Panorama's brain-frying wi-fi brouhaha rumbles on

THE BBC'S PANORAMA programme set a few tongues wagging with its recent investigation into the levels of electromagnetic radiation Wi-fi networks in schools might be beaming through our kids' brains.

It caused one bloke from the Badscience website to pooh-pooh the programme's findings in the pages of the Guardian. We wrote about that here.

Ben Goldacre showed that the "radiation" meter used in by the Panorama hacks was built by one of the "experts" interviewed in the programme, Alasdair Philips, whom Goldacre described as "the man who leads the campaign against Wifi.

Now, Philips has bitten back taking on Goldacre's allegations one by one and dismissing or elaborating on the findings on his Powerwatch website here.

Philips defends himself robustly. While he did design a radiation meter, he says, this was not the device used in the school in which Panorama carried out its admittedly pretty daft experiments.

He also goes on to defend the musings of one-time government advisor Sir William Stewart on the subject, as well as some of the science that suggests there is some effect on the body from low-level electromagnetic radiation from mobile phones and wireless networks.

Interesting to note that one of the Nordic women that appeared in the programme diagnosed as EMF-sensitive had her flat painted in EMF-retarding paint - a sort of tin-foil hat for bedrooms. The paint sells on Philps' Powerwatch site at £50.99 per litre. µ

L'INQ
Ornithine decarboxylase activity is affected in primary astrocytes but not in secondary cell lines exposed to 872 MHz RF radiation