In a recent episode of Channel Seven’s current affairs program Today Tonight, it was claimed that wireless devices in the home – such as cordless phones and routers – can cause a range of negative health effects, including: insomnia, depression, migraines and even cancer.
These claims don’t bear scrutiny.
It’s true that we’re swamped with wireless devices. Mobile phones utilise wireless technology, as do baby monitors, Wi-Fi networks, TVs and radios.
One feature that has made such devices particularly useful, and almost inescapable, is that they enable communication via low-powered electromagnetic fields (EMFs) that travel through the air and do not require a permanent connection.
Mobile phones, for instance, are not hindered by the need to have cables connecting them, and can send and receive information from virtually anywhere.
The particular frequency range all such devices use is known as “radiofrequency” (RF), which is different from both the extremely low frequencies (ELFs) that mains power uses and ionising radiation (such as the radiation emitted through nuclear reactions and X-rays).
Can RF harm people?
While ionising radiation contains enough energy to break certain chemical bonds in the body, RF has no such capability.
The only known way that RF can interact (and thus have an effect on) the body is through the heating caused by the movement of particles in your body (numerous other mechanisms have been speculated upon, such as through demodulation of RF fields, but heating is the only mechanism that science has been able to verify).
For example, close to an active mobile phone, your body temperature might increase by 0.1 degrees Celsius. RF oscillations move charged particles in the body, resulting in friction and thus heat. This is how your microwave oven works.
But unlike microwave ovens, which can operate at more than 1000 watts, devices such as cordless phones or wireless routers use very low power levels (less than 0.25 watts) to ensure that adverse heating cannot occur.
For example, numerous expert bodies have evaluated the literature and concluded that as long as RF levels are below those specified in safety standards (in Australia the ARPANSA Radio Protection Standard), no harm occurs.
Such standards take as a starting point the lowest level known to cause “any” possible harm to humans or animals (approximately 100 watts/kg), reduce it by a factor of between 10 and 50, and only allow exposures below those levels.
Even then, many exposures (for example, cordless phone base stations and baby monitors) are hundreds of times lower than those standards. Research shows that, even in a home with numerous RF devices operating simultaneously, typical exposures are well below the ARPANSA Radio Protection Standard.
So why the scare stories?
It’s true many people report being sensitive to RF from devices as mobile phones and base stations, with estimates varying between countries and ranging from about 1.5% of the population in Sweden to 10% in Germany.
But a substantial body of science has so far failed to show any evidence that these complaints are related to RF.
In the laboratory (self-reported) hypersensitive participants have not been able to identify whether an RF field is on or off. Symptoms are only evoked by the participants' belief there is RF exposure, rather than by exposure itself.
Similarly, science has not been able to identify any harmful effects resulting from RF in study participants, regardless of age.
This is why expert committees are unanimous in their view that low-level RF is safe. Science, of course, can never be 100% certain of its conclusions, but a lot is now known. The result? We can be very confident that low-level RF is safe.
Are you convinced by the argument that wireless devices are safe? Why/ why not? Leave your views below.
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Comments (13)
Enrico Grani
Mr (logged in via email @stop-radiation.com)
Dear Professor Rodney Croft,
As you know: The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) is part of the World Health Organization.
http://www.iarc.fr/
PRESS RELEASE N° 208 31 May 2011
IARC CLASSIFIES RADIOFREQUENCY ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELDS AS POSSIBLY CARCINOGENIC TO HUMANS
Lyon, France, May 31, 2011 ‐‐ The WHO / International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has
classified radiofrequency electromagnetic fields as possibly carcinogenic to humans (Group 2B),
based on an increased risk for glioma, a malignant type of brain cancer associated with wireless phone use.
http://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/pr/2011/pdfs/pr208_E.pdf
The conclusion by the WHO is in contradiction of what you have written.
As I did state in my earlier post... "However... the truth eventually comes out... as the saying goes"... end quote
Frans van Velden
(logged in via email @dds.nl)
According to IARC/WHO radiofrequency radiation can possibly cause tumors. This implicates that non-ionising radiation can possibly cause damage to DNA, and that radiofrequency radiation possibly has non-thermal effects (since mobile phones are unable to cause thermal effects). These implications undermine the reasoning of Rodney Croft.
dee ver
(logged in via email @sympatico.ca)
Try to dupe people into complacency by owning the vocabulary and framing: "RF has no such capability" to "break certain chemical bonds", as if that is relevant of necessity. "The only known way that RF can interact [...] through the heating" -- our arbiter of the "known". What about microwave auditory effect? Flat wrong then on this alone, this "authority". This Frey effect hearing is well established, even if industry & abettors think they can get away with calling it non-adverse -- tell that to…
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Frans van Velden
(logged in via email @dds.nl)
Dear Rodney Craft,
check the EMF Handbuch by the Ecolog Institut and the RF Review 16/2009 by the ICNIRP (they advise the WHO). Page 2-11 of the EMF Handbuch shows 6 gremia concluding strong evidence and 8 gremia concluding evidence (1 gremium does not decide) that this high frequency radiation (non thermal) has effects on the central nervous system. And the research mentioned in the RF Review 16/2009 unanimously finds (non thermal) effects on the levels of neurotransmitters. These facts are beyond…
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Stelios A Zinelis
MD (logged in via email @otenet.gr)
With a great interest I read this report and I was very surprised with such comments as: <>
These statements are not accurate. Many studies have reported effects after the exposure to low level radiation. Many expert bodies do recommend to lower…
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Enrico Grani
Mr (logged in via email @stop-radiation.com)
Dear Professor Rodney Croft,
You state > "Mobile phones, for instance, are not hindered by the need to have cables connecting them, and can send and receive information from virtually anywhere".end quote ...
Statements like this are irrelevant to an article commenting on health effects from mobile and wireless communications, as it does not address health issues and could only be perceived as "sidetracking" to try to re-assure the public that all is OK when clearly it is not the case at all.
In…
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Stelios A Zinelis
MD (logged in via email @otenet.gr)
With a great interest I read this report and I was very surprised with such comments as: <>
These statements are not accurate. Many studies have reported effects after the exposure to low level radiation. Many expert bodies do recommend to lower…
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Rinat Strahlhofer
(logged in via Facebook)
We can be very confident that low-level RF is safe??? He obviously hasn't done his research! Especially since he is using the dangerous word "safe" in the context of radiation.
In 2007, the Bioinitiative working group released a 650-page report citing more than 2,000 studies that detail the toxic effects of electromagnetic radiation ranging from DNA damage and immune system dysfunction to brain cancers and childhood cancers like leukemia.
"Every single study of brain tumors that looks at 10 or more years of use shows an increased risk of brain cancer," said Cindy Sage, MA, coeditor of the Bioinitiative report.
Electromagnetic fields cause DNA damage and inhibit DNA repair- an undisputed cause of cancer.
Mobile phone radiation has been shown to cause the blood-brain barrier (BBB) to leak; the BBB protects the brain from many molecules that are toxic to the brain.
Oh and need I mention He consults for OPTUS?
Donald Maisch
(Phd.)
In order to better understand the viewpoint of Croft's ACRBR I recommend a paper I wrote last year:
http://www.pandora-foundation.eu/downloads/maisch-don_a-machiavellian-spin_2011.pdf
Jack Verbeek
Retail Specialist (logged in via email @optusnet.com.au)
Shouldn't it be mandatory that Industry Spokespeople declare their interests? Last time I checked the ACRBR were in partnership with Telstra.
Guido Tresoldi
(logged in via Facebook)
However when you have high profile brain surgeons such as Dr. Charlie Teo warning stating that there is a possibility that radiation from these devices could be harmful (http://www.news.com.au/technology/brain-surgeon-dr-charlie-teo-warns-against-mobiles-home-appliances/story-e6frfro0-1225791947213) people will take notice whether right or not.
Tasio Sclavenitis
Mr (logged in via email @live.com.au)
I have read a number of papers on this topic, mostly written by neurosurgeons. They disagree with Professor Croft's position as outlined in this preceding article. Dr. Teo as mentioned by Mr Tresoldi co authored a paper on this subject in 2009. It is available here: http://www.brain-surgery.us/KhuranaSurgNeurol.pdf?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6TCB-4VXT0R8-7&_user=2554202&_coverDate=03%2F27%2F2009&_alid=892638615&_rdoc=2&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_cdi=5166&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_ct=5&_acct=C000057830&_version…
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Mary Giacoletti
(logged in via Facebook)
Of greater benefit to humanity and the planet would be energy and concern directed at the indisputable pollutants (Wood smoke, diesel emissions) that are pervasive and persistent, far outweighing the purported hazards of radio frequency.