Editor’s note: This op-ed is by Matt Fisken, a freelance energy adviser, permaculturist and stay-at-home dad who lives in Hartford.
Vermont’s ban on using handheld phones while driving, which goes into effect Oct. 1, has the potential to keep our roadways safer, assuming the mandate is taken seriously by motorists and law enforcement. Even if it successfully changes behavior and achieves the goal of keeping everyone’s hands on the wheel and eyes on the road, it is only a partial solution to a much more serious issue motorists increasingly face: radio frequency exposure.
Like a needle in a haystack, buried within every cellphone user manual, there’s a piece of fine print stating that a phone should not be touching the body while powered on and be held an inch or more away from the head during conversations. Because this disclaimer only considers the oversimplified risk of RF’s ability to heat bodily tissue — not the dozens of non-thermal health effects that exist — this recommended distance should be considered a bare minimum.
Requiring drivers to chat in speaker mode or using a headset is a step in the right direction, but no matter where a phone is placed in the car, drivers and passengers will still be exposed to an agent that can be as harmful as engine exhaust or cigarette smoke. As medical and science writer B. Blake Levitt affirms, “RF is an energetic form of air pollution and actually, with RF, the line is straighter with direct DNA damage from low intensity exposures than it is from tobacco.”
If you must equip your child with a handheld device to take to school or bring on car trips, please, teach them how to disable its radio emissions when not in use and how to use it in the safest way possible.
The primary difference is that instead of being inhaled through the lungs, cellphone signals are absorbed into every part of our body, especially our eyes and reproductive organs which can lead to cataracts and infertility, respectively. Levitt explains that “the transmission from the phone boosts much higher to overcome the metal body of the car so it can reach the nearest tower, plus it gets trapped inside and reflects around the interior rather than dissipating into space. So you get amplification from two aspects — higher intensity signals and less ability for them to exit through the metal.” She offers this sobering comparison: “To follow the tobacco analogy, that’s like smoking six cigarettes at a time with the windows closed.”
Now, you’re probably thinking, “wouldn’t state and federal health officials warn us if this were a legitimate a problem?” Health advocate and EMF consultant Ray Pealer who lives in Vermont says, “The clearest answers come from direct measurements” and recalls how he “was surprised to find how much higher the radiation levels were when a cell phone was used inside a car.” Despite having the scientific tools to quantify this pollution, he knows the real stumbling block is public awareness about the acute symptoms of wireless exposure, which include headaches, nausea, cardiac problems, and skin rashes. Pealer is unabashed in his conviction that “parents need to know first and foremost that cellphones emit dangerous levels of microwave radiation, this is worsened while using one in a car” and you should not “expect the government or the industry to give you straight answers.”
As a civilized society, we wouldn’t think twice about locking someone up and revoking their right to be a parent for putting a child in a microwave oven for even a second, so why has it become so normal and acceptable for parents and caregivers to expose children to the exact same kind of radiation (albeit lower levels) for long periods of time? Pealer wants to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, saying that “it’s actually a natural, even primal tendency that we have to reserve judgment until we receive the news from a trusted source like a doctor, nurse or close friend. Unfortunately,” he says, “by the time a Vermonter hears those words from their doctor, it’s probably too late because only brain surgeons really know what’s going on.”
So where do we go from here? Is the answer better education or more legislation? To be fair, adults with access to real information on the myriad health effects related to cellphones and cigarettes probably shouldn’t be prohibited from exercising their right to operate a vehicle while calling or smoking, so as long as it does not put others at risk. But, just as it has been common sense for some time and now finally a part of Vermont’s statute — that smoking in a car with a child is irresponsible — it is just as bad of an idea to fill our cars, trucks and buses with radiation from phones, tablets and other electronics that transmit even when no call is being made and no network is within range.
Like smoking, it may take decades for our industry-influenced policies to catch up with the scientific knowledge, but in the meantime, there is nothing preventing us from adopting a precautionary approach to keeping our children safe while their minds and bodies are developing. Not only will our children thank us later for limiting secondhand wireless radiation emissions, but many will even find that turning their phone off, or at least putting it in airplane mode, will foster closer family relationships and help everyone feel better in the car.
If you must equip your child with a handheld device to take to school or bring on car trips, please, teach them how to disable its radio emissions when not in use and how to use it in the safest way possible.
Listening to the unbiased experts and setting a good example for our children is by far a safer bet than waiting for science, common sense and statute to all perfectly align.
