France’s recent ban on sales of the iPhone 12 due to radiation concerns has sparked apprehension throughout Europe about the health risks of cellphone radiation exposure. American regulators focus narrowly on whether phones heat tissue, but some experts argue that such tests fail to show the whole picture.
Cellphone Radiation Tests Are ‘Rigged’: Expert
According to Ms. Davis, the biggest problem with U.S. testing is that it’s not conducted with the phone against the body—the tests are set up with spacers, as if phones were in holsters or other holders. She compared it to the “Dieselgate” scandal involving Volkswagen, when the company rigged its tests to show lower exhaust emissions than the vehicle actually produced.When the French government tests cellphones as they are actually used, “like in your hand [or] next to your body,” Ms. Davis said, the phones exceed European Union (EU) radiation limits. France has pulled or required software updates for 42 other cellphone models that emit excessive radiation since 2017, The Telegraph reported.
The United States lacks this oversight, according to Ms. Davis.
“We don’t have any programs to test phones after they’ve been approved,” Ms. Davis said. “And the approval process is self-regulated because of this revolving door that takes place between the FCC and the telecom industry.”
Cellphone Use Might Be Linked to Cancer Risk
Heavy cellphone use has a “possible” association with increased brain cancer incidence, especially in research not funded by telecoms, according to a review of 23 case-control studies in 2009 published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.“Our government, however, stopped funding research on the health effects of radiofrequency radiation in the 1990s,” study author Joel Moskowitz, the director of the Center for Family and Community Health and Community Health at the School of Public Health at UC–Berkeley, said in a press statement in July 2021. “Our main takeaway from the current review is that approximately 1,000 hours of lifetime cellphone use, or about 17 minutes per day over a 10-year period, is associated with a statistically significant 60 percent increase in brain cancer,” Mr. Moskowitz wrote.
Cancer Might Be Linked to Living Near Cell Towers
The International Commission on the Biological Effects of Electromagnetic Fields warned that radiofrequency radiation exposure limits established in the 1990s don’t adequately protect the public, especially from novel 5G technology that hasn’t been the subject of health studies.Several bills pending in Congress would allow the telecom industry to put their towers wherever they want them, including “right by your bedroom window” if you’re living in an apartment building, according to Ms. Davis.
“The real problem is that in order for 5G to work, we need 1 million new antennas,” Ms. Davis said.