War of words erupts over Wi-Fi impact on health

Seemingly taking his cue from a British scientist who claims that wireless networks in schools could cause genetic defects, a St. Catharines, Ont. university dramatic arts department head has issued a warning of his own, while denouncing government denials of the problem as “false and misleading statements.”

Health Canada: safe
The British scientist, Barrie Trower, who specialized in the development of microwave as a mass weapon during the Cold War, spoke at the University of Toronto on Aug. 25 about his safety concerns over the use of Wi-Fi systems in a public school setting. Prof. David Fancy of Brock U in St. Catharines was among those at Trower’s lecture. Since then, Health Canada has responded to Trower’s statements, maintaining that the technology is safe.
Trower says that the radio wave frequencies he was experimenting with as weapons are the same as are being used today for transmitting wireless Internet through schools, or anywhere for that matter where a wireless hub has been set up. He is especially concerned that small children are more susceptible to genetic damage, which could lead to deformed offspring when those children grow up.

Kooky claims?
The spreading controversy has made a local impact and prompted Montreal computer pioneer Lorne Trottier, founder of Matrox Graphics Inc., to fire off a “dismayed” letter to this city’s leading English-language daily, wondering why Trower’s “assertions of a kook” were being uncritically repeated in the media.
On a web page Trottier set up with some colleagues on issues concerning Electromagnetic Fields (EMF) and health, he maintains, “there is no credible scientific evidence that Wi-Fi or any other source of EMF can cause EHS” (Electrohypersensitivity), whose symptoms are similar to those reported by a group of parents in Barrie, Ont.

Children’s health
Fancy’s assertions on the perils of Wi-Fi, contained in a statement he distributed across the country on Aug. 30 via the Canada News Wire service, came on the heels of demands made by parents with children at a Barrie school about two weeks before, that the wireless Internet service be switched off because they are concerned it is making their children sick.
The parents say their children are exhibiting a multitude of symptoms, including headaches, dizziness, nausea and accelerated heart rates. Since the symptoms go away on weekends when the children aren’t in school, the parents suspect the wireless system is to blame. The parents have said they are willing to pay for installing a wired Internet distribution system throughout the school if that would mean shutting off the wireless system for good.

Questions the government
“There have been press reports in the last two weeks with false and misleading statements from government officials that there is no public health risk,” Fancy, who sat on a staff and administration committee at Brock U that issued a warning on Wi-Fi to the university’s 2,000 employees, said in his statement.
In a phone interview with the Laval News earlier this week, he said the reason he was speaking out about the issue was to respond to statements from Ontario’s chief medical officer, Dr. Arlene King, that there are no health threats from wireless. “I think that her assertions are patently false and quite misleading,” said Fancy, citing reams of research he has read about the effects of a range of radio frequencies from microwaves to X-rays.