Illinois lawsuit against school district for using wireless explained a little further: This is the first article I've seen which contained any reference to the studies that a group of parents in Oak Park have been citing as demonstrating that there is a correlative risk because specific exposure to Wi-Fi microwave radiation and human health.

Unfortunately, the study that's the only one linked to in the article, one conducted by Leif Salford, doesn't lead to the conclusion the parents say it does. The Salford study shows that exposure to uniform radiation over a period of time in the GSM band can produce some ill effects in rats' brains.

While this study should certainly disturb those in the cell industry, it's applicability to Wi-Fi is very very low. First, the band used in Wi-Fi is much higher than GSM and will have different characteristics. The researchers don't state the band in their study, for some reason, but mention that they have been working in the 900 MHz band for some time.

Second, the study shows that exposure over periods of time to uniform radiation cause the outcome. For cell phones, this is an issue, but for Wi-Fi, it is not. Wi-Fi is not only a bursty technology, in which there is not a constant transmission of peak signal power, but it's also a technology in which the brain is usually from a few feet to dozens of feet away from the radiation point source. Because signal strength varies by the inverse square of the distance from the source, comparing an enclosed uniform radiation field in the study with brains located even 18 inches away from a similarly powered Wi-Fi transmitter is meaningless.

The study that needs to be performed would have rats in a laboratory at a variety of distances from both bursty and continuously transmitting Wi-Fi transceivers using standard equipment that produces from 30 mW to 200 mW of power, and commercial omnidirectional and sectorized antennas.

Frankly, this study makes me glad that I don't stick my GSM cell phone up against my head. I use a Bluetooth headset, which produces a fraction of the signal strength that a GSM does in normal usage and in a different band.