Safe or harmful WiFi: 100 mW and the hypersensitivity enigma

WiFi: Legal 100 mW, 1.6 euros monthly, and divided science

According to forum calculations, turning off the router at night lowers the bill to 54 cents monthly, while leaving it on costs 1.62 euros. The cost is one of the few points without dispute. The rest—whether the device's waves harm health—lacks a clear verdict, with physicists, doctors, and those affected exchanging blows. And with a detail almost no one disputes: some turn off the router for light, not radiation.

How much radiation does a WiFi router actually emit?

The maximum legal power of a home router in Spain is 100 milliwatts, and many units do not reach that ceiling. To put it in context, a navigation radar operates with 25 or 30 kilowatts, and some personnel operate 20 or 30 centimeters away. That gap—thousands of times—is the argument most repeated by those who view the domestic matter as a minor issue.

The counterattack does not deny the low power, but the cumulative effect: some argue that exposure has grown several orders of magnitude in a few decades. It is a discussion about dose, not about sides.

The Nature study that never mentioned WiFi

The debate started with a paper published in Scientific Reports, from the Nature group, relating magnetic field exposure to miscarriage risk. The headline ran like wildfire. The uncomfortable detail: the study analyzed neither WiFi nor mobile telephony. A physics blog dismantled it with humor in a post titled directly "Do magnetic fields from wifi networks affect pregnant women? (spoiler: no)."

The fine print is what usually sinks these headlines. That first denial set the tone for everything that trinc.

Microteslas against microwatts: the unit error that dismantles tables

One of the most widespread alerts relies on a table circulating online, attributed to a bioconstruction institute of German origin. The problem is that it mixes units: microteslas, which measure magnetic field, with microwatts per square meter. Spanish regulation, Royal Decree 1066/2001, sets 100 microteslas as the public exposure limit for 50 Hz fields. Confusing these two magnitudes invalidates any comparison. It is not a laboratory nuance: entire alerts are built on this error.

Does electromagnetic hypersensitivity exist?

Here the terrain becomes marshy. Some claim that radiofrequency exposure causes real and disabling symptoms. A forum user estimates 13 million Europeans affected by electromagnetic hypersensitivity, the same figure as Alzheimer's patients. Official recognitions are scarce and administrative limbo is long: according to that account, some wait years for a resolution on their disability while the benefit averages 370 euros.

On the biological plane, researcher Martin Pall is cited along with his hypothesis of calcium channel disruption, published in Environmental Research. His critics call him a charlatan. The discussion jumps from physics to faith with an ease that bewilders.

Why double-blind studies do not settle the debate

The experimental standard is double-blind studies: neither the participant nor the researcher knows when there is radiation. The most repeated verdict relies on them: most affected individuals cannot distinguish real exposure from simulated. For some, that closes the case. For others, it proves nothing, because a result would only apply to the measured subject and not to the entire population.

The argument bites its own tail. If it cannot be proven that WiFi causes harm, it cannot be demanded a proof that it causes no harm to anyone under any circumstances. The burden of proof floats in the air, and each side places it where it suits them.

The comparison with tobacco and AIDS that never disappears

When data runs out, history enters. One side recalls that people smoked on planes until the 90s without anyone calling it mass intoxication, or that AIDS was initially treated as a mental illness. The implicit sarracena: official science takes time to recognize damages that later become obvious.

The counterattack is equally old: suspicion is not data, and the list of announced dangers that never materialized is as long as the confirmed ones. Neither side can invoke the past as proof of the future, and both know it.

With 100 mW at home and equipment of tens of kilowatts in some work environments, most of the population does not live near anything resembling an alarming threshold. But those who claim to feel it continue waiting for a recognition that does not come, and those defending innocence continue without explaining why some studies point in another direction. How many cases would it take for it to stop being called suggestion?