Safe Limits?

Should the FCC look for a link between mobile phones and cancer? - Digital Trends

Here’s a funny thing: there are no universal federal standards that layout supposedly-safe levels of exposure to radio frequency (RF) energy — the sort of thing emitted by cell phones and other devices. That said, a bunch of separate federal agencies have their own takes on the issue, including the National Institute for Occupational Safely and Health, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Food and Drug Administration, and (of course) the FCC. The FCC is, of course, concerned with communications devices, while agencies like the FDA are more concerned with devices like microwave ovens, NIOSH tends to look at things like video display terminals in workplaces, and the EPA looks at levels of RF emissions in the general environment, as well as things like RFID tags and so-called “smart meters” that report power usage information back to utilities using wireless technologies.

These federal agencies generally have few (if any) physicians, biologists, or other experts on their staff conducting research to form their guidelines, so they rely on work from non-governmental organizations like the the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). But they really don’t look at the standards all that often. The FCC last set regulations covering emissions from mobile phones back in 1996 — the document is old enough that the FCC released it in WordPerfect format. If it’s “routine,” it’s not a very regular routine. But compared to other agencies, the FCC is kind of on the ball: The EPA last looked at RF emissions way back in 1979. Read more: http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/should-the-fcc-look-for-mobile-phone-cancer-link/#ixzz1yMkg0Jca