AUDIO: Wi-Fi health data reassuring: risk expert

Can Wi-Fi make children sick?

A group of parents in Ontario's Simcoe County is blaming radiation from Wi-Fi in classrooms for causing headaches, dizziness and nausea in their children. They want it shut off before school starts.

The Simcoe County District School Board and the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario have rejected the parents' request, saying there is no scientific or medical evidence to show such wireless networks can cause those symptoms in children.

Dan Krewski, director of the McLaughlin Centre for Population Health Risk Assessment at the University of Ottawa, told CBC Radio's Metro Morning that so far, the medical evidence is reassuring. There have been thousands of research papers on the potential health effects of the type of radiation emitted by Wi-Fi and cellphones, he said, and overall, they show no cause for concern.

A day earlier, British physicist Barrie Trower had shared an opposite view with Metro Morning. Trower, who advised the British Secret Service on the use of microwave weapons during the Cold War, thinks parents are right to worry. He shared his take on the health risks of the radiation emitted by Wi-Fi.