What May Be Done Now to Minimize Cell Phone Radiation Exposure?

At the beginning of this article, we promised to provide some basic suggestions on minimizing exposure to cell phone radiation. It’s a big topic, so we hope your research will be ongoing. We hope this article has been a worthwhile start on the road to prevention of injury.

If you have read through this article and clicked on any of the links, you have enough information to know that cell phones have the potential to cause serious health problems, including cancer. You have also found that cell phone companies have not taken the responsibility for consumer protection from these health hazards.

So, your health is in your hands, literally, based on whether you are fully informed, and how you handle and use the cell phone.

1. First, be aware of the dangers of electromagnetic radiation.

Don’t wait for the FCC to regulate the cell phone industry based on health concerns.

As an example of how dangerous devices can be ignored, take the shoe-fitting fluoroscopes, invented in the 1920s. A person put his foot in a box to see the fit of his shoe. These x-ray fluoroscopes were still in shoe stores in the 1950s. It wasn’t until January, 1957, that the first state banned use of the shoe fluoroscope, based on radiation danger. Shoe box cancer.

Did you know that there are two parts to an electromagnetic field? You can probably identify them by the word, but you will see an explanation and some specifics about the Electromagnetic Spectum in your home here.

For more explanation on how electromagnetic fields affect human tissue, see Harmful effects of electromagnetic fields.

2. Buy an air-tube headset.

It has been found that radiation from the antenna of a cell phone can penetrate 2 inches into the skull. See this article, which states:

Every cell phone model sold in the United States has a specific measurement of how much microwave energy from the phone can penetrate the brain.

That measurement is the Specific Absorption Rate, required to be disclosed by the FAC, as discussed earlier in this article.

It may seem obvious that, the younger the person, the more the person is likely to incur brain disruption or damage from the cell phone placed next to his/her skull, so the Specific Absorption Rate would be greater for younger cell phone users. Here’s an article by an epidemiologist that pleads for caution in allowing cell phones near children: How cell phones affect a child’s brain.

If you are always by yourself, using your cell phone speaker is a reasonable option. But, as most of us are sometimes in need of cell phone privacy while in public, consider an air tube headset.

Dr. Weil’s article has identified that both wired and wireless headsets, including Bluetooth, actually worsen radiation exposure, as does a wireless land line. The air tube headset is the only headsite Dr. Weil recommends.

See the discussion of the air tube headset here.

3. Protect the person who resists the headset with a warning App.

A Novato attorney, on seeing several cell-phone using attorney friends die of brain cancer, developed an App which warns a person when a cell phone is too close to his head. See the Green Swan warning system for cell phone radiation.

4. Avoid cell phone practices which increase radiation exposure.

The more familiar you become with your cell phone, the more you will be able to judge what programs are running in the background, and what you can turn off to reduce the ongoing radiation exposure.

You already know, from Dr. Weil’s article, a few ways to reduce radiation exposure.

In closing, here are 5 practical suggestions from a list by Natural Society (see link below):

1. Use the speakerphone on your cell phone when you can have a public conversation, or hook your cell phone up to an earphone or headphones to keep it as far from you as possible while still talking on it.

2. Keep your phone charged up. When the bars are low on your cell phone it is working harder to capture a signal from the radio towers, which means that the radiation it emits is even greater. Only make calls when your signal is strong. Consider texting when you can’t charge your phone.

3. Text instead of talk. This pings the cell phone towers for seconds rather than minutes and minimizes your radiation exposure.

4. Don’t talk while you drive. The constant movement means that your phone is also trying to make contact with cell phone towers over and over again, increasing its frequency, and therefore your radiation exposure. But you shouldn’t text while you drive either – so don’t do anything while driving!

5. Look for low-radiation emitting phones. There is a list of the 20 best phones for low-radiation emissions here. The Samsung Galaxy Note is at the top of the list – sorry iPhone users!

For 5 additional suggestions, see the original article from Natural Society.