Media Standards Trust

Panorama last week suggested wireless networks (wi-fi) may be emitting levels of radiation that are dangerous to the public – especially to children. Is this true? Did Panorama exaggerate the threat to promote the programme? Are the possible dangers of wi-fi being presented fairly by the media?

8 Comments

On a subject which has already provoked frightening stories on the BBC and in the press – and excited much comment from the public – we ask scientists and experts working in this field to provide context and direction, and for a debate about how the media can help inform such an important, but technologically complex, issue.

Context

In a Panorama special investigation about the dangers of wifi, presenter Paul Kenyon pointed to evidence suggesting that levels of radiation emitted by wi-fi could be as much as three times those emitted by mobile phone masts (Panorama transcript here). Kenyon interviewed Sir William Stewart, Chairman of the Health Protection Agency, who said that possible serious dangers connected with wi-fi were not being properly considered, and called for an inquiry into the use of wireless internet networks in schools. His call follows last month’s by the Professional Association of Teachers, who wrote to Alan Johnson requesting a similar scientific inquiry into the potential health risks of wi-fi networks.

Panorama talked to a number of other scientists, almost all of whom reiterated the potential dangers alluded to by Sir William Stewart. One of the scientists interviewed, Dr Olle Johansson, from “the world renowned Karolinska Institute” said wi-fi radiation could lead to chromosome damage, could have an impact on people’s ability to concentrate, and could increase the number of cancer incidences. Dr Michael Repacholi was the only scientist in the programme who argued against the dangers, but his position was compromised, Kenyon said, because ‘Doctor Repacholi used to work for the very industry which helps create this form of radiation’ – the telecoms companies.

One was left in little doubt, by the end of the programme, that wi-fi was being pushed forward by the government and industry, without enough thought about its impact on public health. In Norwich, said Kenyon ‘the government were so keen on wi-fi’ they launched it for free. ‘Whilst the government races ahead,’ the presenter continued, ‘apparently unrestrained by its own chief adviser’ other European countries are being far more cautious.

Panorama’s findings were picked up by the Daily Telegraph – which led with the story on its front page, the Daily Mail, the Daily Mirror and others. Most reported the findings with concern and expressed surprise that such anxieties were not yet being voiced by parents and schools.

The programme has since been strongly criticised. Writing in the Guardian, James Randerson said that leading scientists described it as "grossly unscientific" and a "scare story”. His colleague, Ben Goldacre, continued this criticism in his ‘Bad Science’ column on Saturday, pointing out that the evidence of high radiation came from Alasdair Phillips, who runs a protest group against wireless technology called Powerwatch. It has also since been found that Dr Olle Johansson recently won an ‘award’ for being ‘misleader of the year’ (2004) after claiming that BSE was caused by computer terminals.

Further criticisms have been made by viewers of the programme on the BBC’s website. Scott Kay, a professional scientist, was ‘astounded by the lack of balanced scientific argument'. 'Where were the dissenting views from the mainstream scientific community?' asked John Bidwell, 'Why didn't the program spend more time acknowledging the most widely held view that there is no risk to health?' (see ‘Have Your Say’).

Paul Kenyon appeared on the BBC’s Newswatch defending Panorama (can be viewed here until 2nd June) but conceding that the programme could have included further evidence and confessing he did not know about Dr Johannson’s reputation.

Questions

Was this “another media scare story” or should we take the possible dangers seriously?

How fair was Panorama’s investigation into the dangers of wi-fi?

Did it give enough background on the contributing scientists?

Was its evidence convincing? Is there, for example, evidence to support Kenyon’s thesis about biological vs thermal effects?

What is the threat of wi-fi relative to other technologies that emit radiation – from mobile phones to microwave ovens?

Is it legitimate for the media to seek to increase awareness by frightening the public?

How should the media cover serious health issues like the dangers of radiation?

What new threats to our health – if any – are unique to this technological age?

Are levels of ‘electrosmog’ increasing and should we be worried?

What other publicly availably documentaries, websites, lectures, government studies examine the dangers of wi-fi?

Recommended

‘Why fear Wifi?', James Randerson, The Guardian, 21-5-07

'Mobile Phones and Health' (2000), Independent Expert Group on Mobile Phones (Chairman: Sir William Stewart)

'Is there any proof that wi-fi networks can make you sick?' Charles Arthur, The Guardian, 30-11-06

'Is WiFi safe?', Jonathan Richards, The Times, 23-5-07

Scaring and misleading viewers is now apparently considered to be good 'entertainment' and therefore 'good television', but the bias of the Panorama programme was disgraceful. I hope that the BBC management are now ashamed of it. Particlarly for an organisation with the historical traditions of the BBC, one might expect some sense of responsiblity to educate the viewers about scientific issues, rather than apparently trying to deliberately mislead them.
It is one thing to advocate some caution, but to do it by presenting scientifically-doubtful and statistically-unsound data as 'evidence' to a susceptible audience is something quite different.
Words like 'electromagnetic smog' were used, no doubt because viewers do know that real smog (= "smoky fog") is harmful. Using 'smog' to describe wi-fi is just another attempt to overstate the case. The most widespread form of electromagnetic radiation we are all exposed to is something called daylight, but the BBC does not refer to this as "daylight smog" nor recommend that we only go out at night in order to escape from it.
Let's ban our children from visiting historic houses and castles, in case they see some ghosts and become frightened (no doubt the BBC could find a few 'experts' who sincerely believe in ghosts and have proved their existence).

Unfortunately I missed the Panorama programme as I was out of the country when it was broadcast. However, I have seen parts of the transcript, and read some of the subsequent media coverage.

As a member of the Stewart Committee, and more recently of the Health Protection Agency's Advisory Group on Non-Ionising Radiation, I have monitored the continually emerging scientific evidence on possible adverse health effects from exposures to radio-frequency radiation of the type that are associated with mobile phones and related technology. Not surprisingly, in what is now quite an extensive literature there are some studies which suggest adverse effects. However, in my view, the overall balance of evidence does not point to a risk. That said, there is an element of scientific uncertainty, which means that we cannot absolutely rule out a risk from wifi. The challenge for risk management is to gauge the level of uncertainty and then give it appropriate weight.

In this respect, it is worth noting that the RF radiation used in wifi is fairly close in frequency to that used in mobile phones, and that cumulative exposures from using wifi are substantially lower than those from using a mobile phone. Given the now substantial weight of evidence on mobile phones and health (which does not point to a risk), and also the absence of a biophysical mechanism by which the RF radiation from wifi might be expected to have material biological effects, the level of scientific suspicion is low.

Because of the rapid, extensive uptake of wifi, it makes sense to conduct research looking for possible unsuspected health effects, but the expectation of finding anything adverse is low. Meanwhile, restricting the use of wifi in schools and elsewhere would seem a disproportionate response to scientific uncertainty.

I have lost all faith in the media representing anything fairly if there is a story to be had.

It is always useful to have open debates about sensitive issues but from a statistical point of view, this program was simply dysfunctional, scare-mongering drivel. The only person shown who tried to explain this was the WHO scientist at the end who patiently tried to tell the reporter that *all* data needs to be included in any robust analysis. The reporter's only response was a crude attempt to discredit him. Utterly shameful.

Answer the anxious by all means but do it in a scientically supportable way. This program's only contribution was to create the anxious. The great danger of such programs is that by creating an illusory smoke screen around an effect for which there is no statistically significant case, we divert resources from something else which statistically is important.

I look forward to the next Panorama expose linking fairies to house subsidence. Well, you never know ... :-)

Just to add a short comment - Sheila Johnston is missing the point again. Here is a new technology being rushed out with assurances from those with money to make that this is fine and perfectly safe, when to my knowledge there has been one study only, by Ken Foster, of levels in typical environments. No studies to my knowledge have yet been done on "health" or biological effects of WiFi. In addition, the scientific system is such that studies are submitted for publication and Henry Lai has had plenty published in good peer reviewed journals so even if you want to rubbish the work, it is firmly there in the scientific literature and it is not for the likes of Paul Kenyon to profess to be the peer reviewer or the selector of literature. If it should not be there it is the fault of the system.
My remarks at the end of my first comment shows that I, like Sheila, think that on balance there is no problem - but is my opinion necessarily better than that of the next person? We have to answer the anxious, not dismiss their anxieties as "fairy dust". No one is omniscient - 50 years ago my mother gave me 200 cigarettes as a birthday present - it took nearly 20 years to realise what an idiot move that was. I haven't given my grand-daughter a mobile phone -yet.

Panorama chose research scientists to interview whose research has not been replicated and who state there are biological effects of 'basesite and mobile phone type exposures' when the weight of published evidence does not come to that conclusion.

This is misrepresenting the scientific evidence. It is scare mongering.
For instance Henry Lai's research on spatial memory has not been supported by 6 other research groups in extensive repeated similar experiments and replications 2000-2007.

The effects of MW exposure on spatial memory in animals have been thoroughly researched with many attempted replications and confirmations.

The weight of evidence from seven research groups using two species of mammals (Sprague-Dawley rats and C57BL/6J mice) is that there is no effect on spatial learning as tested by six spatial learning paradigms at whole body or local (head) MW exposures within guideline limits and also well above the whole body and partial body limits, when whole body temperature did not measurably rise.

Six groups ((i) Sienkiewicz et al., 2000, Jones et al., 2005; (ii) Dubreuil et al., 2002, 2003; (iii) Yamaguchi et al., 2003; (iv) Cobb et al., 2004 (v) Cassel et al., 2004; Cosquer et al., 2005a,b,c) and most recently (vi) Tattersall et al., 2007, using spatial memory animal experiments confirmed or replicated each others' results indicating that MW exposures at frequencies from 900 to 2450 MHz had no effect on spatial memory.
Sienkiewicz's group [2005] have recently reconfirmed and extended their results on spatial memory in mice exposed to MWs, lending further support to the weight of scientific evidence conclusion. The positive results of the Lai group [1989, 1994, 2000, 2004] are not supported by the weight of scientific evidence.
Summary Animal Spatial Memory Studies on RF Exposure Effects:
There is no effect on spatial learning at whole body or local (head) MW
exposures:
-using established basic mechanism 'Spatial Memory' [Kandel Nobel Prize
2000]
- using two species of mammals rats & mice
- tested by 6 spatial learning paradigms
- at whole body or local (head) MW exposures
- within guideline limits & also well above the whole body & partial body
limits
- in 7 independent groups [Lai, Sienkiewicz, Cobb, Dubreuil, Cosquer, Yamaguchi, Tattersall]

The documentary spent some time highlighting the phenomenon of electrosensitivity. This was perfectly reasonable. As Paul Kenyon said of Silvia, the lady whose life had clearly been blighted by the condition: “If Silvia's symptoms are because of radiation, everything changes. It means there can be a biological effect at levels as low as that from wi-fi. It would throw our limits out of the window and put a question mark over the wi-fi revolution.”

Silvia’s account of her illness was interesting, moving and certainly worth reporting. Kenyon rightly noted that provocation studies which expose people with electrosensitivity to real and sham EMF under double-blind conditions are important. And he rightly pointed out that one such study at the University of Essex is currently underway and has not yet reported its findings. But I was troubled that this was the only study on electrosensitivity that was discussed. Thirty-seven other provocation studies have already been reported in the scientific literature. And overall, these studies do not support the idea that electrosensitivity symptoms are triggered by EMF.

Was it right to highlight the plight of people with electrosensitivity, to describe an ongoing study which has not reported its findings and hence cannot yet inform this debate, but to fail to mention the fact that there has already been 20 years worth of similar work on the phenomenon? This omission was unfortunate, and failed to give viewers the appropriate context to this important issue.

I thought the Panorama programme on WiFi opened up a useful debate, but it seemed to me that there were a number of scare tactics used in the programme, presumably to make the story more newsworthy. I thought that the statements regarding the electrosensitivity tests, where the lady in question could tell if the EM emitter was present two times out of three could have been explored a little more. Without more information it could not be ascertained if this information was really statistically significant (average chances are 50:50) and only this particularly lady's results were reported (rather than her friends who were also shown on the same programme). The continued use of emotive words such as 'radiation' (rather then for example 'radio or microwaves'? and the use of school centre for the study suggests to me an emphasis on scare story, rather than 'hard science'. The inference that the former ICNIRP expert was somehow in the pockets of the indusry, but the other, opposing lobbyists were not was unpleasant. I though the reporter's defence of the progamme was credible and public health risks associated with new technology are of course of vital importance. However, an emphasis of what level these risks are would have, in my opinion, made the programme more valuable.

The programme did present a modern dilemma that in general commercial pressures tend to dictate the roll out of new technology without heed to anxieties about any contra-effects. One constant observation of studies of communities around sources of EMFs is an increased incidence of "subjective" symptoms, but it is also true that attempts to demonstrate a biological mechanism, or to demonstrate effects in provocation studies, have been failures. Symptoms that occur, even in the absence of a physical mechanism, still represent a problem to some people and there is therefore a feeling that those "sufferers" are having their civil liberties compromised. The nearest comparison must be the power-line debate that has led quite a few respectable scientists to acknowledge that for childhood leukaemia, something is happening that enhances risk for children chronically exposed to power-lines (advisedly not "exposed to EMFs" - see Draper study in BMJ) - again with no clear mechanism.

Paul Kenyon made an unfortunate choice of "experts" (except Philips who is a good engineer), but clearly supported by Sir William who is quite rightly an advocate of circumspection and caution. It would be so easy to carry out a small survey of a WiFi equipped school and really assess the "exposure" which is not really represented by some in-air E-field measurements. After all, at WiFi frequencies, the field penetration into the body is only about 10mm.

I personally have very low belief in harmful effects from such low levels of RF, but cannot pretend to understand how the leukaemia - powerline link works - I just would not let my grandchildren live under a line. I also think industry has a duty to characterise exposure to its products - in that sense Paul Kenyon did a very useful job.