It’s unlikely that Wi-Fi is making us sick, concludes Royal Society of Canada

Royal Society of Canada: “There is a consensus among these major international reviews that there is no conclusive and strong evidence that exposure to low levels of electromagnetic radiation as stated by the current guidelines would pose any risk of adverse outcomes to humans.”

Our increased exposure to electromagnetic frequencies from the recent proliferation of things like wireless local area networks, wireless technologies and smart meters is most likely at safe levels, says The Royal Society of Canada.

In a 165 page report prepared for Health Canada entitled “A Review of Safety Code 6 (2013): Health Canada’s Safety Limits for Exposure to Radiofrequency Fields”, the society concluded that “no cognitive and neurologic, male and female reproductive, developmental, cardiac function and heart rate variability, or other adverse health effects…have been established.”

Health Canada established a safety code called Safety Code 6 (SC6) in 1991. The code sets recommended limits for safe human exposure to RF energy emitted from things like Wi Fi equipment, cellular phone towers, cell phones, and TV broadcast antennas. Of course, the number of cell phones and the networks that support them has increased exponentially in the 23 years since the code was established, an issue the panel addressed head on.

“For the general public, by far the most frequent source of exposure is through personal use of cell phones,” says the study. The report says that many high-calibre reviews have been produced in recent years on the health risks of radiofrequency fields resulting from wireless telecom devices and that none of them have been found to do harm.

“There is a consensus among these major international reviews that there is no conclusive and strong evidence that exposure to low levels of electromagnetic radiation as stated by the current guidelines would pose any risk of adverse outcomes to human,” says the study, which was filed on April 2nd.

Still, the RSC stops short of declaring increased exposure to electromagnetic frequencies perfectly safe, admitting that there are “gaps in our current knowledge about the impact of exposure to RF energy on human health, as well as the effectiveness of the proposed guidelines.”

On October 28th of last year, the RSC hosted a public meeting, where a total of 35 people made presentations, where many expressed concerns about current RF energy levels and described symptoms “that they or their family members had experienced.” Despite certain studies showing a link between afflictions such as erectile dysfunction and cataracts from RF exposure, the RSC concludes that there is no evidence of this. As for the most grave of all possibilities, the study says cancer concerns aren’t supported by data.

“Although questions remain regarding the risk of cancer, the case for a causal association between cancer and exposure to RF energy is weak,” says the study.

Founded in 1882, the Ottawa-based Royal Society of Canada is a senior body of Canadian scholars, humanists, scientists and artists.

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