Are there really dangerous levels of RF (radio frequency) Radiation in my home? The truth in today’s world is “yes”, very much so. Often very dangerous levels of radiation! So if this is true what are the worst radiation dangers in your home? In this article we are going to talk about the biggest seven.
The 7 Worst Radiation Dangers in our homes are 1. WiFi Radiation, 2. Baby-Monitor Radiation, 3. Bluetooth Radiation, 4. Cellphone Radiation, 5. Smart Meter Radiation, 6. Dirty Electricity and 7. Cordless Phone Radiation. These are the most common and most powerful sources of RF Radiation in the average home.
In this article we are going to examine each of these seven sources of RF Radiation in more detail. And we will also talk about what you can do about it; what the best ways to protect your family are.
RF Radiation Dangers Expert
All around the world new scientific studies are bringing attention to the dangers we are inadvertently placing all around our families. If you would please take a moment and watch the below video. This is an interview with a man who is a British Physicist who specialized in RF or microwave radiation his whole life. He describes just how dangerous it is to us and especially our children. It is a very important listen.
While health is by far the most important consideration, we do love our gizmos and gadgets! Health however must come first. In this article I am going to discuss the 7 most dangerous sources of RF radiation in our homes. The good news is there are items you can get that will allow you to keep the techy gadgets that we love and keep our families safe at the same time! But you will need to take some precautions.
1. WiFi Radiation:
In today’s high tech world we love our WiFi internet! We can work from anywhere online as well as play games and watch movies. But could the Radio Frequency (RF) Radiation coming from these awesome bits of convenience actually be dangerous? Is WiFi or RF Radiation dangerous? Yes, very, let me explain how.
Most people have heard that the radiation from cell phones is dangerous and can cause cancer. WiFi radiation from a WiFi router is the same kind of radiation but it is a lot stronger. And it is emitted continuously 24/7 through our homes and offices. A cell phone generally only sends out its stronger radiation when it is sending or receiving a call, not just when it is on. A WiFi Router emits at full power constantly whenever it is on.
Below is a video where I test my WiFi router with something called a High Frequency Analyzer to and show you exactly how much radiation it is emitting. Then I stick the router into something called a “WiFi Router Guard” which is a mesh metal box made out of a conductive type of metal. When I measure the radiation coming out of the router from within the WiFi Router Guard, the RF Radiation is reduced by around 95%. Yet even while my WiFi Router is in the router guard my family and I are able to watch Netflix or YouTube videos on our laptops or phones. We can still do what ever we need to do with WiFi, without all of the radiation. The video is very much worth watching. Seeing is believing and knowledge is power.
I told you that I would show you how to keep your gadgets (like WiFi) if you absolutely have to have them. But by far the best solution is to hard wire all of your internet throughout your house, and plug in your computers and laptops using Ethernet cords so that you don’t have WiFi Radiation in your home. Most routers have a setting that you can login to online and turn off their WiFi.
But in those situations were you must have WiFi, the WiFi Router Guard shown in the above video will shield you from 95% of the radiation a router will emit. I highly recommend getting one, if you must have WiFi. You can find links to the best place to get one of them on the “Recommended Protections” page of this website .
More and more, scientists and researchers are uncovering the health risks of RF Radiation. Depending on the level and the length of exposure, those risks can range from insomnia and headaches to tumors. Biological effects can result from exposure to RF radiation. It has been known for many years that exposure to very high levels of RF radiation can be harmful due to the ability of RF energy to heat biological tissue rapidly. This is the principle by which microwave ovens cook food. But this is not the only damage that is caused by RF radiation.
Studies have shown that this radiation can damage DNA strands of plants and animals. In 2012 there is a report published called the Bioinitiative Report which is an extensive summary of the health effects associated with low intensity, non-ionizing, electromagnetic radiation. It was released and published by 29 health professionals from ten countries, with medical and Ph.D. degrees. It summarizes the peer reviewed non-ionizing radiation research published from 1996 – 2011. It examines the dangerous health problems associated with exposure to RF and microwave radiation sources such as smart meters, cell phones, cell towers, and the like.
I like my gadgets too! The best way is to hard wire your internet by running Ethernet cables to your computer so you have zero radiation. But if you must have WiFi you can block out 90%-95% of the dangerous radiation by buying a WiFi router guard like this one. They really do work well.
(Note: Here are some other links to scientific studies that are important for the serious researcher on this subject. The first is a very powerful article entitled “5G Wireless Technology: Is 5G Harmful to Our Health?” where Joel M. Moskowitz, Ph.D., who is the Director Center for Family and Community Health School of Public Health University of California, Berkeley. In this article Professor Moskowitz discusses several current studies done on 5G and what the dangers are associated with 5G technology.
The second is an article by a Washington State University professor named Martin L. Pall. The article “Wi-Fi is an important threat to human health” discuses the findings of over 20 scientific studies of WiFi radiation in general and the health problems that these different studies found caused by it.)
2. Baby-Monitor Radiation
Oh no! Not baby monitors too?! Do Baby Monitors Emit Radiation? Yes sadly. When I measure the radiation coming from the average baby monitor, it is almost identical to that of a WiFi router. And like a router it is blasting through your home, and especially your baby’s room, constantly, 24 hours a day 7 days a week; whenever you have it on.
Below is a video where I am testing something called a “D-Link” baby monitor. People on the internet are claiming running the internet for this monitor over the normal electrical wiring is safe. I test it. It is worth watching.
The following is a quotation of a very good article on safbaby.com called “Baby Monitors: Do Risks Outweigh the Benefits?” that does an excellent job at describing the dangers of baby monitors.
The Truth About Baby Monitors
Most baby monitors today are wireless and transmit information either over an analog or digital frequency. Analog can transmit over an FM radio band at 40 Mhz while digital uses one of several technologies such as WiFi, Bluetooth and Digital Enhanced Cordless Communication (DECT) to transmit at different strength frequencies. While analog is considered safer than digital, the concern is that it’s wireless.
All wireless baby monitors emit non-ionizing radiation (NIR). NIR has two kinds of effects on our bodies: (1) a thermal effect and (2) a non-thermal effect.
Thermal Effect
The thermal effect refers to the ability of NIR to heat things up. In fact, it is NIR that is responsible for heating food in a microwave. The same thing happens to the tissues of our body when we are in close contact with a cell phone, cordless phone or baby monitor – the non-ionizing radiation it emits heats tissues up (e.g. brain tissue).
There is an attempt to determine the point at which exposure to the thermal effect is not safe. Referred to as the Specific Absorption Rate (SAR), this value is a measure of the amount of radiation absorbed by the body when a device is at its maximum power. The FCC approves a device as “safe” if it does not exceed the maximum allowable limit of 1.6 watts per kilogram (W/kg), as averaged over one gram of tissue. But this limit offers a false sense of security.
First, the level was determined in 1993 when exposure to NIR was far less. It also does not consider exposure to multiple devices at the same time, which is the case today. Second, the level was determined using a plastic, liquid filled, computer model based on a 220-pound mannequin, not a child, an infant or a fetus.
These are just two of many reasons why the SAR value is a very ineffective tool for gauging the danger a device poses to infants and children. In fact, an important study in 1996 confirmed that children are exposed to higher levels of radiation from devices than adults. Children’s skulls are thinner and their ears are smaller so radiation has a shorter distance to travel before it penetrates their brain. What is the impact to newborns and infants whose brains are even less developed?
Non-Thermal Effect
The second effect NIR has that is rarely, if at all addressed when evaluating baby monitors (or any other NIR-emitting device), is the non-thermal effect. The American Academy of Environmental Medicine points out that this effect has been linked to “genetic damage, reproductive defects, cancer, neurological degeneration and nervous system dysfunction, immune system dysfunction, cognitive effects, protein and peptide damage, kidney damage, and developmental effects all of which have been reported in the peer-reviewed literature.”
For example, Dr. Hugh S. Taylor, professor and chief of the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences at Yale University, studied the effects of non-ionizing radiation on the fetuses of pregnant mice. He and his team found that those adult mice that had been exposed to cell phone radiation had behavioral problems such as hyperactivity and reduced memory capacity. Dr. Taylor states that this was the “first experimental evidence that fetal exposure to radio frequency radiation from cellular telephones does in fact affect adult behavior.”
When it comes to the non-thermal effects of NIR, there is no equivalent SAR value to inform at which point biological damage starts to occur. This means there is no way to gauge how much exposure is too much exposure. This is the case despite the fact that:
In the last few decades it has been established beyond any reasonable doubt that bio-effects and some adverse health effects occur at far lower levels of RF …exposure where no heating … occurs at all; some effects are shown to occur at several hundred thousand times below the existing public safety limits where heating is an impossibility.””
This is one gadget that I am going to suggest doing without primarily because babies are so sensitive and still developing. Many scientists agree that infants (especially before birth) are more subjects to adverse effects of radiation than are adults. I couldn’t find any protection devices made for baby monitors probably for this reason. If you or your spouse insists on a baby monitor then I would suggest getting a couple of WiFi Router Guards and stick each of your baby monitors in those. Also there are some Eco-Mode lower radiation emitting models. You should get the lowest emitting one as possible. I have examples of lower emitting baby monitors on my article “7 Examples of Low Emission Baby Monitors“. And on my “Recommended Protections” page on this site I show you the best place to other protection items like the WiFi Router Guard. WiFi Router Guards will block out most of the harmful radiation.
3. Bluetooth Radiation
Do Bluetooth Earbuds Cause Brain Tumors? Well I personally knew a lady from our church who died from a brain tumor. She ran a plumbing business and always had her Bluetooth earpiece in all day every day. Obviously that observation alone does not prove anything so let’s look at the facts.
First I would like to show you the following video. In it I test the radiation coming out of a typical smart phone, and Bluetooth earbuds. Then I also explain what you can do to protect yourself from the radiation they emit, while still being able to have a smart phone. It is definitely worth watching. It is a short video. Knowledge is power and seeing is believing!
As seen in the above video cellphones and anything Bluetooth put out a lot of RF Radiation. Your ear is a hole in your head. If you stick a Bluetooth earbud into your ear there is nothing but soft tissue between your brain and the earbud. The RF Radiation goes directly into your brain. A cell phone is almost as bad when you hold it up to your ear. It is safer to turn it on speaker phone and set it on the table a foot or more in front of you.
My preferred method is to get a normal corded headset like I show in the video, and then put at least one ferrite bead on the base of the cord to absorb 95% of the RF Radiation coming out of the cellphone into the cord. I have a link to where you can get the ferrite beads on the “Recommended Protections” page of this site.
Bluetooth has worse RF radiation than a normal cell phone in that it is emitting radiation the whole time it is turned on, not just when making a call. Just like a cordless phone, smart meter or WiFi router, Bluetooth earpieces and earbuds put out RF radiation continually. It is worse because it is sitting right in your ear. The Bluetooth from your car is blasting you with this same radiation the whole time it is on while you are in your car.
4. Cellphone Radiation
For decades unless you have been hiding under a rock you have heard reports both pro and con discussing the link between frequent cell phone use and brain tumors. Can cell phone use cause brain tumors?
In the Public Health section of the Scientific American there is an article entitled “Major Cell Phone Radiation Study Reignites Cancer Questions” which talks about a recent 25 million dollar study that discusses how exposure to radio-frequency radiation linked to tumor formation in rats. (Here is a link to the actual study.)
To quote briefly from the article “Researchers at the National Toxicology Program (NTP), a federal inter-agency group under the National Institutes of Health, led the study. They chronically exposed rodents to carefully calibrated radio-frequency (RF) radiation levels designed to roughly emulate what humans with heavy cell phone use or exposure could theoretically experience in their daily lives. The animals were placed in specially built chambers that dosed their whole bodies with varying amounts and types of this radiation for approximately nine hours per day throughout their two-year life spans.
“This is by far—far and away—the most carefully done cell phone bioassay, a biological assessment. This is a classic study that is done for trying to understand cancers in humans,” says Christopher Portier, a retired head of the NTP who helped launch the study and still sometimes works for the federal government as a consultant scientist. “There will have to be a lot of work after this to assess if it causes problems in humans, but the fact that you can do it in rats will be a big issue. It actually has me concerned, and I’m an expert.”…
The researchers found that as the thousands of rats in the new study were exposed to greater intensities of RF radiation, more of them developed rare forms of brain and heart cancer that could not be easily explained away, exhibiting a direct dose–response relationship.”
Cell phones are so bright and cheery and a thing of our time, that we forget their darker beginnings connected to WWII and radars; radar produces RF radiation. If cell phones put out enough RF radiation to cause brain tumors, imagine what other far more powerful RF radiation emitters such as smart meters, blue tooth, WiFi and cordless devices will cause. Scary.
But hey the good news! You can have your cell phone and protect against some of the harmful radiation it throws at you. Check out these Radiation Proof Cell Phone Cases that you can get to protect you from the dangerous RF radiation coming from your phone. And many of these cases can protect your debit cards from RFID readers as well!
5. Smart Meter Radiation
Smart meters are computerized meters that your power and gas companies have installed as replacements to your old analog power and gas meters. Most of the time they just install them and don’t tell the home owners they are doing so.
When they do tell the home owners, they say it will optimize your power usage and save you money on our power bills. But this is rarely true. Many people’s bills across the country have actually increased. And worse yet, sometimes they are installed on homes that were not designed for them and so the new meters caught on fire.
Are Smart Meters Really Dangerous? Very! In 2013 the American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) did a report called The Smart Meter Case Series on the Health Dangers of the RF radiation put out by Smart Meters. In the report it says “many of the symptoms reported including fatigue, headaches, heart palpitations, dizziness and other symptoms have been shown to be triggered by electromagnetic field exposure under double blind, placebo controlled conditions”.
Short Video on the Dangers of Smart Meters:
In this video, Dr. Laura Pressley Ph.D., (who has a doctorate in Physical Chemistry and holds four U.S. Patents in semiconductor device technology) describes the amount of RF radiation put out by smart meters. The average smart meter puts out about 60,000 microwatts of power per unit squared. The average home without electronic devices has about a baseline of 3 micro-watts per unit squared or less. So 60,000 is a very large increase.
In the below video you will see me test a smart meter for RF Radiation. Then I put something called a Smart Meter Guard and Smart Meter Cover on the smart meter and test it again. It reduces almost all of the RF Radiation emitted from the smart meter. Smart meters also cause the circuits in your home to emit Dirty Electricity (see below) which is a very dangerous form of electromagnetic radiation. The below video is short but very much worth watching. Also you will want to see our article “Smart Meter Protection Items” to learn about how to mitigate both of these types of radiation.
Below are the safety standard limits imposed by various countries. Notice how the United States’ safety limits are much less stringent than other countries.
- USA\Canada = 1000 micro-watts /m2 (same as ICNIRP 1998)
- Australia = 200 micro-watts /m2
- Auckland (New Zealand) = 50 micro-watts /m2
60,000 microwatts is 60 times the US safety standard. Yet that is what the typical smart meter puts out. And many scientists say the US safety standard is too high to be safe. And this does not count the additional radiation we are exposed to by the many other wireless devices we may have in our homes.
Tools to Measure The Radiation In Your Home
I recommend that everyone test their house like Dr Laura Pressley did in the above video. People tend to under correct or over correct when they don’t know exactly how much of a problem they have and where. You will make much better decisions if you can measure for yourself, instead of guessing. Using these meters is pretty easy to do and the meters are pretty inexpensive. To measure things you just need the two meters Dr Laura had in the video, the HF-35C High Frequency Analyzer to measure RF radiation, and the Graham Stetzer Microsurge Meter to measure dirty electricity. Check out where the best place is to get both of these meters and other items on my “Recommended Protections” page of this site.
Once you measure the radiation in your home for yourself you can see where you have a problem and you can easily put together a strategy to keep your gadgets and not be exposed to the dangerous cancer causing radiation. There are many cool items that allow you to keep your gadget but that protect you from the harmful RF radiation. I have links to some of these for you on my “Recommended Protections” page on this site.
6. Dirty Electricity
Electromagnetic pollution isn’t strictly a wireless technology problem. You might be surprised to learn that it is a much broader issue. You can learn more about this in my article Why is Dirty Electricity Dangerous? The normal electric frequency that is in American homes and offices is about 60 hertz. That is what is used to operate our washers and dryers, counter top ovens, blenders, other appliances, and lights.
But, more and more often there are large number of other electrical frequencies found in our electrical wiring. When the frequency of electricity gets high enough for it to become airborne, it becomes electromagnetic radiation. When this happens from the electrical wiring in a home or other building structure, it is called “electromagnetic smog”, or “dirty electricity”. This electric pollution is known as ‘High Frequency Voltage Transients.’ This is most often caused by devices plugged into the outlets that convert AC power to DC power, or visa versa. The problem is that these are believed to cause a number of very dangerous health problems.
The good news is most of the time this problem is a very simple fix. And it is easy to diagnose. In the below video I test a circuit in my house use a meter for dirty electricity. Then I show you a simple way to fix the problem and bring the radiation back down to safe levels. The video is short and is very much worth watching. Knowledge is power!
Both the meter and filters used in the above video are fairly inexpensive. On the “Recommended Protections” page on this website I have link to the best place to purchase them.
Dr. Samuel Milham, a leading epidemiologist who has studied this subject in great detail (and who even wrote a book on it) believes that this electromagnetic pollution means that “we may be facing a looming epidemic of morbidity and mortality”.
Dirty electricity in our home and office wiring has been connected to many dangerous diseases and health conditions, including:
- Asthma
- Chronic fatigue syndrome
- Multiple chemical sensitivities
- Miscarriages
- Infertility
- Depression and suicide
- Cancer
- Multiple Sclerosis
- Elevated blood sugar
- Obesity
- Migraine headaches
- Attention deficit disorders
How is dirty electricity created inside the homes?
Most modern electronic devices now use Direct Current (DC) power. These devices are equipped with switch-mode power supply (SMPS) converters that convert the alternating electrical current (AC) from the wall outlets into DC current.
These SMPS converters can create dirty electricity – which are then added to our electrical wires. These converters can often be found in rectangular boxes in surge protector strips or on larger electronic devices. And, they may be built into the equipment.
The worst offender.
Arguably the largest cause of dirty electricity in modern homes and offices is the installation of any digital meter like a smart meter. Not all digital meters are considered “smart”. But if they are digital rather than analog they cause the RF radiation and dirty electricity discussed in this article.
Another bad offender are compact fluorescent lights. Compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs are agreed to be one of the worst culprits when it comes to dirty electricity. They use ‘pulsed electronic technology.’ These newer type bulbs, unlike the old incandescent type, switch on and off a lot. In fact they do so some 20,000 times per second. It’s this hyper switching activity that breaks up the normal 60-hertz sine wave of electrical power into fragments. Then it returns the unused electrical fragments to the electrical system thereby creating “dirty electricity”. Compact fluorescent light bulbs add pollution to house and office wiring in the 50 to 100 KHZ range. One CFL bulb can contaminate the electrical wiring of an entire house or office when you use it.
A solution to these bulbs that you can still buy in today’s world is halogen incandescent light bulbs. Click on that link to check out the price on Amazon. As for lighting some energy-efficient bulbs cause dirty electricity, and some do not. Halogen incandescent light bulbs are completely clean because they run straight off 120 Volts, and have no switched mode power supply in them.
7. Cordless Phones Radiation
Do Cordless Phones Emit RF Radiation? As you can see from this short video, cordless phones are actually more dangerous even than a cell phone because they emit high amounts of RF radiation constantly, not just when the phone is in use. They are more on par with the radiation of a baby monitor or a WiFi router than just a cell phone.
Links Between Cancer And Cordless Phone Radiation
PubMed.gov shows a study in which research from scientists conclude that cordless phone’s risk of causing cancer is higher than with cell phone usage. After analyzing malignant brain tumor patients’ usage of cordless phones vs. their usage of cell phones , they found the risk of cancer was multiplied for those using DECT cordless phones. They also found that combining the two increased the risk even higher.
The radiation levels were found to be the largest problem. In many cases the radiation from the cordless phone base was higher than the radiation levels found near a cell phone tower. That seems hard to believe to me but that is what they found. Finally they found that most cordless phones emit radiation from the handset, as well as the base, at full power, even when the phone isn’t in use; not good.
Are Low Radiation Eco Cordless Phones A Solution?
If you just can’t live without a cordless phone then better to get a low EMF or eco-DECT cordless model. Low EMF DECT cordless phones (like the Siemens Gigaset Cordless Phone) still emit RF radiation, but not as much if put on the correct setting. Listen to what the Gigaset company had to say:
“Like all Gigaset cordless phones, it variably reduces the transmitting power from the handset to base station depending on their distance apart. You can also reduce the transmitting power of the Gigaset C610H’s base station by 80% simply by selecting the ECO Mode. Furthermore, radiation-free ECO Mode Plus turns off the transmitting power when the phone is in standby.”
If you must have a cordless phone I recommend the Siemens Gigaset cordless phone. They do not emit radiation when on standby. BUT this function does need configuring. When you take it out of the box it operates like a normal DECT cordless phone (and emitting RF radiation). This is another reason why it is important to have a HF-35C High Frequency Analyzer so that can test the radiation of all of your devices. Very, very important.
A Corded Analog Phone Is The Best Choice By Far!
Even though a long telephone wire is not the most convenient option, still play it safe. Better safe than sorry. Your health is by far the most important. If you are hesitating replacing your cordless DECT phone with a corded phone, don’t hesitate any longer. Using a low EMF corded phone will lower your RF radiation exposure significantly. A basic model will suffice for most people, but more sophisticated corded telephones are also available with answering machine. Another alternative is to try and find an old analog cordless phone not as safe as a corded phone but considered much safer than the DECT technology – works at a lower frequency – the RF radiation is not pulsed.
The good news is the meter to test for dirty electricity in your home is very inexpensive. The best one, the Graham Stetzer Microsurge Meter, you can find a link to it on our “Recommended Protections“ page. Also for the specific health risks or symptoms that radio frequency radiation causes visit our article called 21 Negative Health Symptoms from RF Radiation. And for the RF radiation dangers children are exposed to because of cell phone towers please see our article entitled Cell Phone Tower Radiation Effects on School Children. Or Check out all of our other articles on RadiationHealthRisks.com!
