"Mobile Phone Users Were Knowingly Deceived": Article on the Phonegate Scandal Published by the Leading Swiss Consumer Magazine, "Beobachter"

The first article published by the mainstream Swiss media on Phonegate has appeared in "Beobachter", the leading Swiss consumer magazine with a circulation of close to 300,000.  It is about time that other countries, like the United States and Canada, publish articles in their press on this very important industrial and health scandal which affects six billion mobile phone users worldwide.

"Mobile phone users were knowingly deceived."

by Andres Büchi, Editor-in-Chief, beobachter.ch, 13 February 2'019 - (translation)

For years, mobile phone manufacturers reported values that were too low. Critics speak of a scandal.

How harmful is mobile radiation really? The manufacturers
cheated on the SAR value by measuring 25 millimeters away
from the body.

Cautious cell phone users know: When purchasing a mobile phone, you should pay attention to the SAR value. This specific absorption rate indicates in watts per kilogram the maximum exposure of the body to an electromagnetic field when using a mobile phone.

The lower the value, the less the tissue is heated by the radiation. The World Health Organization (WHO) has set limits to protect health. A mobile phone must not reach a SAR value of more than 2.0 W/kg at maximum transmitting power.

About one and a half years ago, the French government agency, Agence nationale des fréquences (ANFR), published self-measured radiation values of hundreds of mobile phone models based on legal disputes. Result: Nine out of ten models that had been tested since 2012 exceeded the SAR values reported, in some cases significantly.

The main point: ANFR measured the radiation intensity directly on the mobile phone. The mobile phone manufacturers, on the other hand, reported SAR values that were collected from the body at a distance of up to 25 millimeters from the device. Because the electromagnetic radiation decreases quadratically to the distance of the source, the values displayed quickly decrease significantly. This enabled manufacturers to sell phones that emit more radiation and still comply with the limit values.

Customers "knowingly deceived"

In the USA, the renowned epidemiologist Devra Davis, President of the Environmental Health Trust (an environmental and health think tank), speaks of an "enormous international scandal" and advises urgently: "Never wear a switched-on mobile phone directly on your body all day long".

The French physician Marc Arazi and his non-governmental organisation Phonegate Alert accuse the mobile phone manufacturers of "knowingly deceiving" the users and exposing them to a clearly too high radiation risk. The organizsation speaks of "Phonegate" in reference to "Dieselgate", the scandal that has shaken the automotive industry since it emerged that there was cheating on exhaust gas measurements of diesel vehicles during tests in order to meet the strict environmental requirements.

The mobile phone manufacturers did not manipulate any tests. But they did ensure that until recently it was possible to measure their devices in such a way that they were able to show a permissible SAR value at a distance of 15 to 25 millimeters from the mobile phone. This standard dates back to 1998 and the USA. "Back then, it was fashionable to wear the mobile phone in a kind of holster on a belt, not directly on the body," says Niels Kuster, Professor of Engineering at ETH Zurich. "But that has long since ceased to correspond to reality."

The usage behavior has clearly changed. The flat smartphones have become constant companions. They are often worn in trouser pockets, directly on the body. Together with two scientific spin-off teams, Kuster has developed the SAR measurement methods and made the technology available worldwide for the tests.

He has all along been demanding "measurements that are as accurate and as realistic as possible". But the industry has long resisted measurement "on contact" with a mobile phone. Only after pressure from the EU and service providers did they agree on more realistic test arrangements. The expert describes the latest requirement as a "compromise". The relevant distance from the trunk "must not be more than 5 millimetres" and not more, says Gregor Dürrenberger, an expert at the Swiss Research Foundation for Electricity and Mobile Communication at ETH Zurich. "Since mid-2017, all new devices must comply with this regulation." And this is also the case.

The manufacturers have reacted. In some updates, the maximum transmission power of telephones with excessively high SAR values has been reduced in order to meet the limits even under the new test specifications. Some devices have been withdrawn from the market.

But the fact remains: For years, mobile phone users were misinformed about the radiation of their mobile phones.

Radiation risks

How serious is that?  ETH Zurich engineer Jürg Fröhlich from the ETH spin-off Fields at Work GmbH criticizes above all the fact that tougher specifications were made so late. But organizations that could represent the interests of consumers in standardization committees, for example, are "clearly underfunded". Only industry representatives can often afford to take part in the protracted processes.

After all, the test arrangements and the systems have always been designed "to generate a higher value at maximum output power at the location of the measuring probe than is generated in the real position on the tissue". In addition, mobile phones transmit at maximum power only very rarely and with weak connections, says Fröhlich.

Nevertheless, the microwave radiation of mobile devices remains fraught with risks. Especially against the background of the planned mobile generation 5G (5G mobile radiation with unknown risks). In the future, a new microwave spectrum with frequencies in the millimeter range is to be provided for the "Internet of Things", which will digitally link billions of devices. In an appeal, hundreds of doctors worldwide demand that possible dangers of this extremely short-wave radiation be carefully clarified before a broad rollout of 5G technology.

90 percent of the mobile phones tested since 2012 exceeded the reported radiation values.

Only last year did studies provide new evidence that mobile phone radiation can have an effect on our organism in other ways than the thermal effects mentioned above.

For example, the radiation of mobile phones can reduce the memory capacity of many young people who make phone calls. This is shown by a study by the Basel epidemiologist Martin Röösli and his colleagues, which was published last year in the journal "Environmental Health Perspectives".

Other studies have indicated that radio waves of a certain intensity can actually cause cancer. For example, researchers from the National Toxicology Program (NTP), commissioned by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), conducted experiments with rats irradiated for two years to find out that individual tumor types occur more frequently in male rats. The results of the study, in which ETH Zurich researcher Kuster and his team played a key role, "surprised many"  (New studies on mobile radiation "The results surprised many"). According to Kuster, there is "no known mechanism by which electromagnetic radiation could cause cancer".

Kuster interprets the results cautiously, but emphasizes that broader studies on the effects of 5G are absolutely necessary: "Even if the risks are very small, possible consequences from the mass of mobile phone users are significant".

Beware until clarity prevails

The most important finding from the previous investigations can be reduced to a simple denominator: The soon omnipresent microwave radiation from mobile phone systems harbors more uncertainties than most of us would like to admit. Depending on the dose level, it can affect living organisms and our health.

The mobile phone industry also knows this. It's not for nothing that Apple's iPhone, for example, says in its "General Settings" section that is discreetly hidden: "In order to reduce the exposure to high-frequency energy, hands-free systems such as the integrated loudspeaker, the headphones supplied or similar accessories should be used."

Link tip: Check the SAR value of your mobile phone here.

Original article in German:
https://www.beobachter.ch/gesundheit/medizin-krankheit/handystrahlung-handynutzer-wurden-wissentlich-getauscht