The UK has seen its fair share of people freaking out over
the health effects of WiFi, and a major newspaper there fanned the flames this weekend with its lead story saying
children are at risk from "electronic smog". It's a strange article, though, because instead of finding any evidence that WiFi is actually harmful to people, it simply reports on how some groups are pushing for investigations into WiFi, then implies that's some sort of evidence that the technology is unsafe. This is despite previous reports that the radiation from being exposed to a WiFi network for a year is the equivalent of
20 minutes on a cell phone. Most of the noise about how harmful WiFi is comes from people
claiming to have "electrosensitivity", though they generally fail double-blind tests checking out their claims that they can sense when they've entered a room with WiFi coverage. These sorts of stories are little more than hype-filled fluff that lack much substance to back up their wild headlines and implications of doom and gloom. Another case in point: a spate of articles -- started by
one from the same paper as this latest WiFi scare story -- about how honeybees are being wiped out by radiation from mobile phones. The only catch was that the study in question
had nothing to do with cell phones. The scientists also point out that the paper never bothered to get in touch with them, presumably because an accurate description of their research and findings would have made such a sensational story pretty dull.
