The basis for limit values (specific absorption rates SAR)

The limit values established for cell phones and designed to protect people from danger to their health are based on the realization that the energy of high frequency electromagnetic radiation is transformed into heat in the human body. When a specific dose is exceeded, it is damaging to human health.

An international commission, the ICNIRP (International Commision on Non -Ionizing Radiation) has adopted an SAR of 4.0 W/kg body weight as the physical impact threshold for the entire body. This amounts to an increase in body temperature of one degree Celcius within 30 minutes. Values beneath this impact threshold, according to the opinion of the ICNIRP, do not cause any harm to health. However, to be on the safe side, the ICNIRP used the impact threshold it adopted to develop a base value to guide the general population that amounted to a fifth of the impact threshold, therefore 0,08 W/kg. The ICNIRP is of the opinion that population groups such as sick people, pregnant women, children, and the elderly, all of whom should be taken into special consideration, are thereby also sufficiently protected.

Whole body SAR is to be contrasted with partial body SAR. The latter is of importance if high frequency electromagnetic fields – such as those emitted by mobile phones from the immediate surroundings – affects specific parts of the body. For partial body limit values of 2.0 W/kg when over 10 grams of tissue is taken as the average a safety factor of 50 is once again observed.

Hiding behind limit values

Since 1998, at the latest, when the limit values for electromagnetic fields of the ICNIRP for the exposure of the population to electromagnetic fields was taken over by politics, industry hides behind its adherence to these limit values whenever criticism of mobile telephones flares up. “We strictly adhere to the limit values,“ is a remark to be found in all official statements.  Such statements indicate that the matter has also become a political issue.

The actual facts tell a different story – which shows once again how consumers are given the run around. Dr. Franz Adlkofer, a professor of medicine and Director of the European Institute for Reflex Studies, has remarked, “The limit values established by the ICNIRP in 1998 are based on the assumption that the only relevant effect that needs to be taken into account is the well-known warming effect of high frequency electromagnetic fields (HF-EMF).

No consideration of non-thermal effects

So-called non-thermal effects that fall below the established limit values are not taken into consideration on the basis that their existence has not been proven. Even in 1998 such an assumption could hardly be justified. In the meantime numerous new studies have shown  that biological changes occur below the limit value in isolated human and animal cells that are relevant for the development of diseases. This has particular relevance for mobile telephone use where the impact threshold for head and torso amounts to 2.0 W/kg.“  Prof. Adlkofer has referred to the limit values currently in effect as anachronisms and has reached an important conclusion that should give us all pause to think:“When confronted with this state of affairs the suspicion turns to certainty that the denial of non-thermal impact only serves to safeguard the currently applicable limit values and amounts to  a betrayal of scientific and political responsibility. The population therefore has no reason to believe that they are protected by the current limit values. They can, however, be certain that the current limit values are not actually being exceeded. Yet this has nothing to do with a prudent health policy, nor with thoughtfulness, nor even with humanitarianism.”

Special threat for children and youths

Franz Adlkofer, a scientist and former director of the Faculty of Medicine of the Free University of Berlin, is particularly concerned with children and young people:„Because of their anatomical and physiological characteristics, the brains of children who use mobile telephones absorb significantly more radiation energy than those of adult and for children the radiation penetrates deeper cerebrally.  Research undertaken in the area has shown that, given the same amount of exposure to radiation, the absorption of radiation is almost twice as much in children under eight years old than it is for adults. Moreover, in the bone marrow, where leukemia originates, in comparison to adults, there is an absorption rate of ten times or more.“
The shocking conclusion is that the rising incidence of leukemia in children through increased bone marrow absorption parallels the proliferation of technological applications of electromagnetic  fields …

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