A Report on Non-Ionizing Radiation

IEEE: Microwave News Article Archive (2004 - )

August 7, 2012

GAO to FCC: “Reassess” RF Limits for Cell Phones

In its much-anticipated report, released today, the GAO told the FCC to take a fresh look at its cell phone exposure standard and the way the phones are tested for compliance with that limit. The 46-page report is available here.

Julius Knapp, the chief of the FCC's Office of Engineering and Technology, responded that he and...

June 17, 2011

IEEE EMF & RF Standards Are Now Free

You can now get free copies of IEEE EMF and RF safety standards —thanks to the U.S. military. The Naval Surface Warfare Center is sponsoring downloads of five IEEE standards, including those specifying exposure limits for RF/MW radiation (C95.1–2005) and those for power-line frequencies (C95.6–2002). The other three cover how to do...

May 3, 2010

Children and Cell Phones: Time To Start Talking Sense

Fifteen years ago Om Gandhi pointed out that children are exposed to higher levels of radiation from cell phones than adults. He was right then and he is right today. Yet, no one could blame you for thinking otherwise.

In an article published in the May issue of Harper's, Nathaniel Rich uses this putative controversy, among a number of other examples, to make the case that confusion reigns in all aspects of cell-phone research. "The brain of a child absorbs a much greater amount of radiation from a cell phone than does the brain of an adult," he writes, adding immediately after, "No, it does not."

July 13, 2007

Koreans Again Link AM Radio to Childhood Leukemia

When the residents of the Oak Hill Park community in the Boston suburb of Newton fought the expansion of a local 5kW AM station, WNUR, they complained about radiofrequency interference (RFI)—to their telephones, stereos, VCRs, wheelchairs and baby monitors. They also objected to the possible effects on local wildlife, particularly to the blue-spotted salamander. And they worried about the visual blight posed by the towers.

What community activists hardly mentioned were the possible impacts on their health.

November 16, 2006

ANSI Approves Latest Revision of RF/MW Exposure Standard

The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) approved the new IEEE RF/MW radiation exposure standard on November 2, according to ANSI's Standards Action [see p.12]. The new standard is designated ANSI/IEEE C95.1-2006. The IEEE approved the standard on October 3, 2005 —it's a revision of IEEE C95.1-1991.

May 19, 2006

Russian View of IEEE RF Standard

How comprehensive and objective is the new IEEE RF exposure standard (C95.1-2005)? Not at all, says Vladimir Binhi of the General Physics Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow and the author of Magnetobiology. In a recent short comment, Binhi claims that the IEEE standard is biased, arguing that it dismisses non-thermal biological effects and ignores a large body of work documenting their existence. For its part, the IEEE committee, chaired by C.K. Chou of Motorola and John D'Andrea of the U.S. Navy (at Brooks Air Force Base), maintains that, "All relevant reported biological effects at either low '("non-thermal') or high ('thermal') levels were evaluated."

January 14, 2005

IEEE & Telecoms Seek To Loosen Cell Phone SARs

As the aftershocks from the Stewart report continue to reverberate, the telecom industry is brazenly moving forward with its plan for a major relaxation of the US limit for radiation exposures from cell phones. Yesterday and today, some members of the IEEE International Committee on Electromagnetic Safety (ICES) are meeting to hammer out their revision of the IEEE RF safety standard (known as C95.1).

One of the major planned changes is to replace the current SAR limit of 1.6 W/Kg, averaged over 1g of tissue, with a standard of 2.0 W/Kg, averaged over 10g.