190,000 cell phone towers and growing

There are currently over 190,000 cell phone towers across the United States.

Their typical "maximum range" is over 21 miles, meaning their electromagnetic pollution
extends in a sphere with a radius of over 21 miles. (In reality, this pollution extends
indefinitely, but the intensity of it drops off with the square of the distance.)

The following map shows AT&T coverage areas in orange. If you live inside an orange
area, you are currently exposed to cell tower radiation.

People who live within range of two or more cell phone towers experience electropollution
from all the towers within a range of 21 miles. This electropollution effect is cumulative.

It is not known how many Americans live within 21 miles of at least one cell tower, but
given that over half the U.S. population lives in urban areas, it's safe to assume that
at least 150 million -- and more likely close to 300 million -- Americans are exposed to
EMF electropollution from cell towers.

(naturalnews.com)

 

100% of US folks are exposed to EM.
Cosmic radiation. Neutrinos, etc.
Radio is harmless to humans.
Mrk

 

The EM blocking "product" industry just loves these reports.

 

Agreed. The damage to our bodies by lower frequency EM Radiation, such as that caused by radio waves, microwaves, and infrared is dependent solely upon the amount of heat generated. Certainly, microwaving your hamster is a bad idea. But putting it near a wireless router or other radio transmitter possess little to no risk. Federal law prohibits states from basing high energy towers and antenna within less than 1500 feet of a schools, play grounds, day cares, homes, etc. or within less than half and mile of wildlife habitats and refuges. So unless you plan to violate federal law and live within close proximity for a prolonged period. The risk is marginal. If your worried about exposure, then I'd suggest not buying an apartment or home that is within close proximity to it.

 

I've always wondered if Cellphone towers affect human health.
Thanks for the info.

 

This is not entirely true (I'm not talking about cosmic radiation).
What is true is that we do not have (yet) enough data on this to give a positive or a negative response on how and if EMF's caused by cellular antennas, or cellular phones or wifi's affect the human physiology end especially fetal development.

http://electromagnetichealth.org/electromagnetic-health-blog/mice-proteome/
http://kyttariki.biol.uoa.gr/ARTHRA/Fragopoulou et al. 2012.pdf

Panagiotis

 

Radio towers have been around for a long time.
You can't separate their effect from any other environmental cause.
Mrk

 

The fact that Radio towers are around for a lot time means nothing and In most cases they were constructed away of habitations. Cell phone towers in some/most cases are placed near habitations or even on top of edifices (and some of them are concealed for not drawing the attention).
The fact that one cannot separate their effect from other enviormental causes does not mean that they are not harmful for humans, neither it means that they are. We simply do not have enough data for the time. As the years pass we will...

Panagiotis

 

Even IF cell phone towers are harmful to the human body, and I am not saying that they are, I challenge anyone to contact their congressman/women and tell him/her to tear all the towers down. Yeah, tell every American to give up their smartphone (which I have never owned, yet, but thinking about it). You would have a better chance to tell every cigarette smoker in American to give up THEIR addiction.

Acadia

 

Radio antennas have been around for 100 years.
Some with signal strength way greater than an average cell tower.
Most were built in the era when people taught radon was good for your health.
And yet, fast forward a bunch of decades, you can't blame radio for anything special.

They are not harmful because you can't separate.
They would be if you could.

They are not harmful because human tissue does not interact with radio. Physics.

Mrk

 

Yep, thank you. I've already been through the "wifi kills some plant" sort of threads before and these people never think about cosmic radiation. They need to spend a good week at Chernobyl.

I've had various nuclear stress test, x-rays and all sorts of medical test throughout my life due to my heart and yet I'm still alive and fine.

AHAHAHA!!

I can't believe people would buy those. Are electric outlets really that scary to them?

 

IIRC there was a study a few years back, never reproduced, that found frequent cell phone users to have slightly increased risk of a very rare cancer of the auditory nerve.

Assuming that's the case, let's weigh that against the number of people whose lives have been saved by being able to contact emergency services through a cell phone...

It's risk management. Like with vaccines, or jogging. You might react badly to a vaccine; you might get run over. But your chances of catching a communicable disease, or of dying young from a heart attack, are much higher than the opposing risks.

Edit: radio can interact with human tissue depending on the frequency. Microwave frequencies are mostly blocked by Earth's atmosphere, and are typically absorbed by water...

But at the exposure levels we're talking about that probably wouldn't make a difference. Cell phone output is 1-3 watts, and it's right next to your ear, and even then there's no consensus on the side effects. WiFi shouldn't even be on the table.

 

Actually there are some cases that radio frequencies was to blame for kids leucemia, brain cancer and allergies.

Because you cannot separate you cannot say if they are harmful or not.
If you could separate you would be able to tell that they are not harmful; or that they are.

And yet one could say that they are harmful because they cause an increment in tissue temperature. And in some organs, like testicles, not ideal temperature can cause big problems. Human Physiology.

Panagiotis

 

@padlouk: "some cases" -> how can you prove that? Leukemia and allergies can be induced by a bunch of things, and brain cancer can be slow-growing and present for a long time.

Also see again "dosage." If 1 watt next to you ear has little effect, a fifth of that from 20 feet away will have less effect.

Edit: BTW this whole thing is a tempest in a teapot. There are equally omnipresent things that are known to have much worse effects, and much more frequently. Look up "bis-phenol A" for one example of such (and why crank ideas like EM poisoning are a distraction from real issues).

 

link
When writing 'human tissue does not interact with radio', do you mean 'in a negative way, when used within safe limits as set by gov&industry', as in above quote.
Or do you mean, no interaction at all?
I'm a physics layman and the above came up on search one on this topic but ''oscillation of electrons causing increased heat in local tissue'' sounds like 'interaction' to me.

On this page link, some NMR images also show increased heat levels in (bovine) tissue.
Not meant as a 'Ooh, they show a deep red color! Cancer Alert!.
Without proper knowledge, numbers and interpretation, those images are pointless to debate any perceived 'danger' but they seem to imply 'interaction' to me.

 

EMF Protection and Safety (electromagnetic fields)


Reduce your exposure to electromagnetic radiation by increasing your distance.
How much to increase your distance depends on the type of EMF hazard. For example, to halve
the field intensity, you might have to move further away by a distance of

25 metres for power lines and cell towers
30 cm (15 ") for your computer monitor
5 cm (2 ") for the electric clock next to your pillow
2.5 cm (1") for the cellphone pressed to your ear


NOTE: the math isn't quite right (1 inch = 2.54cm) so your "COMPUTER" at 15 inches would be
38.10 cm - not 30 cm. (even rounded to 2.5 would = 37.50 cm)

http://emwatch.com/EMF Protection.htm


See our page EMF Health Effects if you are skeptical.

http://emwatch.com/EMF Effects.htm


Is anyone SKEPTICAL?

 

I'm "OK" on all four

 

Yes, very; at a glance the math looks very wrong. EM intensity reduces with the square of the distance from the source. With a cell phone putting out ~1 Watt, I would expect the distance to halve the intensity to be more like 2^(1/2) meter.

Edit: though intensity is Watts/(meter^2), so first impressions could be wrong.

Edit 2: napkin calculations say it should be less than 1/2 at 2.5 cm actually... If the distance is doubled, the intensity is 1/4. (Duh)

Not that it matters at all; the heat output of a cell phone is a fraction of 1% of what your body generates, and not much of it is absorbed. Your brain probably gets hotter when you jog.

 

I cannot. They are rare cases; infantile allergies in most, that disappeared after the parents changed houses (or in an italian case where the house located next to the airport of Napoli was shielded). But infantile allergies tend to disappear with the growth of the child so it is impossible to say if EMF's have any to do with them.

For the allergies the scientific community has yet to discover what is the cause that triggers them.
(But it does make me wonder the fact that the term "allergy" was introduced in 1906 from the Viennese pediatrician Clemens von Pirquet, in a city whose trams had been electrified as early as around 1900.)

As for the brain cancer I agree with one exception "Infantile Brain Tumors" they are not slow growing and present for a long time and it is alarming the unexplained increase in their incidence the last 20 years.

Sure, but imagine a pregnant woman living to a building next to another one that has a concealed cell tower. Would it affect the fetus and it's development? We simply do not know.

ps. I am not one of those that say that they are harmful for humans (I use a lot my cell and my wifi). But when my nieces come to visit (4 and 1 years old) my wifi gets turned of and the cell is placed out of reach.

Panagiotis

 

Re allergies: AFAIK the current thinking is that they're usually due to lack of early exposure to common allergens. When the developing immune system isn't exposed to the usual microbes, etc. it gets paranoid.

Infantile brain tumors: I can think of a lot of environmental factors (mostly chemical) that might be involved there. Can you give me a reason why one should conclude that EM exposure is responsible? (Not a link to an EM-related site please - if you can, try to find something in a medical journal or science periodical.)

Effects on the developing fetus: no idea. Can you present any evidence?

BTW, your pattern here seems to be "when in doubt, assume it's harmful," which sounds reasonable, until you realize that it would make life impossible if you applied it to everything.

As for keeping cell phones and computers away from kids though, IMO there are a lot of good reasons for that.

 

Well, that thinking is wrong; and is only a theory. I have first hand experience, my allergies started when I was 20 years old (food allergies that if not treated in half hour lead to respiratory anaphylaxis) and magically disappeared 10 years later...

Me too. I have no reason to conclude that EM is responsible, except from the time period that they started to increase (late 90's).
I do not know if any research in the subject (relation with EM) was ever made.

On this one there is no research at all. And I cannot see how it can be done since, it would be inhuman to put in such tests pregnant women and their fetus.

No, actually my pattern is when in doubt take some precautions (better safe than sorry)... at least when my actions could affect other innocent persons (especially children).

actually I let them play both with my pcs/macs and my tablet but always with supervision (with the tablet). The computr I don't mind since they have their own restricted (time and internet limited) account for playing simple games on specific sites like disney, nickeloden,etc.) . Worst case scenario I'll buy new keyboards and mouses. (the expensive ones are withdrawn when they visit )

Panagiotis

 

Wrong why? Note that it's not considered the mechanism behind all allergies.

BTW, "theory" implies some backing evidence. You're thinking "hypothesis." Nitpick, but that is something that invariably gets my goat (c.f. "Relativity is only a theory," etc.)

Old hospital records might show something, without having to put anyone at risk.

Fair enough, and far be it from me to tell you how to take care of children (especially seeing as I don't have any). I just wanted to point out that you may be overestimating some risks... But that is your own business, not mine.

 

I always sleep with my cellphone behind my bed. (On a small desk)
Time to change that . . .