How much EMF exposure is too much for you?
The medical and electric power communities have differing views on EMF exposure health effects. But they all agree on one thing: There is no minimum daily requirement for EMF.
In other words, no amount of EMF exposure can be considered safe. However, some voluntary guidelines exist.
- Russian researchers believe 1/1000ths of mG (milliGauss) should be the standard.
- In the US, where the usual background level of 60 Hz magnetic field is 0.5 mG, most states have adopted a 3 mG cutoff point.
- The US Environmental Protection Agency proposes a safety standard of 1 mG.
- Sweden has set a maximum safety limit of 1 mG.
- When electricians try to solve a magnetic field problem they do their best to drop the level to 1 mG or below (Robert O. Becker, MD, in Cross Currents: The Perils of Electro pollution, 1990)
- Dr Nancy Wertheimer, a PhD epidemiologist who has been studying EMF exposure for 20 years, suggests a cutoff point of 1 mG.
- Health studies indicate that electromagnetic fields over 100 mG can most certainly produce health effects. Fields as low as 1 mG can be dangerous if body exposure is for a long period of time. (1991)
- The state of Florida in US has set a 250 mG maximum on the edge of their power line right-of-ways. (1991)
- Several international authorities (such as International Commission on Non-lionizing Radiation and European Committee for Electro technical Standardization) have also set safety limits for public and occupational EMF exposure to 50-60 Hz.
Are those international limits safe?
It should be remembered that international limits established for a so-called safe level of EMF exposure have often been proved dangerously too high.
For example, the occupational EMF exposure standard for some types of electromagnetic radiation in some eastern European countries and the Soviet Union is 1,000 times lower (safer) than occupational exposure standard in western Europe, US and Britain.
Typical western standards consider only the energy transfer and the calculated tissue heating of EMF. They don't consider the subtle biology system itself.
In reality, at extremely low energy levels, frequency-dependent influences on biology functions lead to additional effects. It cannot be explained even by generally accepted and well known physical laws.
How exposed are you?
Some scientists estimate that you are exposed daily to 100 million times more electromagnetic field radiation than your grandparents were. This means that for every 30 seconds, your EMF exposure is more than what your ancestors experienced in a lifetime.
In fact, you are exposed to EMF 24 hours a day from a multitude of things you use regularly such as:
- TVs
- stereos
- VCRs
- radios
- mobile phones
- computers
- copiers
- toasters
- ovens
- electric heaters
- lamps
- fluorescent lighting
- dimmer switches
- home and office wiring
- electric toothbrushes
- hair dryers
- electric shavers
- and other electrical appliances.
On top of that, you get EMF exposure from high-voltage power lines, mobile phone masts and many other sources. Following Russian and American guidelines, you live in a virtual fish bowl of electromagnetic radiation which affects every living cell of your body.
Your body get increasing exposure everyday
This exposure is increasing dramatically along with the increasing use of telecommunications, electrical equipment and general consumption of electricity.
In Britain for example, each person used 90 kilowatt hours of electricity in 1921. But in 1987, that figure increased by almost 50 times.
According to British figures, in the 80s, an average person absorbs 1 milliSieverts (mSv) of ionizing radiation each year from natural and background radiation. By 1991, this figure increased to 2 mSv. The increase was believed to come from human-made sources of electromagnetic field.
"All populations are now exposed to varying degrees of EMF. And the levels will continue to increase as technology advances.” (WHO on its EMF homepage)
Number one concern
EMF pollution is the number one environmental concern in America today, in spite of cover-ups.
"The United States is wired with 500,000 miles of high-voltage power lines. Industry, government, and military depend on 250,000 microwave relay links. Airliners see and are seen via radar. 9,000,000 broadcasting transmitters and microwave relay stations, and 30,000,000 CB radios flood our airways. Industry employs 35,000,000 electromagnetic devices. As a result, a typical American now gets a daily dosage of electromagnetic radiation up to 200 million times more intense than what his ancestors took in from the sun, stars, and other natural sources." (Lowell Ponte in the article, "The Menace if Electric Smog")
This menace undoubtedly, also plagues many other developing countries today. How are you coping with the assault?
"The current increase in electromagnetic pollution of the environment exceeds human adaptation capacities", warned Ukrainian researchers Nikolai Nikolaevich Kositsky, Aljona Igorevna Nizhelska and Grigory Vasil'evich Ponezha, in a 33-page translated report, "Influence of High Frequency Electromagnetic Radiation at Non-Thermal Intensities on the Human Body" (No Place To Hide, newsletter of the Cellular Phone Task Force in US, Vol. 3, No.1, February 2001).
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