#1295: ICNIRP’s safety limits may be exceeded
From Cindy Sage on the CHEEMF list:
The Swiss ITIS laboratory for testing of RF wireless emissions (headed by the former BEMS president
Niels Kuster) has a new paper out (Vermeeren et al, 2010). It investigates whether the ICNIRP public safety standards for Europe and other countries (and similar to the US FCC limits in many respects) may be non-compliant with existing safety standards, meaning some existing protocols may mask safety violations.
The study looked at reflections which can occur in daily living and working environments within
close proximity to cell antenna base stations (30 cm, 1 meters, 3 meters and 10 meters), which could
lead to greater exposures than predicted by assessments of RF sources in ‘free space’.
The frequencies tested included cell phone and PCS frequencies from six base station antennas
operating at 300 MHz, 450 MHz, 900 MHz, 2.1 GHz, 3.5 MHz and 5 GHz. Cell phones operate
in the 900 MHz to 3 GHz range.
They reported that by looking at more realistic “reflective environments”, the ICNIRP safety limits
may be violated due to varying exposure environments.
This is a very important study, in that it documents inadequacy of existing cell antenna (base station)
exposures in some instances that better reflect real-world environments.
It also leads to questions about the adequacy of our US safety standards, and may be relevant to
compliance for smart meters and other wireless technology exposures.
Cindy Sage
CHE-EMF