This topic is not directly subject to the site. However, I am asked more often the question: Wi-Fi or mobile phone are dangerous to health especially children?
So I decided to address this issue by providing the scientific facts that will help you form an opinion. It is impossible to prove that a particular product is not dangerous. However, it is possible to measure the effects and to deduce levels of risk.
The common feature of Wi-Fi or mobile phone is to receive and emit radio waves. This is not new since radio, television and most telecommunications systems use these waves for a hundred years. What is new is the proliferation of these devices that are installed by tens of millions of users nearby. To assess the level of dangerousness, we must understand the nature of radio waves or radio frequency (RF) and their action on the human body.
Small breviary radio waves or radio frequency (RF)
Radio waves or radio frequency (RF) are created by the movement of electrical charges in antennas. These waves consist of an electric field and magnetic fields that radiate into space from the antenna. Their propagation speed is the speed of light. What differentiates the waves is their frequency-the number of cycles per second wave-which we can deduce the wavelength of the light-speed divided by frequency, which is the distance traveled by a wave. Frequency expressed in Hz (hertz), kHz, MHz (1 million) or GHz (one billion). To give current values, the frequencies of FM radio stations are between 88 and 108 MHz, television between 300 and 600 MHz, the mobile phone 900 or 1800 MHz and 2400 MHz Wi-Fi (2.4GHz).
What are the biological effects of radio waves?
Do not confuse the effects of radio waves with those of ionizing electromagnetic radiation such as ultraviolet, X-rays or gamma rays. Ionizing radiation is produced by photons of high energies, about millions or billions of times more than those of radio waves. Such radiation can extract electrons from atoms or molecules and cause permanent damage to biological tissues such as DNA which can cause cancers.
In contrast, the photon energy of radio waves is not sufficient to ionize the atoms or molecules of biological tissues. Other types of non-ionizing radiation is the infrared (heat) and visible light (fortunately). The only effect of these radio waves is a warm body on the cross. It’s that heat that is used in microwave ovens for cooking. To date, the only health effect of RF fields established in scientific studies has been an increase in body temperature (> 1 ° C) when exposed to fields of high intensity that can only be found in industry, as with high frequency heating systems for example.
Levels of RF exposure from mobile stations of wireless networks are so low that the temperature increase is insignificant and has no effect on human health. You have to give some figures. The power of a base station Wi-Fi is limited to 0.1 Watt and that of a mobile phone at 2 Watts. A tiny fraction of this power is absorbed by the body. In comparison, microwave ovens operating in the same frequency band as Wi-Fi have powers from 500 to 1000 Watts or 5000 to 10 000 times more than Wi-Fi transmitter While radio waves Ovens Microwaves are theoretically confined but after a few years, there must be lots of leaks.
In fact, at levels similar RF exposure, the body absorbs five times more signals from FM radio and television stations as telephone or wireless is because the radio frequencies FM (around 100 MHz) and TV (around 400 MHz) are lower than those of mobile phones (900 MHz and 1800 MHz) and because the size of the human being is an efficient antenna reception at these frequencies. In addition, the stations broadcast radio and television work for at least 50 years of power much greater (from 10 kW to 2000 kW for the issuer to allocate France Inter in Big Waves) without its we have found adverse effects on the health of nearby populations.
Basically, except for an increase unmeasurable tissue temperature, there are no other known effects. Proximity to a laptop that gives off heat to cool the microprocessor is much more noticeable.
What should we think of all the alarmist news circulating on the subject?
As always we must ask the question where do the information. The political supporters of the precautionary principle misunderstood he must be afraid of any of his shadow-react more to please a customer than on scientific studies. However, we often see studies that find that in a particular subset of the population, the rate of a given disease is above average. This is normal and it means that another subset rate is below average. Compared to an average, regardless of the subset, we will always find a gap. The real questions begin: