are not environmental, involuntary and penetrating like
RF/EMF. Secondly, knowing these are classified items, will schools
propose force-feeding children with possibly carcinogenic pickled
vegetables and coffee every day, or start pumping talcum powder or nickle dust into
its ventilation system?
There are 5 classes in
the IARC monographs of carcinogens. If the substances have
“negligible” carcinogenicity, they would have been put in Group 3
Not classifiable as to its carcinogenicity to
humans, or Group 4 Probably not carcinogenic to humans - not Group 2.
In industrial safety,
items on Group 1 and Group 2 (2A & 2B) of the IARC list are
considered hazardous and warrant special handling protocols. The
objective is to minimize the risk and the harm, definitely not
exponentially increasing the exposure like wireless Ed Tech companies
recommend.
54. A pure substance or
tested mixture falls into Subdivision A of Division 2 of Class D —
Poisonous and Infectious Material if it is listed in...
(b) Group 1 or Group 2 in
the IARC Monographs...
Occupational Health and
Safety Regulation
5.57 (1) If a substance
identified as any of the following is present in the workplace, the
employer must replace it, if practicable, with a material which
reduces the risk to workers:
(a) ACGIH A1 or A2, or
IARC 1, 2A or 2B carcinogen;
In an attempt to
understate the 2B warning, Wifiinschools.ca cited a non-peer-reviewed
online blog post by Ken Foster and Lorne Trottier, which criticizes
the 1,800 peer-reviewed scientific studies presented in The 2012
BioInitiative Report.
We are not
surprised that Foster and Trottier dismissed the EMF health risk
completely. In 2007, Dr. Ken Foster was hired by WiFi
Alliance (companies that manufacture and sell WiFi products) to
conduct a study to show that WiFi is “safe”. His study focused on
background radiation and averaged out exposure levels, resulting in
extremely low and “safe” figures.
Foster
measured the radiation of a laptop from nonsensical “distances of 1
meter or more” and stated that “No attempt was made in this study
to assess near-field exposures to a user of the laptop itself.”
Despite this clear disclaimer, Foster
(2007) study has been utilized repeatedly by WiFi promoters as
evidence that WiFi is
safe for the users – school children!
Mr.
Trottier, on the other hand, is a businessman connected to a
venture capital operation called MSBi Valorisation which
commercializes technological innovations from McGill University. A
small part of Mr. Trottier's company Matrox also manufactures
supplies for wireless devices.
Trottier
is an avid attacker of all advocacy against wireless developments.
Incidentally, while promoting the Possibly Carcinogenic RF/EMF, Mr.
Trottier also owns Oncozyme Pharma, a drug company which specializes
in cancer treatment. For more detailed information, please see:
http://www.safeinschool.org/2012/04/hpa-no-risk-report-on-rf-emf-hiding.html
The
BioInitiative Report
Wifiinschools.ca:
“Much of the scientific evidence that underpins the anti-wifi
groups comes from The BioInitiaitve Report, a self-published, non
peer reviewed report first published online in 2007 and re-released
in 2012.”
Mr. Lalonde might not
like the way the BioInitiative Report was written, but he completely
twisted the fact and omitted that the scientific studies (3,800 of
them in both reports published in 2007 and 2012) presented by the
BioInitiative Report are bona fide peer-reviewed studies. Some
studies specifically prepared for the report were also peer-reviewed
and available on pub-med. We encourage readers to look at the
information and decide for themselves:
http://www.safeinschool.org/2013/02/3800-peer-reviewed-scientific-studies.html
More peer-reviewed
studies are available here:
http://www.safeinschool.org/p/scientific-studies.html
Wikipedia
and More Conflicts of Interest at Bad Science Watch
Wifiinschools.ca uses
the Wikipedia article on BioInitiative Report as their reference. We
took one look at that article and were astonished at the level of
bias presented. Wikipedia promotes a “neutral point of view”, but
the Wiki article on BioInitiative Report is hardly neutral. Instead
it only shows a landslide of negative criticism. Very strange.
The BioInitiative
Report has been adopted and acknowledged by influential bodies such
as the European Parliament, the Council of Europe, and the Royal
Society of London. The European Environmental Agency not only
endorses it, but took part in authoring a chapter in the report,
called “Late Lessons from Early Warnings”. However, none of the
above notability is included in the Wiki piece.
After some research,
we realized that the current one-sided Wikipedia article on
BioInitiative Report was admittedly created and heavily edited by Mr.
Robert Quickert – founding member of Bad
Science Watch. With the user names of Qui1che and papageno, Mr.
Quickert and a couple of buddy editors systematically reverted the
addition of any positive information that is favourable to the
BioInitiative Report. These are documented in the Talk and History
pages on Wikipedia website. Qui1che and papageno are regular editors
of cellphone and EMF related Wiki articles. While Wikipedia has a
policy of disclosing conflict of interest, it does not appear that
Mr. Quickert has provided such disclosure.
So who is Robert
Quickert? Mr. Q. has a life tenure as Training Manager at Motorola
and we wonder if Motorola endorses Quickert's frequent tweets to
promote wireless and mock citizens who advocate for precaution. He
even created a hashtag on Twitter called #RFscare.
In their own cellphone user's
manual, Motorola actually admits that “we do not have enough
information at this point to assure the public that there are, or are
not, any low incident health problems associated with use of mobile
phones.”
The
Cost of Wired Interent
But it is not just
computers. Entire new lines of devices, such as tablets, e-readers
and smartphones, have come to the market in recent years that also
have no physical network connections. Restricting wifi means an
entire generation of technology is not useable in classrooms.”
Product
sales are market-driven. Saying that we have to choose more risky
products because safer products are hard to find is hardly logical.
Do we let our health and safety decision be dictated by corporate
agenda? Or do we as the end users demand safer designs from
manufacturers?
“
Additionally,
hard-wiring buildings with physical cables and establishing wired
access points is
expensive compared to installing WiFi access points. ”
Expensive? It costs around $60 to purchase 1000 feet of industry standard cat5e ethernet cable with signals as high as 1Gbit / sec, about $1 per keystone jack and $5 for 100 cable ends.
While
educational budgets are cut on many fronts, no one (including parents
who are taxpayers and "stakeholders") is allowed to
question the sacred plans of technological advancement in millions of
dollars. Instead of investing to improve the existing safer wired
technology, money is being spent on purchasing NEW equipment:
$700/pc iPads, thousands of wireless routers (along with licensing
fees for apps and newer routers' automatic opt-in cloud computing
contracts at $150 per router per year). Also are the cost of energy powering these devices,
especially WiFi routers which operate 24/7, and the cost of
replacements to feed corporations' planned obsolescence which will
occur every few years for decades to come.
On top of the above, since
Health Canada and the World Health Organization have confirmed that
they do not have sufficient data to assess the long-term health
impact of wireless radiation on children - Should the need arise in
future for removing wireless devices and retrofitting school
buildings with wired networks for health reasons, the cost will be
incalculable.
That
doesn't include the cost of healthcare, or the health of children and staff.
“Sure,
they [wired computers] work. But is that really the best learning
environment we can provide for our children? ”
Yes,
wired internet and computers do not emit pulsed microwave radiation
all day. It's is a much
better learning environment for children.
To
fellow parents:
Please
consider the advice of these medical
doctors and experts instead of
EdTech companies whose mission is to $$$ell more wireless products
and services - in the name of Education.
Because our kids don't "need" it.
Epilogue
We
received this excellent comment from a reader:
The
WHO/IARC has classified electromagnetic radiation as a Class 2B
carcinogen. Many on the panel voted to classify it as 2A (probable)
based on the plethora of peer-reviewed scientific evidence showing
increased risk of cancer from exposure, including chronic exposure to
relatively low-level microwave radiation such as wifi.
To
encourage the use of a Class 2B carcinogen, forbidden by Work Safe BC
regulations where a practical alternative is available, is the height
of irresponsibility, especially where children with a higher
susceptibility are present. And cancer is only one of the many health
risks associated with chronic microwave radiation. Another is leakage
of the blood-brain barrier. This is the brain’s last defense
against toxins in the blood and is proven to be compromised by wifi
radiation given long enough exposure. I am not surprised though to
see those with a conflict of interest and financial gain as a result
of the proliferation of wifi pretend that the thousands of
peer-reviewed studies showing harm from this relatively recent
technology don’t exist. I do question how they can feel comfortable
knowing that they are party to exposing innocent children with
developing nervous systems to this known toxin.
History
is full of examples where health authorities were far behind the
curve when it came to assessing the real and present danger from what
were once ubiquitous toxins, such as lead in paint and gasoline,
tobacco, thalidomide, Vioxx, asbestos… the list goes on and on.
Unfortunately, the wireless communications industry is the second
largest industry on Earth, and therefore has a very strong
“persuasiveness” in coercing the public and even so-called
“health authorities” to overlook the very real risks. You can
recognize this propaganda through phrases such as “scientific
consensus.” When you see this oxymoron, you know you’re being
snowed, because it demonstrates a misunderstanding of the scientific
method.
If
you have a thousand studies that show no harm, and only one that
shows harm, and is repeatable, the harm has been proven and the
correct response is to seek flaws in the protocol of the thousand
studies that didn’t show harm, not throw out or ignore the singular
one that does show harm. A person unschooled in the scientific method
may believe that the “weight of the evidence” or the “scientific
consensus” shows no harm.
Another
trick is to criticize a publication like
the http://bioinitiative.org ‘s
Bionitiative Report 2012 as being not peer reviewed. Reports are not
peer reviewed, scientific studies are. That this report is not peer
reviewed is irrelevant since the studies it references ARE
peer-reviewed, and while lower in number than industry sponsored
studies showing no harm, they are compelling in their proof that
there is biological harm from chronic low-level microwave radiation.
In fact, roughly 75% of industry sponsored studies show no harm,
while the numbers are reversed for independent studies. This
demonstrates a clear bias beyond probable statistical anomaly, i.e.,
he who pays the piper calls the tune, and the “results” of the
“study.”
Health
concerns aside and solely pedagogically speaking, why do the execs of
the biggest Silicon Valley schools pay extra money to send their
children to not only wifi-free schools, but also computer-free
schools? The simple answer is that technology does not equal
learning. It can be a useful aid, but it can also be a hindrance and
a distraction. It’s ridiculous to suggest that wired internet is
inferior to wireless. It is in fact far superior in that the data
rates are faster, the networks are more secure, and they are more
economical to maintain and
equip.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/technology/at-waldorf-school-in-silicon-valley-technology-can-wait.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1& ;
Throwing
money and technology at children does not help them learn. Personal
interaction with a caring teacher is what’s important. And a caring
teacher would forbid wifi in his classroom because he would educate
himself on the dangers that it poses to developing bodies and
brains.
