In the
According to this position letter from US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), "The FCC's current (radio frequency/microwave) exposure guidelines ... are thermally based, and do not apply to chronic, nonthermal exposure situations. They are believed to protect against injury that may be caused by acute exposures that result in tissue heating or electric shock and burn." "The FCC's exposure guideline is considered protective of effects arising from a thermal mechanism but not from all possible mechanisms. Therefore, the generalization by many that the guidelines protect human beings from harm by any or all mechanisms is not justified". "Federal health and safety agencies have not yet developed policies concerning possible risk from long-term, nonthermal exposures".
This June 17, 1999 letter from the scientific
experts at the
The European Environment Agency (EEA) recommends precautionary principle, citing the 2007 Bioinitiative Report, compiled by the BioInitiative Working Group, an international consortium of scientists, researchers and public health policy professionals who reviewed over 2,000 independent research studies on the biological effects of Electrosmog, and concluded definitively that current exposure standards do not adequately protect public health. The EEA has contributed to this new report with a chapter drawn from the EEA study 'Late lessons from early warnings…’, which draws lessons from asbestos, benzene and PCBs, as well as tobacco smoking and lead in petrol.
In 2007 the German Federal Government recommends its citizens to take precaution and use landlines instead of wireless technology whenever possible.
Fundamentally, it is time for a paradigm shift in society from embracing new technologies (devices and chemicals) until proven UNSAFE, to withholding large scale deployment until proven SAFE.
Update: since this page was written, a new excellent report came out, endorsed by many experts in the field:
http://www.radiationresearch.org/pdfs/reasons_us.pdf
Since the passing of the mammoth sized Telecommunications Bill by congress during Christmas season 1996, which, through a little preemption clause contained within, took away any US local government's right to deny proposed telecommunication antenna construction, cell phone antennas and other wireless technology has spread like wild fire. We're now saturating our ambient environment with artificially created electromagnetic (EMF) radiation of all sorts of unnatural waveforms, very high intensities for some frequencies, and with propagation characteristics like digital signaling and modulation that simply do not exist in nature. No living organisms have ever been exposed to any of these in our evolutionary history. The sources of exposure include cell phones and their base stations (towers, masts and simply antennas), bluetooth, blackberry, wireless computer networks at work, schools and homes, cordless phones in most homes, even wireless baby monitors and a whole array of new products coming into the market everyday that may or may not be apparent in their wirelessness. The amount of RF energy transmitted in the air at any given point on the surface of earth is also continuously increasing due to the ever increasing amount of data now being exchanged wirelessly – photos, music, videos, books. Amazon’s wireless reading device, called “amazonkindle”, currently allows access to 130,000 books, blogs, newspapers, magazines, etc., as of June 2008.
Living organisms generate electromagnetic fields by the movement of calcium, magnesium and other ions. Nerve and muscle impulses are all about bioelectricity. External electromagnetic fields can interfere with our bodies, and vise versa. One common phenomenon of the latter is the interference of TV reception when we move close to the TV set.
Around 2000-3000 research papers have been published pertaining to safety and
biological effects of radio frequency/microwave (RF/MW) radiation
resulting from wireless technology. Roughly half the research found
disturbing biological and/or health disruptive effects of microwave radiation
at or way below intensities used by various wireless technologies.
What about the other half? The wireless industry has been accused of
manipulating research results that they directly or indirectly fund, and
thereby contaminating the pool of scientific database in order to muddy the
water in the field. See the section “Telecom
Industry: Disinformation and Deceit” below.
Watch this BBC Panorama program. Go to the right side of that
page and click on 'Watch program: WiFi: a warning signal'. It is quite
revealing. The regulatory standards are similar in
Sometimes it may be years before the devastating effects of a hazardous
substance is fully recognized, and beyond the efforts of denial by special
interest groups and industries. Such was the case of tobacco smoking, of
asbestos, and of some notorious pesticides and drugs. Even the atom bombs
that fell on
About myself: I have a PhD in genetics. My graduate research was mostly
in the fields of molecular biology/biochemistry. Later I became a
bioinformaticist (aka. computational biologist), studying protein functions,
gene expression and genetic pathways. When I encountered an article regarding the perils of wireless technology (especially after seeing the graphs of RF signals progressively penetrating deeper into the skulls of adult, 10 and 5 year olds1,2),
and upon discovering that my daughter's preschool was using a wireless computer
network with the wireless router in close proximity to
the children, I embarked on an extensive reading of the scientific literature
concerning the subject, and became more and more concerned that the microwave
radiation that we are now bathing ourselves and our children in, day in and day
out, is unsafe.
References:
In 1996, “EPA’s Dr. Carl Blackman and a number of others became so concerned over what they perceived as improprieties in the subcommittee’s work (referring to the IEEE’s SCC28 subcommittee, which industry and the military effectively dominate) —for instance, deciding on proposed limits before the scientific data had been reviewed—that they refused to vote, stalling progress on the standard. The impasse was finally cleared when the IEEE stepped in and indemnified all those working on the standard against future liability.” (Microwave News, Mar/Apr. 1996, page 1 &12)
The possibility of future litigation also concerned the scientists working for the research arm of the telecom industry, the U.S. Wireless Technology Research (WTR). They went on strike for nearly a year until their parent body, the CTIA (the Cellular Telephone Industry Association) agreed to indemnify them against possible future claims. The WTR was paid US $ 938,000 to fund indemnity insurance coverage. (Microwave News, March/April 1997)
“Most ominously for our churches and towns, this industry has consistently tried to shift all liability onto the site owners and away from themselves as providers of the service. Using third-party tower builders – vertical real estate companies – is another way of shifting liability. The service providers get an extra layer in between themselves and the community. And the tower companies understand the RF risks only too well. They are set up as holding companies with their assets tied up in subsidiary companies, meaning most of their assets are untouchable in lawsuits. High-risk companies always do this.” (The New Milford (CT) Times, Mar3, 2000)
Indeed, as asked in this Special Health Report I found on the internet: “If manufacturers genuinely believe that their mobile phones are completely safe then why: Do many of them suggest in their handbook that users may wish to reduce their exposure by spending less time on the phone? Why would three manufacturers have lodged their own patents to reduce radiation emissions which in the word of the patent abstracts are to "prevent the health of the user from being damaged"? Why has one manufacturer just launched a new low radiation mobile phone? Why are many manufacturers developing antenna which point away from the head? Why is the mobile phone industry spending millions of dollars on medical research looking for evidence of a problem which they categorically assure people doesn't exist and why have they refused funding to independent scientists whose research looks as if it might reveal damning conclusions?”Frequencies all over the electromagnetic spectrum from 0-300 GHz, have been found to cause harm by various studies.
The extreme low frequencies (ELF), including power line frequencies at 50-60 Hz, where the common sources include electricity power lines and all kinds of household electric appliances, has been well established (acknowledged by the US National Institute of Health, the European Environment Agency, and WHO) to cause a wide range of health problems, with the most consistent evidence to date concerning childhood leukaemia. These were based on a large number of epidemiological, animal and in vitro studies(1). Of importance is also the fact that for many years, the same agencies had told the public that the power frequencies of EMF radiation was safe and posed no health hazard.
For RF frequencies, which range from a few kilohertz, all the way to just below the infrared spectrum, a large body of research has found an association with various biological effects and health problems.
The human anatomy resonates and reaches peak whole-body absorption between 70-100 MHz in the FM radio bands(2), because the wavelengths of those bands are about our body height. That's why the FCC standards are more stringent there (but still by far not stringent enough). Specific organs reach peak absorption in different frequencies. Human brain tissue is maximally resonant in the Ultra High Frequency (UHF) bands between around 800 MHz-3 GHz -- right where all telecommunications technologies function. Wireless computers (WiFi, WLANS. etc.) function around 2.45 GHz, same as microwave ovens for cooking. Cell phones (and their antenna) are around 900MHz and 1800 MHz. Some researchers think that a worse frequency could not have been chosen for the wireless technology regarding the human anatomy.
References:
For a more detailed description of some of these see here and here.
References:
We know a number of ways in which EMFs alter cell physiology and function, as detailed in various chapters in the Bioinitiative Report (and in the biological effects section above). EMFs affect gene transcription, cause the synthesis of stress proteins and cause breakage of DNA, probably through generation of reactive oxygen species. Some of the exact biophysical mechanisms that lead to these biochemical and physiological changes are still under investigation. Just like there are many carcinogenic substances that we do not know the mechanisms of action of, this should not be reason to negate the evidence that EMFs cause cancer.
The human body is an electrochemical instrument of exquisite sensitivity whose orderly functioning and control are underpinned by oscillatory electrical processes of various kinds, each characterized by a specific frequency, some of which happen to be close to those used in GSM (Global System for Mobile communication) and other wireless technologies(1). Thus, some endogenous biological electrical activities can be interfered with via “oscillatory similitude” between the radiation and the living organism, which occurs orders of magnitude below the energy levels required to cause thermal effects (the dead has flat electroencephalograms, and no bioelectrical activities to be interfered with). Non-thermal effects thus depend on “aliveness” and on the state of the living organism when exposed to the radiation – i.e. these effects are non-linear, and not everyone can be expected to be affected in the same way by identical exposure to the same radiation. An example of this is the ability of a light flashing at about 15 Hz to induce seizures in people with photosensitive epilepsy. It is not the amount of energy absorbed from the light that provoked the seizures, but rather the information transmitted to the brain by the frequency of its flashing, which matches or is close to the frequency utilized by the brain itself. Here is a good discussion of non-linearity and Dose-response in toxins, pharmaceutical drugs and EMF. Also see slides “Non-linearity in biological systems: how can physics help?”
For pulsed signals, as explained in "biological effects" section, the mechanism may be interference with the brain signaling and the neuroendocrine system, through some kind of entrainment due to closeness in frequency(1).
For carrier microwaves (the high frequency waves that “carries” the low frequency pulsed signals), as in the case of cell phone and wi-fi signals, an effect called “coherent excitation of dielectric biomolecules and biomolecular structures” originally postulated by Frohlich(2-4) as an elegant, natural mechanism with which intracellular communication at molecular level takes place, is thought to be directly interfered by external MW radiation at gigahertz to terahertz range at extremely low intensities(5.6). Many biomolecular structures are dipolar, i.e. having both a positively and a negatively charged end. E.g. regions of the cell membranes separated by embedded proteins, these proteins themselves and other cytoplasmic biomolecules. Frohlich showed - provided certain nonlinear interactions are admitted between the dipolar elements (of a given kind) and their heat bath environment - that within a certain window of metabolic energy supply rate, s0<s<s1, the incoming metabolic energy is not completely thermalised – part of it being channeled instead into the lowest frequency (collective) vibrational mode associated with the entire system constituted by these identical electric dipoles. After a certain time, this single mode of electric polarization becomes very strongly excited mechanically, the individual dipolar units vibrate together in phase, i.e. coherently, so that the entire system of dipoles itself behaves as a macroscopic replica of any one of them, and thus oscillates (collectively) as a single ‘giant’ electric dipole. The notion of the triggering of fundamental biological processes by the excitation of such a coherent mode has stimulated a variety of hypotheses(4-9), and received some experimental support(5,10-16). It is hypothesized(5), for example, that in this state of coherent excitation, enzymes emit differing GHz/THz frequencies of radiation depending on whether they are active or not; these emissions are received by the chromosomes and the probability is increased that the promoter regions of the genes encoding these enzymes will open. Furthermore, the emission from one enzyme could stimulate the synthesis of other, complementary, enzymes (and possibly inhibit the synthesis of non-complementary ones). There would be a limited number of these electromagnetic spectra, and each would help to create a particular state of the cell. This powerful cellular mechanism for integrating metabolic requirements and gene transcription is interfered with, hijacked, if you will, by external electromagnetic stimuli of the corresponding frequencies. In other words, the endogenous coherent excitation effectively ‘tunes’ the biosystem to be receptive to weak external electromagnetic stimuli in much the same way as an energized radio receiver is.
Ferromagnetic transduction models have been proposed as a potential mechanism for RF bioeffects(17). These models are based on the coupling of RF and pulsed electromagnetic emissions to biogenic magnetite (Fe3O4) present in the human brain via either ferromagnetic resonance or mechanical activation of cellular ion channels.
The radical pair model, first proposed by Schulten and Windemuth(18) and later detailed by Ritz et al.(19), postulates a "chemical compass" based on direction-specific interactions of radical pairs with the ambient magnetic field. It is supported by experimental evidence in birds and amphibians. A crucial component of this mechanism is a specialized photopigment that absorbs a photon and forms a radical pair. This photopigment is thought to be cryptochromes, first known from plants, but recently also discovered in animals. It has been found in the retina of vertebrates, first in mammals(20), but also in chicken, and recently in migrating passerine birds. A key process in this mechanism, namely the interconversion of singlet-triplet radical pairs, can be significantly affected by oscillating fields of specific frequencies in the MegaHertz range of RF(19). The intensities required for these resonance effects are so low that they would not affect any of the magnetite-based mechanisms currently considered. Tests with a weak broad band noise field of frequencies from 0.1 MHz to 10 MHz added to the geomagnetic field indeed showed that this disrupted the orientation of migratory birds(21). Further tests clearly shows that the observed effect of high-frequency field is a specific one(22). Our modern day ambient environment has many sources of RF in this range. See the FCC frequency allocation table.
Buchachenko et al.(23) pointed out that, the production of ATP in mitochondria depends on the magnesium nuclear spin and the magnetic moment of a Mg2+ ion in creatine kinase and ATPase. They suggested that enzymatic synthesis of ATP is an ion-radical process and thus depends on the external magnetic field (magnetobiology originates from this fact) and microwave fields, which control the spin states of ion-radical pairs and affect the ATP synthesis.
An Israeli group reported(24,25) that low intensity, intermediate frequency (specifically at 100, 150 and 200 KHz) RF radiation has an inhibitory effect on cancerous cell lines they tested, as well as being effective in a small pilot trial of recurrent glioblastoma patients. Some dividing cells were slowed down, while others disintegrated in the late stages of dividing. They found that the basis of the inhibitory effect on cell division was the unidirectional forces induced by the inhomogeneous fields at the bridge separating the daughter cells that interfere with spindle tubulin orientation and induce dielectrophoresis. Similar inhibitory effect on cell division was found by Cucullo et al with low intensity, extremely low frequency (50Hz) electric fields(26).References
Electromagnetic radiation has profound effects on living
organisms, quite aside from the well known thermal
effect (heating of the tissue, living or dead), which is the only effect
that the current FCC safety guidelines for RF emissions address. The maximum allowable “specific absorption
rate (SAR)” was based on levels of per kilogram heating that a 6 ft male human body
could withstand and dissipate through metabolism without causing a 1°C rise in
body temperature. In other words, under
the emission limits of these guidelines, any
one source of wireless technology employed around us (of which there could
be many) will not cook us whole – like in a microwave oven – but we are not at
all guaranteed to be safe from all the non-thermal
effects of the RF radiation, for which a large body of scientific evidence
has already been accumulated, but which the FCC guidelines, drawn up by
standard setting bodies composed almost entirely of engineers and physicists
(many from the military and industry), but not biologists and M.D.s, have
entirely ignored so far. In fact, as
some of the research shows, part of the
non-thermal effects may just be a microscopic thermal effect, due to the
inhomogeneity of living tissues and the sensitivity of living processes at
molecular level (biochemical and biophysical) to the microwave energy many
magnitudes below current standards.
The FCC then used 1/10 of that SAR level for human long-term occupational
exposure (0.4 W/kg), and reduced another 5 fold for uncontrolled general public long-term exposure (0.08
W/kg), such as living near a cell phone tower.
For maximum allowed exposure from cell phone conversations, all cell
phones sold in the
But in 1986, investigators from the
same group reported two series of animal experiments on the effects of long-term exposure. They found
that when rats were exposed to 2.45 GHz
RFR for 7 hours/day, 7 days/wk, for 14 weeks, disruption of behavior
occured at SAR of 0.7 W/kg(3).
And in another experiment, after exposing rats to the same RFR for 7 hours/day,
7 days/wk, for 90 days, at a SAR of only 0.14 W/kg, they found a small but
significant disruption of behavior(4).
So the authors concluded that "the threshold for behavioral and
physiological effects of chronic RFR exposure in the rat occurs between 0.5
mW/cm2 (0.14 W/kg) and 2.5 mW/cm2 (0.7 W/kg)."
As you can see, the "safety margin" built in to protect us based on the original animal short-term exposure experiments was already taken away in as early as 1986. But the FCC standards adopted in 1996 and are currently in place officially took no studies past 1985 into review and consideration. In fact, Whitney North Seymour Jr., former federal prosecutor, author, and co-founder of The Natural Resources Defense Council, has twice tried to sue the FCC into updating their standards.
And the fact that the FCC standards were modeled on a 6 ft male human body means that it offers even less assurance for children, the elderly, pregnant women, and the sick. Children's skulls are thinner, and radiation penetrates deeper. Their cells have more water content, thus the microwave thermal effect is stronger. Their cells and nervous system is still growing. Rapid cell division means there is less time to repair DNA damage that normally only occurs at a low rate in our cells but now at a higher rate from MW radiation. Children also have more time left in their life to accumulate the several steps of mutations/epigenetic changes that can in the end lead to diseases like cancer.
Furthermore, FCC’s emission guidelines assume that public exposure is only relevant at ground level, away from the main beam of RF radiation in the horizontal plane coming from the antennas, but in reality many people live and work in high rise buildings and on hills. In fact, according to FCC bulletin #65, “routine environmental evaluation” is required only of those antennas that are non-building-mounted AND has less than 10 meters (~30 ft) from lowest point of antenna to ground level. Any multi-level apartment building or house (especially on a hill) can easily expose residents to the main beam of an antennae that’s 10 m above ground.
Two EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) letters plainly explain the inadequacy of the FCC’s RF radiation exposure guidelines for long-term, non-thermal exposures. "The FCC's current exposure guidelines ... are thermally based, and do not apply to chronic, nonthermal exposure situations. They are believed to protect against injury that may be caused by acute exposures that result in tissue heating or electric shock and burn." “The FCC’s exposure guideline is considered protective of effects arising from a thermal mechanism but not from all possible mechanisms. Therefore, the generalization by many that the guidelines protect human beings from harm by any or all mechanisms is not justified”. “Federal health and safety agencies have not yet developed policies concerning possible risk from long-term, nonthermal exposures”.
This June 17, 1999 letter
from the scientific experts at the
The bottom line is, the current regulations assume that the only thing RF can do to living beings is to heat up our tissues, which it can do whether we are alive or dead. But a huge body of evidence has been accumulated that points to the fact that living organisms are affected by low level RF in non-thermal ways, where the “coherence” component of the electromagnetic waves is discerned by the living organism and the oscillatory similitude of such waves interferes with the biological endogenous rhythms of the organism, akin to the electromagnetic interference phenomena occurring while turning on a cell phone inside an aircraft. See a number of scientific reviews(5-8).
Check out this article "Serious Flaws with the FCC RF/MW Safety Standards," by B. Blake Levitt, award-winning science author, written in 1995. I verified with the FCC on the current standards, the licensing requirements, and whether they now keep a better inventory list of actual wireless installations, whether they still issue licenses blanketing entire cities and markets, whether they do more actual measurements instead of manufacturer’s emission level claims. Nothing has changed since this article was written.
Here is sworn
testimony of physicians, research scientists, engineers and attorneys in a
1999 and a 2003
You may also find it informative to read this 2006 US Supreme Court Amicus Brief: Brief of Amicus Curiae Healthy Schools Network, Inc. in support of requiring the FCC to produce an Environmental Impact Statement on human health effects of EMF's prior to auctioning off cell tower licenses. The question is asked "Should the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”), in launching a major new program that will risk biological harm to vulnerable children, be able to continue to ignore the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”) requirement that an environmental impact statement (“EIS”) be prepared for all major governmental undertakings simply because scientific warnings of health hazards have not reached the stage of definitively establishing harm to humans?" "All studies approaching reasonable latencies found an increased cancer risk associated with mobile phone use." (9)
References:
The European
Environment Agency (EEA) recommends
precautionary principle, citing the 2007 Bioinitiative Report, compiled by the
BioInitiative Working Group, an international consortium of scientists,
researchers and public health policy professionals who reviewed over 2,000 independent
research studies on the biological effects of Electrosmog, and concluded definitively that current
exposure standards do not adequately protect public health. The EEA has contributed to this new report
with a chapter drawn from the EEA study 'Late lessons from early warnings…’,
which draws lessons from asbestos, benzene and PCBs, as well as tobacco smoking
and lead in petrol.
References:
The current US FCC standards for general population/uncontrolled exposure for RF between 1.5-100 GHz (which includes some cell phones, wifi, WLAN, etc.), is 1 mW/cm2 (or 1000 µW/cm2) per antenna site (see Fig1 of FCC bulletin #65). Between 300MHz-1.5GHz it increases linearly from 0.2-1 mW/cm2 (200-1000 µW/cm2).
The recommendations from the 2007 Bioinitiative Report compiled by the BioInitiative Working Group, an international group of scientists, researchers and public health policy professionals who reviewed a large body of scientific evidence, suggest the following limit: 0.1 µW/cm2 for outdoor, cumulative exposure, and 0.01 µW/cm2 for indoor exposure. This is 10,000 times more stringent than the FCC standards, even if there is only one antenna site or other sources nearby. In fact, they state in their report that: “No lower limit for bioeffects and adverse health effects from RF has been established, so the possible health risks of wireless WLAN and WI-FI systems, for example, will require further research and no assertion of safety at any level of wireless exposure (chronic exposure) can be made at this time… The entire basis for safety standards is called into question, and it is not unreasonable to question the safety of RF at any level.”Freiburger Appeal (2002)
Catania Resolution (2002)
Benevento Resolution (2006, endorsing and extending the 2002 Catania Resolution)
Salzburg Resolution (2000)
Vienna EMF-Resolution (1998)
Venice Resolution (2008) issued by International Commission for Electromagnetic Safety
In this 2008 article, Dr. Andrew Goldsworthy of the Imperial College London presents convincing reasons why long term low level exposure such as from living or working close to mobile phone masts can be even more dangerous than short term, high level exposure such as from a cell phone conversation.
He argues that, because of the extreme sensitivity of at least some living cells to weak non-ionising radiation (see Bioinitiative), the question is not why the weak radiation from a distant mast does so much damage, it is why a handset next to the ear doesn’t do very much more. (This ties back to the non-linearity discussion in the “Mechanisms” section above.)
He explains that the answer lies in our own negative feedback systems. The body is well able to detect the radiation and the resulting damage. It then puts into action a range of negative feedback measures to mitigate the effects. These include Calcium expulsion (which pumps surplus calcium from electromagnetically-induced membrane leakage out of the cell), the activation of the enzyme ornithine decarboxylase (which leads to the production of chemicals called polyamines that help protect DNA, and the other nucleic acids needed for protein synthesis from damage, including that from digestive enzymes leaking from lysosomes), and the production of stress-response proteins (who acts as molecular cheparons that protect vital biomolecules from damage, but this also stops them from working properly). The collective role of these negative feedback mechanisms is to try to limit the damage, but they cannot completely eliminate it without disrupting the cell’s normal functions. Consequently, they will be programmed not to cut in until the damage approaches intolerable levels. This effect will maintain the damage and observable symptoms close to the levels at which they cut in over a wide range of radiation intensities. So, while any adverse effects and observable symptoms from low and high intensity exposure may be approximately the same in the short term, the high intensity, short exposures such as from using a cell phone allows the body a chance to recover in between usage, while the low intensity, long term exposure such as that from mobile phone masts do not. This could increase the likelihood of chronic fatigue, serious immune dysfunction (leading to an increased risk of diseases including cancer), etc.In 2007 I bought a Spectran
HF-6080 spectrum analyzer from Aaronia, a German company. With the functionalities I selected, plus
shipping, it costed nearly $3000. I went
around
Remember that the current US FCC standards for general population/uncontrolled exposure for RF between 1.5-100 GHz is 1 mW/cm2 (or 1000 µW/cm2) per antenna site (see Fig1 of FCC bulletin #65). Between 300MHz-1.5GHz it increases linearly from 0.2-1 mW/cm2 (200-1000 µW/cm2). The FCC stresses on their website that although these are the “Maximum Permissible Exposure” levels, in reality transmitter emissions are going to be orders of magnitude lower than these levels, and it appears that they are basically counting on this expectation to ensure that public exposure is not excessive.
Also remember that the BioInitiative Report recommends a limit of .1 µW/cm2 for outdoor exposure summed over all sources and frequencies, and 0.01 µW/cm2 for indoor exposure.
Here is what the HF-6080 spectrum analyzer can measure. Between 1MHz-7GHz it can provide readings of power flux density (e.g. µW/cm2) as well as the frequency of the radiation in 1MHz resolution. It also has a broadband detector mode that allows for measurement of highest RF power (in dBm, or Decibel milliWatts) up to 10GHz, but in that mode information about frequency and power density is not available (meaning, you’ll know that this highest power is detected somewhere between 1MHz-10GHz, but you won’t know where).
Decibel milliWatts (dBm) is a measure of transmission power in the logarithmic scale with base 10, relative to 1mWatt. So if the actual power P is 10µWatt, in dBm it is expressed as:
10*log10 (P/1 mWatt) = -20dBm
Every 10 dBm corresponds to 10 fold difference of power. 100µWatt = -10dBm, and 1mW = 0dBm. Obviously, the less negative the dBm value is, the stronger the power!
The conversion between power (dBm) and power density (nW/cm2) requires knowledge of the specific transmitter frequency, and the antenna gain of the used antenna. That’s why when using the broadband detector mode, only dBm is read and I can’t convert that directly to nW/cm2, but by comparing with dBm values obtained from spectrum analysis mode where nW/cm2 values were also available, one can sort of get an idea of the absolute minimum power density involved. But since power density is proportional to the square of frequency (meaning, if the frequency is twice as much, the same dBm corresponds to about 4 times as much power density), if the highest dBm reading comes from between 7GHz-10GHz, this dBm reading will correspond to a much, much higher nW/cm2 reading than that obtained below 7GHz, had one been able to read it.
Here are the measurements I got in various sites in
Two things I found was: the higher you go, generally the more RF radiation you are exposed to, presumably from the antenna structures that are all above ground and whose main beams radiate out in the horizontal plane. The Robins Farm Park (a.k.a. Skyline Park), a favorite of many kids around Arlington, is a good example, where the big slide facing the beautiful Boston skyline is also a site of fantastically high RF exposure, I suppose thanks to the thousands of antennas in the city. The other thing was that, in many places such as the Learn to Grow Preschool, and in our home, I found whole ranges of frequencies, such as 4900-6100 MHz, that are saturated with peaks (as many as the spectrum display pixels would allow), and they each measured >300 nW/cm2. Since the frequency resolution of this instrument is 1MHz, even if there is only one channel per MHz (there are actually presumably many channels/MHz), this would mean (6100-4900)*300=360000 nW/cm2=360 µW/cm2, which is 36% of the official maximum permissible exposure. If each MHz range has 100 channels, this would mean 36 mW/cm2, 36 times the FCC limit. All this from just one range of the spectrum from 4.9-6.1GHz.
Note: 1 mW = 1,000 µW = 1,000,000 nW
|
|
Stongest Broadband dBm |
spectrum analyzer reading |
||
|
|
frequency (MHz) |
dBm |
nW/cm2 |
|
|
Spy pond, near playground |
-7 to -10 |
723 |
-22 |
|
|
|
|
2.9GHz |
-23 |
|
|
|
|
many peaks around 6990 |
-23 |
1000-2000 each |
|
|
-17 |
723 |
-23 |
|
|
|
|
2923 |
-22 |
211 |
|
Skyline
(Robbin's Farm) Park, foot of big slide |
-17 |
795 |
-23 |
15 |
|
|
|
2995 |
-18 |
597 |
|
|
|
3000 |
-30 |
36 |
|
|
|
6409 |
-34 |
76 |
|
Playground
@ ice-skating rink |
-22 |
|
|
|
|
Playground
behind Robins Library |
-26 |
2836 |
-26 |
97 |
|
|
|
many peaks 6900-7000 |
-28 |
~440 each |
|
Symmes
Hospital parking lot, pointing at the Symmes antenna |
-17 |
|
|
|
|
Our
house, 1st floor (indoors) |
-26 to -35 |
|
|
|
|
Our
house, 2nd flr bdrm (indoors) |
-17 to -21 |
many peaks 5750-6200 |
-26 to -33 |
100-500 each |
|
A Place
To Grow (Heights) (outside, |
-29 |
5962 |
-35 |
71 |
|
A Place
To Grow (Heights) (outside, close to wall) |
-24 |
|
|
|
|
A Place
To Grow (Heights) (outside, playground) |
-40 |
6600, several bands |
|
~5 each |
|
A Place
To Grow (Heights) (in classroom) |
-40 (-38 at window level) |
|
|
|
|
|
-31 |
2995 |
-31 |
32 |
|
|
|
5000-6100 |
-33 |
>100 each |
|
Great
Expectations Preschool |
-34 |
5750-6100 |
-36 |
35 each |
|
Learn to
Grow (front of building) |
-21 |
2995 |
-23 |
223 |
|
|
|
4900-6100 |
-27 |
>300 each |
|
Leslie
Ellis school (front of building) |
-30 |
|
|
|
|
Menotomy
Preschool (outside) |
-34 |
|
|
|
|
|
-25 |
|
|
|
|
|
-38 (brief signal of -16!) |
|
|
|
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French
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1800 |
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Six |
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5650-6100 |
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5650-6100 |
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17 each |
There are many reports of cancer clusters and clusters of other illnesses near mobile phone masts, radio and TV broadcasting stations, and high voltage power lines. Here are just a few of them I happened to take notes on:
http://www.alternet.org/story/58354/
(July, 2007)
“Last year, the
"The Death Village"
from Yediot Ahronot, [the most distributed Israei newspaper], 14/3/2003
The villages near the Israeli radio station Hillel were
plagued by cancer. Half of the 91 farms
in one of the villages, Porat, had cancer, most frequently brain cancer and
leukemia. Also bleeding in the brain. "It's like the death angle visited here
house after house, and left ruin and destruction". Many villagers also reported singing metal
strings and columns, abnormal plants...
In the fall of 2007, the mayor of Paris decided to unplug the wireless network in six public libraries where the clerks got sick since the wireless network was installed in the summer, with symptoms like headaches, sore eyes or muscles, dizziness or vertigo. The figure circulating on the internet was that 40% of the clerks got sick, but I couldn’t quickly find an original news source with that figure.
The US government has effectively shut down funding for EMR research, and there apparently has been a huge industry sponsored effort to muddy the water for research in the area of RF non-thermal biological effects, due to obvious conflict of interest, through suppression of their own positive association findings, through “money laundering” by funding and influencing research projects in seemingly independent academic institutions, through manipulating results, and intentionally altering key parameters to avoid successful replication of positive findings from other labs.
And the
Industry:
The BioInitiative Report section II F: “Vested Interests: How They Shape the Public Health Debate”.
Dr George Carlo, who had previously maintained the Industry
line that mobile phones were safe, and who headed the Wireless Technology
Research (WTR) program set up by the Cellular Telephone Industry Association
(CTIA), stunned the industry with a report that he presented to the annual
convention of the CTIA in California in 1999, reporting that his program found
“a near tripling in the risk (of) neuroepithelial tumors and a correlation
between the side of the head where the phones were used and the side of the
head where the tumor was located that were both statistically
significant”. Here is a
summary of his charges and experiences adapted from an apparently well
researched article written by Don Maisch and published in the Journal of the
Here is another story of an industry funded researcher accusing the industry of cover-up.
B. Blake Levitt, an award winning author, reveals the dirty tricks of the telecom industry (preempting state and local governments, trying to shift all future liabilities) in Telecom Towers Tsunami. Her more detailed accounts of the appalling industry maneuvering as well as how FCC acted like “a cheering squad for the industry it supposedly regulates” can be found here.
From the
Can Radiation from Cell Phones Damage DNA
in Our Brains? When One UW Researcher Found Disturbing Data, Funding Became
Tight and One Industry Leader Threatened Legal Action
This cover story
article chronicles the experience of
This article, by Dr. Allan H. Frey, one of the pioneer researchers in this field, explained multiple lines of data all supporting the findings that the blood-brain barrier breaks down with exposure to low intensity telecommunication frequency microwave energy, and also gave an interesting account of how two separate researchers claiming the opposite for a long period of time, went around for 2 years spreading confusion in the field by giving oral presentations about “not able to replicate”, while in the end were told by editors of their submitted manuscripts and independent reviewers that their results actually supported the effect they claimed to disprove, when proper analysis of their data was done.
From http://www.alternet.org/story/58354/ (July, 2007):
Michael Kundi,
professor at the Medical University of Vienna, Austria and an EM researcher,
has issued a warning about distortions
of the concept of cause-and-effect, particularly when a scientific study
concludes that "there is no evidence for a causal relationship"
between environmental factors and human health. Noting that science is rarely
able to prove that A did or did not "cause" B, he wrote that such
statements can be "readily misused
by interested parties to claim that exposure is not associated with adverse
health effects."
A paper published in January in the
journal Environmental Health
Perspectives found that when studies of cell phone use and health
problems were funded by industry, they were much less likely to find a
statistically significant relationship than were publicly funded studies.
The authors categorized the titles of
the papers they surveyed as either negative (as in "Cellular phones have
no effect on sleep patterns"), or neutral (e.g., "Sleep patterns of
adolescents using cellular phones"), or positive, (e.g., "Cellular
phones disrupt sleep"). Fully 42
percent of the privately funded studies had negative titles and none had
positive ones. In public or nonprofit studies, titles were 18 percent negative
and 46 percent positive.
A year ago, Microwave News also reported that approximately one-half of all
studies looking into possible damage to DNA by communication-frequency EM
fields found no effect. But
three-fourths of those negative studies were industry- or military-funded;
indeed, only 3 of 35 industry or military papers found an effect, whereas 32 of
37 publicly funded studies found effects.
Here is a bit of my own counting on the effects on the DNA. I obtained a file containing research articles (both positive results and negative results) on possible genotoxic effects of RF compiled at some point in 2005, and counted that out of a total of 59 articles, 30 found various genotoxic effects, and 29 didn’t find convincing evidence. I noticed that 12 of the 29 negative papers came from the lab of the same Roti Roti JL, and quite a number of other negative papers in the 29 came from researchers who co-published the 12 papers with this Dr. Roti Roti JL. I later learned that this Roti-Roti has been funded by the telecom industry for years, such as by Motorola. Many people who know this area do not trust certain work, because one can design the studies from the start to reach a negative conclusion. One has to say it is a very successful strategy to contaminate the scientific database in this way.
Military:
Dr. William Ross Adey was a world
renowned expert in EMF and biological effects. His many honors included Distinguished
Visiting Professor of the Royal Society of Medicine, the D’Arsonval Medal and
Hans Selye Award. While he was
the director of the Space Biology Laboratory (1961-1974) at the UCLA Brain
Research Institute during the cold war era, he worked with the Department of
Defense on Project Pandora, the super-secret program that sought a way to use
electromagnetic radiation for mind control. (Microwave News, May 2004) In this letter by
Dr. Adey to the National Academy of Sciences on PAVE PAWS, a pulsed radar
system by the US Air Force, he described how the US Air Force has aggressively
denied non-thermal effects of microwave fields for over 20 years, and “to ensure interservice conformity with this
policy, the USAF sought and obtained Pentagon approval to physically uproot the
separate microwave medical research facilities of the US Army at Walter
Reed Army Institute of Research in Washington DC and the US Navy’s facility at
the Aeromedical Laboratory at Pensacola, FL.”
At the same time the USAF
personnel “heavily indoctrinated NATO member countries with their thermal
doctrine in a series of military conferences. This may be attributed to their operation of
high-powered radars at overseas locations and the pragmatic political
imperative of assuring foreign governments and their populations that, on the
basis of thermal models, these operations did not pose a health threat.” The USAF
personnel “have been equally aggressive in dominating development of the
Those opposed to stricter regulatory standards of RF exposure insists on the “deploy until proven unsafe” philosophy, which imposes involuntary, chronic exposure on the general public by means of cell phone base stations, wireless networks, etc.
Their biggest argument against the scientific body of evidence that points to the harm of RF radiation is that “non-thermal effects are not independently reproducible”. Here are my counter arguments:
Many studies looked for, particularly in vitro in cultured cell lines, dramatic effects like apoptosis (cell death), altered cell proliferation rate, and DNA strand breaks, etc. While some observed it, some did not. These are all gross consequences that should only occur as a result of severe insult on the cell, the absence of which doesn’t necessarily mean no harm (but many papers did observe these effects). Very conceivably RF induced changes in cells occur at molecular level, e.g., increasing mutation rate/interfering with mutation repair, or causing other more subtle structural or conformational changes in DNA, RNA, protein and lipid molecules that could nevertheless have a profound effect on their function, or causing epigenetic changes, or interfering with some tissues more than others due to their different physical/chemical properties, or interfering with specific organelle or macromolecular structures or complexes in and outside of the cells. I have encountered studies (and none of my searches were exhaustive, having limited time on my hands) showing MW causing changes in DNA secondary structure (helical structure) (3), protein folding and denaturation(2,4), and conformation of membrane lipids and the permeability of the lipid membrane bilayer(5).
Regarding epidemiologic studies, I found it astonishing that I haven’t encountered a single study that takes all sources of a person’s RF/EMF exposure into consideration. Each study so far generally examines only 1 type of exposure while allowing all other exposure contributions to interfere with their results as uncontrolled noise, such as: cell phone usage, proximity to cordless phone base station (e.g., is it next to the bed), proximity to cell phone base stations (cell phone masts and antennas), proximity to power lines, or occupational exposure to radars and other high EMF emitting sources, etc. The true effect of the exposure type under study could be completely muffled by the effects of all the other exposure types. This makes the studies highly sensitive to sample size, which, given the now omnipresence of wireless smog around us, would mean that even thousands each in case and control groups wouldn’t be enough. Also, many other factors of course, such as genetic predisposition, smoking, eating habits, exercising, etc, can all confound the results, when the sample size is not sufficiently large.
But even so, as discussed above in the “Major biological/health
effects” section, all 4 major types of brain and head cancers examined by the 13
nations, case–control studies in the INTERPHONE Project
found that 10 years or more cell phone
usage or heavy usage were correlated with statistically significant
increases in risk of cancer, consistent with long latency periods for cancer
development. And, the strongest link of
cell phone use and brain tumors was from
"We know from smoking and from the bomb falling in Hiroshima that nothing was seen for ten years," Professor Lawrence Challis, head of the U.K. research effort on mobile phones and health, known as MTHR, told the BBC(7).
It is also worth mentioning that, a study dedicated to “the effects of recall errors and of (subject) selection bias in epidemiologic studies of mobile phone use and cancer risk” (8) using existing INTERPHONE data and computer simulations, found that “random recall errors of plausible levels can lead to a LARGE UNDERESTIMATION in the risk of brain cancer associated with mobile phone use.” “Selection bias resulting from underselection of unexposed controls led to J-shaped exposure-response patterns, with risk apparently decreasing at low to moderate exposure levels.”
Finally, we need to understand that most studies by design can only try to ascertain an association, not to try to prove a definitive causal relationship, which is far more difficult to study (and the industry of course distorts the results of many studies by saying they “found not to cause cancer”). And to establish an association, one can only claim statistical significance when one is >95% (or even >99%) certain that the association is real. Anything below that, and one could not reject the null hypotheses that there is no association, i.e., one has not found proof to the contrary of the null hypotheses. This is why it is so wrong to make the burden of proof of an association (let alone a causal relationship) be born by those who argue against mass deployment of a new technology/chemical. When public safety (particularly involving children, the elderly and the sick) is at stake, the burden of proof should squarely have been put on the proponents of the new technology/chemical to show that it is beyond reasonable doubt that it is safe.
References:
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