By Rebecca Rempel
It seems as soon as people catch onto a craze, it’s found to cause cancer.
Smoking. A social activity that has been around for hundreds of years. Don’t light up anymore, it causes cancer.
Lying on the beach is the favourite pastime of summer vacationers, but slap on that sunscreen and grab that hat and umbrella because too much sun exposure causes cancer.
As sun exposure is a factor for skin cancer, people switched to indoor tanning to achieve their glow. Nope, that causes cancer too.
And now WiFi has been added to the long, growing list of cancer-causing activities.
The Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association, or OECTA, is urging schools to stop putting WiFi in their buildings, saying that more research needs to be done on the effects of WiFi on children before installation.
Last May, the World Health Organization called for more research to be conducted on the potential dangers of WiFi, as radiation from any wireless device could be cancer-causing.
Because children’s brains are smaller than adults, the radiation affects them more. A child’s brain also contains more water, which allows electromagnetic radiation to be conducted faster and stronger.
Some parents of children attending schools with WiFi in Ontario claim their children are suffering from symptoms such as headaches, dizziness, nausea, vertigo, racing heart, memory loss and skin rash.
According to OECTA, no long-term studies have been conducted on the health impacts of WiFi on children and “no form of radiation can be deemed ‘safe’ as it depends on the constitution of the individual exposed.”
Cellphones were added to the list of potential cancer-causing devices a couple years ago, which have up to 2.4 ghz frequency. WiFi can have up to 6 ghz frequency. Now many cells are made to be Wi-Fi capable as well.
The WiFi craze is sweeping the nation with no end in site. People are able to get a wireless signal on buses, trains, restaurants, stores and even while in parks.
Can WiFi now be added to the growing list of cancer-causing activities that people know about but seem to ignore? What has to happen for people to seek a healthy life and avoid known carcinogens?
Or will we all continue to suffer from the ‘superman’ syndrome, and believe we are invincible until proven otherwise?