[csusbpeace] What to Know About Cellphone Radiation
- From: "raccoon" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> ("bigraccoon1")
- To: "CSUSBPEACE@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <CSUSBPEACE@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2023 00:28:45 -0800
https://www.propublica.org/article/what-to-know-about-cellphone-radiation
What to Know About Cellphone Radiation
ProPublica recently examined how the federal government, based on
quarter-century-old standards, denies that cellphones pose any risks. This
guide answers some of the most common questions people ask about cellphone
radiation.
Collage by ProPublica. Source Images: 10’000 Hours/Getty Images.
To many people, the notion that cellphones or cell towers might present a
health risk long ago receded into a realm somewhere between trivial concern
and conspiracy theory. For decades, the wireless industry has dismissed such
ideas <https://www.verizon.com/support/radio-emissions/> as fearmongering,
and federal regulators have maintained
<https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/wireless-devices-and-health-concerns>
that cellphones pose no danger. But a growing body of scientific research is
raising questions, with the stakes heightened by the ongoing deployment of
hundreds of thousands of new transmitters in neighborhoods across America.
ProPublica recently examined the issue in detail
<https://www.propublica.org/article/fcc-5g-wireless-safety-cellphones-risk>,
finding that the chief government regulator, the Federal Communications
Commission, relies on an exposure standard from 1996, when the Motorola
StarTAC flip phone was cutting edge, and that the agency brushed aside a
lengthy study by a different arm of the federal government that found that
cellphone radiation caused rare cancers and DNA damage in lab animals. The
newest generation of cellphone technology, known as 5G, remains largely
untested <https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31991167/>.
Here’s what you need to know:
Do cellphones give off radiation?
Yes. Both cellphones and wireless transmitters (which are mounted on towers,
street poles and rooftops) send and receive radio-frequency energy, called
“nonionizing radiation.” The amount of this radiation absorbed by the human
body depends on how close a person is to a phone and a cell transmitter, as
well as the strength of the signal the phone needs to connect with a
transmitter. Cellphones displaying fewer bars, which means their connection
with a transmitter is weak, require stronger power to communicate and so
produce more radiation. Wireless transmitters, for their part, emit radiation
continually, but little of that is absorbed unless a person is very close to
the transmitter.
What does the science say about this? Is it harmful?
That’s the multibillion-dollar question. Government-approved cellphones are
required to keep radiation exposure well below levels that the FCC considers
dangerous. Those safeguards, however, have not changed since 1996, and they
focus exclusively on the unlikely prospect of “thermal” harm: the potential
for overheating body tissue, as a microwave oven would. The government
guidelines do not address other potential forms of harm.
But a growing body of research has found evidence of health risks even when
people are exposed to radiation below the FCC limits. The array of possible
harms ranges from effects on fertility
<https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0015028208033566> and
fetal development to associations with cancer
<https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0013935118303475>.
Some studies of people living near cell towers
<https://cdnsciencepub.com/doi/full/10.1139/A10-018> have also confirmed an
array of health complaints, including dizziness, nausea, headaches, tinnitus
and insomnia, from people identified as having “electromagnetic
hypersensitivity.”
The most sensational — and hotly debated
<https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/radiation/cell-phones-fact-sheet>
— health fear about wireless radiation is cancer. In 2011, the International
Agency for Research on Cancer, an arm of the World Health Organization, cited
troubling but uncertain evidence in classifying wireless radiation as
“possibly carcinogenic to humans
<https://www.iarc.who.int/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/pr208_E.pdf>.” In 2018,
a <https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/whatwestudy/topics/cellphones/index.html>study
by the federal government
<https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/whatwestudy/topics/cellphones/index.html> that was
nearly two decades in the making found “clear evidence” that cellphone
radiation caused cancer in lab animals. A major study
<https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29530389/> in Italy produced similar results.
Do cellphones pose any special health risks for kids?
Some experts say they do, citing studies suggesting children’s thinner,
smaller skulls and developing brains leave them more vulnerable
<https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=7131429> to the
effects of cellphone radiation. The American Academy of Pediatrics embraces
this concern and has for years urged the FCC to revisit its radiation
standards
<https://ehtrust.org/wp-content/uploads/AAP-Letter-To-FCC-RF-Radiation-Review-2013.pdf>,
saying they don’t adequately protect kids. More than 20 foreign governments,
as well as the European Environment Agency
<https://www.eea.europa.eu/highlights/health-risks-from-mobile-phone>, urge
precautionary steps to limit wireless exposure, especially for children.
What about risks in pregnancy?
A Yale study found hyperactivity and reduced memory in mice exposed to
cellphone radiation in the womb <https://www.nature.com/articles/srep00312>,
consistent with human epidemiological research
<https://journals.lww.com/epidem/Fulltext/2008/07000/Prenatal_and_Postnatal_Exposure_to_Cell_Phone_Use.1.aspx>
showing a rise in behavioral disorders among children who were exposed to
cellphones in the womb. Dr. Hugh Taylor, the author of the mouse study and
chair of the obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences department at
the Yale School of Medicine, told ProPublica: “The evidence is really, really
strong now that there is a causal relationship between cellphone radiation
exposure and behavior issues in children.”
What does the U.S. government say about cellphone radiation?
The key federal agencies — the FCC and the Food and Drug Administration —
have echoed the wireless industry and a number of other groups in rejecting
evidence of any “nonthermal” human health risk, saying it remains unproven.
The government websites also reject the claim that children face any special
risk.
In 2019, during the administration of President Donald Trump, the FCC shut
down a six-year review of its 1996 wireless-radiation safety standards. The
agency rejected pleas to make the standards more stringent, saying it had
seen no evidence its safeguards were “outdated or insufficient to protect
human safety.” In 2021, however, a federal appeals court ordered the FCC to
revisit the issue
<https://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/FB976465BF00F8BD85258730004EFDF7/$file/20-1025-1910111.pdf>,
saying the agency had ignored evidence of an array of noncancer harms to
humans, animals and the environment, and that its decision to uphold its
exposure standard failed to meet “even the low threshold of reasoned
analysis.” The FCC has taken no formal action since then.
Why is the issue not resolved?
Determining wireless radiation’s health effects with certainty is difficult.
Researchers cannot ethically subject people to endless hours of cellphone
radiation to gauge the results. Scientists have to rely on alternatives such
as animal studies or epidemiological research, where challenges include
getting subjects to accurately recount their wireless use and pinpointing the
specific causes of disease or harm. Many health effects of toxic exposure,
especially cancer, take years or decades to appear. And the mechanisms of how
wireless radiation could affect the body at the cellular level are poorly
understood.
Research funding on the issue has also been scarce in the U.S., despite
frequent calls for more study. Research (and researchers) raising health
concerns have come under sharp attack from industry, and government
regulators have remained skeptical. A key FDA official, for example,
dismissed the relevance of the federal study that found “clear evidence” of
cancer in lab animals, saying it wasn’t designed to test the safety of
cellphone use in humans, even though his agency had commissioned the research
for that reason.
Linda Birnbaum, who led the federal agency that conducted the cellphone
study, said that while proof of harm remains elusive, what is known means
that precautions are merited. “Do I see a smoking gun? Not per se,” she told
ProPublica. “But do I see smoke? Absolutely. There’s enough data now to say
that things can happen. … Protective policy is needed today. We really don’t
need more science to know that we should be reducing exposures.”
If I’m concerned about the risk, are there precautions I can take to protect
myself and my family?
Because exposure varies dramatically with your proximity to the source of the
radiation, experts say a key to minimizing risk is increasing your distance
from the phone. This means keeping any cellphone that’s turned on away from
direct contact with your body. Don’t keep it in your bra, in your pocket or
(especially if you’re pregnant) against your abdomen, they say. And instead
of holding the phone against your head when you talk, use a speaker or wired
earphones. (Wireless headsets, such as AirPods, also emit some radiation
<https://www.saferemr.com/2016/09/airpods-are-apples-new-wireless-earbuds.html>.)
Try to avoid making calls when the phone is telling you the signal is weak
because that boosts the radiation level. You can also limit exposure by
simply reducing how much time you spend talking on your cellphone and texting
instead, they say. Using an old-fashioned landline avoids the problem
altogether.
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