If you've ever been through a town, you may have seen tiny cell towers for 5G placed on poles for street lighting. They look like small boxes however they're actually sending wireless signals from cellular providers to your phone.
These smaller towers are replacing the larger built cell towers. While what is a safe distance from a 5g cell tower 're not as noticeable, they still can cause problems for people.
A Federal Communications Commission's Radiation Exposure Thresholds
The FCC's Radiation Exposure Thresholds define the safe distance that one can expose to electromagnetic radiation from wireless devices. The exposure limits are based on research which show that the energy of RF could be harmful to human health.
The specific absorption rate (SAR) is an indicator of the radiofrequency energy taken up by tissues. It's usually 1.6 watts per kilogram, averaged over one gram of tissue.
Since 5g is able to transmit at higher frequencies, it has the potential to increase the intensity of energy on the skin and other directly-exposed body areas. This can lead to various potential harms, including exacerbated appearance of skin disorders such as dermatitis, skin cancer and cataracts.
Because of the potentially severe effects of 5g radiation, PSU has chosen to create a general limits on power density, which is 4mW/cm2 averaged on 1cm2, and never exceeding 30 minutes for the entire 5G spectrum at 3000 GHz. This localized limit is in accordance with the peak spatial-average SAR of 1.6 W/kg, averaged over one grams of tissues at six GHz.
The FCC's Maximum Exposure Thresholds
Have you ever used a mobile phone, you're probably aware that a safe range from the tower is at least 400 meters. This is due to the transmitting power of cell towers increases drastically the farther you are from it.
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While it sounds like a good idea however, people who live close to towers may actually be more prone to health problems. For example, a study from 2014 in India discovered that people who lived within 50m of cell towers experienced significant more health issues than those living further away from the antennas.
This study found that people who moved into areas farther away from the cell towers saw their symptoms return to normal within a couple of days. Another study has demonstrated that exposure to extreme frequencies of radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (EMFs) could cause cancer, brain tumors as well as other health issues.
This is due to the fact that the RF radiation utilized in wireless communications, can penetrate the human body's outer layer, which is the skin. This is important to understand since the skin functions as a protective barrier against injuries caused by mechanical forces, infections by pathogenic microorganisms, and the entry of harmful substances. Additionally, it is the most important organ of the human body, and is accountable for protecting other organs.
The FCC's Minimum Exposure Thresholds for the Minimum Exposure
The FCC's Minimum Exposition Thresholds are based upon various assumptions that aren't supported by scientific research. These include the erroneous belief that short-term exposures RF radiation is safe because of the minimal radiation penetration in the human body (i.e. thermal heating of tissue).
This assumption does not take into account the more extensive penetration of ELF parts of the modulated RF signal as well as the effect on the body of short bursts caused by RF pulses. These theories are not compatible with the current understanding of biological consequences of RF radiation. As such, they should not be relied upon for health-protection exposure guidelines.
Additionally there is the fact that both ICNIRP and FCC are limiting their maximum exposure limits to local peak SARs based on the maximum spatial specific absorption rate (psSAR) that is not a reliable dosimetric instrument to determine the degree of radiation exposure. Particularly safe distance to live from cell phone tower is not accurate when frequencies exceed 6 GHz. Furthermore, psSAR has not been evaluated for safe distance from cell tower with co-exposure to other agents of the environment such as sunlight. Interactions of RF radiation and other agents in the environment could cause synergistic or antagonistic impacts. This could result in an increased risk of negative health adverse effects. For instance, exposure to RF radiation with sunlight may raise the chance of skin cancer, as well as aggravate other skin diseases such as acne.