Is Radio Frequency Exposure from Cell Phones a Legitimate or Imagined Concern?
The Federal Communications Commission has identified the Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) for radiation entering the head as the standard by which cell phone radiation danger is to be measured:
The SAR is a value that corresponds to the relative amount of RF energy absorbed in the head of a user of a wireless handset. The FCC limit for public exposure from cellular telephones is an SAR level of 1.6 watts per kilogram (1.6 W/kg). Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) for Wireless Phones and Devices Available at FCC Web Site. Please see the SAR information page on the Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau for links to cellular phone manufacturers.
The FCC page on radio frequency safety, found here, provides a link to various cell phone manufacturers’ users manuals. A search for Specific Absorption Rate may take you to the page which discloses this SAR rate.
We provided, on page 1 of this article series, a a link to SaferPhoneZone.com’s web page which lists more direct links to the exact language of the manuals, for your ease of reference.
Notwithstanding the FCC nod to potential for radiation health effects, by its identification of the Specific (radiation) Absorption Rate as a source of possible brain damage threat by cell phone radiation, the article below appeared on a page at www.cbsnews.com on September 18, 2012, with no warning caveats to tone down its enthusiastically positive slant that cell phone radiation presents no health threat.
(CBS News) It’s a common fear: cell phones are giving us cancer! Despite several studies assuring that there are no health risks associated with cell phone use, it’s a fear that just won’t go away. The latest study gets right to the point: “There is no scientific evidence that low-level electromagnetic field exposure from mobiles phones and other transmitting devices causes adverse health effects.”
A comprehensive, 200-page study by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health looked beyond mobile phones to all wireless networks. A popular argument when discussing the dangers of cell phone use is that electromagnetic radiation from mobile devices can damage human cells and possibly cause cancer. But the Norwegian study found that the electromagnetic fields generated by mobile phones are all below thresholds recommended by the International Commission on Non-ionizing radiation protection (ICNIRP). Those thresholds are set to be fifty times lower than the minimum value of electromagnetic radiation required to cause heating of human tissue or stimulation of nerve cells.
You can read the rest of this article, and visit links to the studies on which it is based, by clicking here.
But if you clicked on the link to the FCC regulations in page 1 of this article, you noticed on the sidebar that there are some unanswered questions.
This next article, by a respected author, goes the other way, and might seem as overly negative as the CBS article seemed overly positive, to the skeptics who would wait for proof before exercising caution.
Click the next page to see Dr. Andrew Weil’s view of the problematic results of non-ionizing radiation, and how those results may relate to cell phones, in particular.
