The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has announced a review of current radio frequency (RF) exposure policies and is seeking comments from other agencies and health experts regarding whether U.S. standards need to be updated to better protect people from RF radiation.
The inquiry comes almost nine months after the Government Accountability Office released a report suggesting the FCC exposure and testing requirements for mobile phone should be updated to reflect the changing patterns in cell phone and mobile device use.
The FCC’s energy exposure limit for mobile phones was last reviewed 17 years ago in 1996, based on recommendations from international organizations and federal health and safety agencies that have since changed their recommendations in recent years after new research emerged. However, the FCC has not “formally reassessed its current limit . . . and testing requirements” in almost two decades, the report stated.
Health organizations have also expressed growing concern that current cell phone radiation levels may contribute to the development of cancer and other health problems, including multiple sclerosis and brain tumors. In 2011, the World Health Organization classified mobile phones as a “possible carcinogen,” while the National Cancer Institute, part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, has acknowledged on its website that there is some merited concern regarding the effects of cell phone radiation.
The FCC has elected not to change the amount of radiation permitted by specific absorption rate (SAR) testing—the method that determines how much RF radiation is absorbed by the human body from a wireless device—but is reclassifying the outer ear as an “extremity,” raising the limits on how much radiation it can absorb without violating FCC guidelines. Additional changes may be considered after comments from the health organizations and agencies are received and reviewed.
For more information, visit the Federal Communications Commission.
