"Does the state of willful ignore exempt you from liability?" Silicon Valley Philanthropist writes Montgomery County Schools

To the Montgomery County Board of Education:

My wife and I love to empower children and are proud to help fund education here in Silicon Valley. Our first large grant to education 12 years ago was used to buy new computers and upgrade the wireless network at our local public school.

So it may come as a surprise that I now believe that was a mistake. 

Obviously, we are still big supporters of education, but I believe the role of wireless networks (as opposed to wired Ethernet networks) needs to be carefully re-evaluated.

With the same goal of empowering children in mind, I am also an environmental health funder. I look at factors like toxic lead exposures that can undermine intelligence and the ability to learn. After researching wireless for the last 5 years and connecting with researchers who have spent over 30 years on the topic, I now have some grave concerns. I was surprised by how much evidence of harm has been published, not just recently, but for more than three decades.

This brings up some basic questions for educators:

• Does wireless exposure impact attention and learning?
• Do current wireless safety standards protect children? 
• What are the safety limits of other countries compared to the US?
• Why is school funding for wireless discussed in an ethics paper from Harvard?

Finally, there is the issue of liability. Will your Wi-Fi vendor or cell tower carrier be liable, or have they already exempted themselves from liability for health in their contact? If you find there are health concerns, can you get out of a cell tower contract with a wireless carrier? If you don’t look at the research after being informed about it, does the state of willful ignore exempt you from liability?

Like most people, I assumed this had been fully tested and failed to do adequate due diligence on this topic. Please don’t repeat my mistake.

A short video version of this letter can be watched here: http://bit.ly/wirelessEd

Sincerely,

Peter Sullivan

Read the full letter and more about Peter Sullivan here. 

Alster, Norm. Captured agency: How the Federal Communications Commission is dominated by the industries it presumably regulates. Cambridge, MA: Edmund J. Safra Center for Ethics, Harvard University. 2015. Read it here. 

Read about his work in Autism Magazine. Click here to learn more.