From: Steve McBride <spm2101@columbia.edu>
  To  : <cpc@emoglen.law.columbia.edu>
  Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 21:18:29 -0500

Re: heath and radio

Javier,

I used to work in the wireless industry.  To my knowledge, nobody's really 
come to a consensus on exactly what power levels would start to give you 
health problems like cancer and tumors.  Any problems you would face would 
be from being too close to a transmitter, since once you get distance 
between yourself and a transmitter the power drops off VERY quickly.  In 
general, there is not enough energy just floating about in the air to be 
concerned about.  Even a really good signal is going to be million of times 
less powerful than a cell phone's transmit power.  You have to be close to 
some sort of antenna.

A transmitter could be a cellphone, but the ones we have today transmit at 
a small fraction (<10%) of the energy of the ones we had only 5 or 6 years 
ago.  If there were serious problems, they probably would have shown up in 
the 90's.  I'm not sure what bluetooth devices transmit at, but I doubt it 
is much power since they transmit such a short distance.

As far as the big antennas on top of towers, some do transmit at the right 
power and frequency to be dangerous, especially the microwave antennas, but 
their energy is all concentrated in one narrow beam that is never pointed 
at people.  Aside from the microwave antennas, most of the other tower top 
antennas are relatively safe even close up, at least for moderate exposure 
times.

Steve McBride


--On Thursday, March 03, 2005 7:12 PM -0500 jt2184@columbia.edu wrote:

>
> There is something that worries me but is kind of out of our scope.
> In my technological ignorance I fear health problems related to
> highly "polluted" spectrum, radiation from antennas and all that.
> In general, health issues associated with self-phones and wireless
> devices. Anybody knows anything about that?
>
> Javier
>
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