Berlin.
Cancer risk from cell phones and WiFi – what’s the point of such warnings? And how much radiation do we get? A self-experiment.
They are called “Rocky”, “Apfelmus 123” or “FritzBox 6690”. My laptop shows me 39 wireless networks in the neighborhood. Even the coffee shop network across the street is included. There is one on the neighboring house Cellular antenna with 5G technology. It communicates with my work and private cell phones. A Bluetooth headset is on my head for half the working day.
Until recently, I was the business correspondent for this newspaper and I live in the middle of Berlin. Actually, I’ve never worried about Health hazards from mobile communications or other wireless technologies made. I got my first mobile phone in 1999, when a minute’s call cost 1.79 marks. So I would have been exposed to possible dangers for more than half my life.
But since in the radio confusion ours WiFi signal from the router in the living room to the study is no longer stable and video conferences in the home office keep breaking up, I start to ponder. First of all, let’s gear up, now a signal amplifier in the hallway will help us. But when I connect it, I wonder if that isn’t going to be too much.
Read here: Android: How to childproof your smartphone and tablet
In order to find out how high my exposure to radiation from WiFi, mobile communications and Co. is, I Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) sent a measuring device which I carry with me for a day. This “personal exposure meter” measures the field strength of a total of 29 types of mobile communications, WiFi, Bluetooth, but also how much I’m exposed to television and radio signals. Experts speak of high-frequency electric fields.
The result will surprise me later. Whether at home, in the office, while doing sports or shopping: the measurement data shows a different one in each location Exposure to electromagnetic radiation – sometimes with clear deflections.
Danger from mobile phones: risk of brain tumors initially unclear
If you search the Internet for possible dangers, for example from mobile phones, you will quickly find what you are looking for. The risk of cancer comes up again and again. How did that happen? As the cellular usage increased rapidly around 15 years ago, there were hardly any studies on its consequences. Researchers from Lyon, France, investigated individual indications of cancer cases – and initially had to remain vague. “The specific risk of brain tumors could not be estimated at that time because they develop over 10 to 20 years,” says Gunde Ziegelberger. She conducts research at the Competence Center Electromagnetic Fields of the BfS.
In an initial assessment, high-frequency fields emitted by mobile phones were classified as possibly carcinogenic by the World Health Organization (WHO). “But that only means that a certain substance has the possibility of causing cancer, and not that it does so under specific circumstances – such as compliance with the limit values - or how high the probability is,” says Ziegelberger. If the case-by-case considerations from back then were correct, there would have to be a significantly higher number of cases today. “However, the incidence rates for brain tumors have remained stable.”
Also interesting: New hope in cancer: messenger slows down metastases
Over the years, the study situation on mobile communications has become larger and more complex. “Meanwhile, the health effects of mobile communications have been very well investigated – including through observational studies on humans, experimental studies in the sleep laboratory, animal studies and studies on cells and molecules to investigate biological mechanisms of action,” explains Ziegelberger’s colleague Pascal Kreling. Also at children and young people one could say today: There is no increased risk. Researcher Ziegelberger: “That’s why the World Health Organization is reassessing the risks of high-frequency electromagnetic fields.”
Risk from mobile communications and WiFi: That’s how high my exposure to radiation is
What is my risk now? In the measurement report, which the BfS sent me a few weeks later, I can see exactly when I was where. Outdoors, the transmission power is about cell towers much more clearly measurable than indoors. I reach the highest stress during a walk in the afternoon with a reading of 0.43 volts per meter (V/m). A good 100 times that would be permissible at 38 to 61 V/m.
The situation is similar with outliers in the radiation from my smartphones: When I dial into the first conference in the changing room of the fitness studio on Gendarmenmarkt in the morning, the load on theirs increases maximum on. The network is bad in the basement, the smartphone sends as strong as it can. At 8.52 a.m. the personal exposure meter registers a field strength value of 1.85 V/m – 37 to 61 V/m would be permitted. The device measured the other peaks shortly beforehand on the training area and when I arrived at my workplace one street away.
The exposimeter recorded a few other abnormalities on my way through the city: when I cycled past the television tower on Alexanderplatz, it registered one Rash on radio waves: The field strength increases up to 0.62 V/m – a 45-fold increase is permissible. The device measures even lower values for the frequencies for digital television (DVB-T). Here the limit is 188 times higher than the recorded peak value of 0.17 volts per meter.
The conclusion: In the 24 hours, my exposure to electromagnetic fields was average 0.006 percent of limit – and that with mobile communications and WiFi from all corners. And speaking of wifi: when we close the door to the bedroom shortly before midnight, this barrier has a clearly measurable effect. The measured values, which are hardly noticeable anyway, drop to almost zero.
More articles from this category can be found here: Life
