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The Problem With Air “Fresheners”
TEN QUESTIONS CONCERNING AIR FRESHENERS AND INDOOR BUILT ENVIRONMENTS
Building and Environment 111 (2017) 279-284
Anne Steinemann, University of Melbourne, Australia
Highlights
• Air fresheners are used throughout society.
• Air fresheners, even ones called green and organic, can emit potentially hazardous chemicals.
• Fewer than 10% of air freshener ingredients are typically disclosed to the public.
• Over 20% of the general US population report adverse health effects from air fresheners.
• Fragrance-free indoor environments receive a majority of support.
Abstract
Air fresheners are pervasive within indoor built environments, such as workplaces, schools, housing, transportation, hotels, hospitals, care facilities, and a range of private and public buildings. Air fresheners are designed to impart an aroma to the air environment or to mask odors, with the intent of creating a pleasing indoor space. However, despite the intent, air fresheners can emit and generate a range of potentially hazardous air pollutants that can impair air quality. Even so-called green and organic air fresheners can emit hazardous air pollutants. Air freshener ingredients are largely unknown and undisclosed, owing to regulatory protections on consumer product ingredients and on fragrance formulations. In studies, fewer than ten percent of all volatile ingredients are typically disclosed on air freshener labels or material safety data sheets. From an indoor air quality perspective, air fresheners have been indicated as a primary source of volatile organic compounds within buildings. From a health perspective, air fresheners have been associated with adverse effects, such as migraine headaches, asthma attacks, mucosal symptoms, infant illness, and breathing difficulties. This article investigates the seeming paradox that products designed to improve the indoor environment can pose unintended and unknown risks. It examines the science, health, and policy perspectives, and provides recommendations and research directions.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360132316304334
Ecosystem Rights Movement
This week I stumbled on to an exciting new movement seeking to grant ecosystems the rights of personhood under the law! At first this may seem odd, but corporations already enjoy this right, which has significantly hampered efforts to protect the environment. Granting ecosystems personhood rights would at least make it a fairer fight.
Environmentalists Seek Personhood for Colorado River Ecosystem
VICTORIA PRIESKOP, September 27, 2017
DENVER (CN) — In a new twist in the long, tortuous history of Western water law, an environmental group sued Colorado this week in federal court, as next friend of the Colorado River Ecosystem, asking the court to grant the river personhood.
Deep Green Resistance and its members want the Colorado River ecosystem granted personhood in the same way a ship, an ecclesiastic corporation or a standard commercial corporation have it — as famously stated by presidential candidate Mitt Romney: “Corporations are people, my friend” — for purposes of constitutional protection and enforcement.
Numerous Supreme Court rulings have upheld corporate personhood, particularly in the realm of campaign finance, notable Buckley v. Valeo (1976), First National Bank of Boston v.Bellotti (1978), and Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission (2010).
The plaintiffs spend five of the lawsuit’s 22 pages arguing why the Colorado River ecosystem should be granted personhood, using corporate rights as “an instructive analogy.”
“The Colorado is 60 to 70 million years old and has enabled, sustained, and allowed for human life for as long as human life has been extant in the Western United States, yet the Colorado has no rights or standing whatsoever to defend itself and ensure its existence; while a corporation that can be perfected in fifteen minutes with a credit card can own property, issue stock, open a bank account, sue or defend in litigation, form and bind contracts, claim Fourth Amendment guarantees, due process, equal protection, hold religious beliefs and perhaps most famously invest unlimited amounts of money in support of its favorite political candidate.”
After citing the Supreme Court rulings in Citizens United and Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores (2014), the plaintiffs continue: “The American system of law is replete with doctrines, examples and solutions with regard to when a party cannot bring suit itself and requires another to stand in its stead, including guardians ad litem, parens patriae, executors who can bring suits on behalf of an estate, and trustees. The fiduciary relationship in which one party can litigate in the best of interests of another party has long been recognized by U.S. courts.”
Forty million people in seven states draw water from the Colorado River, which irrigates nearly 4 million acres of cropland. Thirty-four Native American tribes also draw water from the river, which has been reduced to barely a trickle by the time it empties into the Gulf of California.
The complaint enumerates the river’s ecological importance and the dangers presented to it by laws and practices, including a series of compacts which allow various states to divert more water from the than it contains. The so-called Law of the River encourages upstream states to divert water whether they need it or not, in a use-it-or-lose-it arrangement.
The plaintiffs attribute much of the damage done to the river’s ecosystem to a failure of how environmental law views the land itself. “Environmental law has failed to protect the natural environment because it accepts the status of nature and ecosystems as property, while merely regulating the rate at which the natural environment is exploited. Its failure can be seen from the worsening of climate change, the continued pollution of ground and surface water, and the decline of every major ecosystem on the continent.”
Citing recent rulings in Ecuador, Colombia, India and some U.S. municipalities which have recognized that rivers, glaciers and other ecosystems may be treated as legal persons, the plaintiffs ask the court to grant the Colorado River ecosystem a person, capable of possessing rights, and that among these rights are the right “to exist, flourish, regenerate, be restored, and naturally evolve.”
It asks also that Deep Green Resistance be recognized as a guardian and/or next friend of the river, and be allowed to sue the State of Colorado on the river’s behalf.
Deep Green Resistance member Deanna Meyer, a plaintiff, said in a statement: “Without the recognition that the Colorado River possesses certain rights of its own, it will always be subject to wide-scale exploitation without any real consequences. I’m proud to stand with the other next friends in this lawsuit to enforce and defend the rights of the Colorado, and we’re calling on groups across the country to do the same to protect the last remaining wild places in this country and beyond.”
The group is represented by Jason Flores-Williams, a criminal defense attorney who became well known when he sued Denver for its sweeps upon the homeless.
“We’re bringing this lawsuit to even the odds,” he said in a statement. “Corporations today claim rights and powers that routinely overwhelm the efforts of people to protect the environment. Our judicial system recognizes corporations as persons, so why shouldn’t it recognize the natural systems upon which we all depend as having rights as well?”
Environmentalists Seek Personhood for Colorado River Ecosystem
Susan Molloy’s Presentation to Access Board 5/23/18
Susan Molloy’s Presentation to U.S. Access Board at Phoenix Meeting on 5/23/18
U.S. Access Board
1331 “F” Street NW
Washington, DC 20004
Dear President Robertson, Board Members, and Executive Director Mr. Capozzi:
First of all, we are honored by your visit to ABILITY360, our Phoenix Disability Empowerment Center. Thank you, and ABILITY360 Executive Director Phil Pangrazzio, for all your efforts organizing this meeting and for hearing our presentations. Please extend our appreciation to your staff members as well for their hard work.
We trust that you are as encouraged as we, by which I mean people facing environmental barriers to public spaces and facilities, by the Indoor Environmental Quality (“IEQ”) Report of 2005. It was published by the National Institute of Building Sciences, sponsored by the U.S. Access Board, and coordinated by the Access Board’s then Chief Counsel Jim Raggio.
Through this project, we developed concepts and language through which to make the Access Board’s work more comprehensive.
While implementation of the measures we suggest in that document, and in subsequent communications, may not all be immediately achievable, it is our responsibility to see that inadvertent barriers to our access do not go unnoticed and that we assist the Board in drawing up applicable specifications and policies in accordance with the IEQ Final Report.
We are at your service to make this happen.
Toward that end, I endorse the presentations of Mary Lamielle, Director of the National Center for Environmental Strategies, of Ann McCampbell, M.D., from whom you have just heard, from Libby Kelley regarding electrical hypersensitivities and related issues, and from our other colleagues who have participated in preparation for this meeting.
Now, I would like to familiarize you with a few bare-bones features that can enormously and immediately improve our access to public places, with little or no expense, while more extensive measures are developed for future implementation.
SHORTLIST of Free, Readily Achievable Structural and Design Considerations
Windows that open (consider air-to-air heat exchanger technology)
Daylight, skylights, and the option of incandescent lightbulbs (no fluorescents or LEDS) in at least some specified areas of the facility
Landscaping using plants, trees, ground covers that require no chemical maintenance, and no extensive watering (to minimize mold growth)
Non-chemical IPM inside facility, paths of travel, and outdoors (sidewalks, parking area, bus stop)
No Fragrance Emission Devices (“FEDS”) in at least designated restrooms, and no fragrance distribution systems in Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning (“HVAC”) systems
No smart meters for electricity, gas, or water installed in public areas of a facility unless thoroughly and effectively shielded
Separate electrical wiring and/or fiber optics, and kill switches, for at least some areas of the facility so that non-essential computers, printers, fluorescents, others can be shut down without impacting other areas of the facility
No carpet in designated areas
Maintain existing landline phones, and re-install the old ones
Independent variable fresh air ventilation system (aka “fan”), for at least certain areas of the facility, that can be operated by the room occupant without assistance
Signage on and around the facility, in pertinent formats, indicating where accessible (for our purposes) sidewalks, ramps, doors, restrooms, phones, conference rooms, parking are located, along with a posted, readily available schedule of recent maintenance and materials
Signage, in pertinent formats, to designate areas where wi-fi is present, to prevent inadvertent exposure to the degree possible
Designation of areas for re-charging wheelchair batteries, cell phones, computers, vehicles, others using wired electrical outlets
Essential: buzzer or intercom outside the facility to summon building occupants such as the clerk, doctor, child, police, social services employee, grocer, shopkeeper
Study the “Cleaner Air Room” concept and language as per the Indoor Environmental Quality (“IEQ”) Report, pages 47-55, 2005, which is posted on the Access Board’s website (www.access-board.gov/research/building/indoor-environmental-quality)
Susan Molloy, M.A.
Hansa Trail, Snowflake, AZ 85937
928.536.4625
molloy@frontiernet.net
My Presentation to Federal Access Board 5/23/18
On May 23, 2018, the federal Access Board held a town hall meeting in Phoenix to hear from members of the public about their access needs. I was honored to be on a panel, along with Susan Molloy, to make a presentation on the access needs of people with multiple chemical sensitivities (MCS) and electromagnetic hypersensitivities (EHS).
Click here to listen to my presentation (7.5 mins).
Susan Molloy and I, as well as several other people with MCS and/or EHS who made public comments, stressed the profound lack of access that people with these disabilities have to housing, health care, employment, and almost the entire built environment. We urged the Board to take action to increase this access.
For specific next steps, Susan and I endorsed the National Center for Environmental Health Strategies (NCEHS) recommendations for action shown below:
NCEHS RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ACTION
US Access Board, January 8, 2018
Unfinished business from the IEQ (Indoor Environmental Quality) Project
(www.access-board.gov/research/completed-research/indoor-environmental-quality):
Work with our community to develop a plan to address IEQ and the disability access needs of people with chemical and electrical sensitivities or intolerances.
Fulfill the promises of the ADA Accessibility Guidelines for Recreational Activities, September 3, 2002:
Develop an action plan that can be used to reduce the level of chemicals and electromagnetic fields in the built environment;
Develop technical assistance materials on best practices to accommodate individuals with chemical and electrical sensitivities or intolerances;
Address recommendations in the IEQ Report including the need for research on cleaning products and practices that are effective and protective of occupant health.
New Initiatives:
Create a partnership or working group with the National Council on Disability (NCD) and other agencies as appropriate to address our issues.
Appoint a liaison from our community to work with the partnership or working group.
Appoint at least one staff member and one board member as a contact on these issues.
Support the appointment of an individual with knowledge of these issues to the U.S. Access Board and/or the National Council on Disability (NCD).
Facilitate efforts to educate members of the U.S. Access Board and staff, the NCD, and other agencies and organizations, as the opportunity presents.
Invite knowledgeable experts and advocates to work with the U.S. Access Board and the National Council on Disability to advance these issues.
Convene a meeting with the experts to formalize a plan of action to address the proposed initiatives. This plan should in part include joint hearings or stakeholder meetings sponsored by the U.S. Access Board, the NCD, and other agencies as appropriate, to get input from the community. Invite those with environmental sensitivities or intolerances to “SPEAK for themselves” about their health, access, and disability needs.
National Center for Environmental Health Strategies, Inc. (NCEHS), Mary Lamielle, Executive Director, 1100 Rural Avenue, Voorhees, New Jersey 08043 (856)429-5358; (856)816-8820
MCS Booklet Now Available as a Kindle E-Book!
I am happy to report that my Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) booklet is now available as a Kindle E-book. It can be purchased through Amazon. On that site you can “look inside” and preview the first 4 pages. Feel free to leave me a customer review and tell me what you think of the booklet.
NM Public Regulation Commission Denies Approval of Electricity Smart Meters
This is terrific news! PNM is the largest provider of electricity in NM. At last, those with electromagnetic hypersensitivity are acknowledged and their needs taken into account.
Arthur Firstenberg
Cellular Phone Task Force
April 11, 2018
Today we won a victory in the fight against radiation. The Public Regulation Commission has denied PNM’s application for Smart Meters. “The plan presented in the Application does not provide a net public benefit and it does not promote the public interest,” wrote the Commission.
The Commission accepted the Hearing Examiner’s recommended decision without alteration. It ruled that:
• PNM did not demonstrate that smart meters will save money.
• PNM did not demonstrate that smart meters will produce energy efficiency.
• PNM did not show that customers want smart meters.
• PNM did not evaluate alternatives.
• PNM did not say how it would protect customer data privacy.
• Cybersecurity issues need to be addressed.
• 125 good, high-paying jobs would be lost.
• Proposed opt-out fees were unreasonable.
• There was insufficient public input.
• There was insufficient response by PNM to public objections.
EVIDENCE ABOUT HEALTH EFFECTS was discussed at length. “Customers who have strong feelings about the health effects of the meters should be allowed to protect their stated health concerns without a prohibitively high cost.“
The decision goes on to state: “The conditions of the portion of the population who believe they are electromagnetically sensitive deserve acknowledgment and consideration as decisions are made regarding the implementation of an AMI Project. Accommodations could include reasonable opt-out provisions and fees and perhaps the selection of technologies that minimize the impacts on such people. Such accommodations may be desirable to minimize health risks to customers and address the needs and preferences of PNM’s customers. These are issues that can and should be addressed in a public input process of the sort PNM stated in its 2012 Report that it would conduct before bringing a smart meter proposal to the Commission for approval.“
The decision means there will not be smart meters [to measure electricity] in the near future in New Mexico’s metropolitan areas: Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Las Vegas, Clayton, Ruidoso, Tularosa, Alamogordo, Silver City, Lordsburg and Deming.
My Interview with Lloyd Burrell is Airing Tomorrow 4/5/18
The interview I did with Lloyd Burrell of ElectricSense is being aired tomorrow, Thursday, 4/5/18. If you sign up for his newsletter, he will send you a link where you can hear the interview. It will be available for replay for 24 hours.
Listen to an excerpt from the interview>>
Podcast courtesy Lloyd Burrell. Learn more about Lloyd’s work at www.electricsense.com/
HOW TO OVERCOME CHEMICAL AND EMF SENSITIVITY
Posted by Lloyd Burrell on April 3, 2018 under Podcasts & Teleseminars
“You don’t get it until you get it”, explains Ann.
It’s hard to understand multiple chemical sensitivity unless you’ve lived it.
Here’s Ann’s potted explanation: “multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) is a medical condition where people have a heightened sensitivity to chemicals, many of which are found in everyday life like perfume and car exhaust and cigarette smoke, pesticide and things like that”.
Ann was the healthy, athletic child and young person. A gifted student too. She trained to be a medical doctor in internal medicine specializing in women’s health.
It was after she was out of medical school and training that Ann just started feeling more tired than usual. Then certain foods started to bother her. She changed her diet. And then over a two week period things took a turn for the worse. “I dramatically developed a very severe case of MCS over about two weeks”.
She’d been taking a supposedly hypoallergenic protein powder which, inexplicably, she had a violent reaction to.
“It just felt like I’d stuck my finger in an electric socket”.
From then on it was as if Ann reacted to everything around her. She felt as though her nervous system was fried. She would pull out her pen, the same pen that last week she could write with and she was okay, she’d get a little whiff of the ink and start feeling dizzy, woozy, even nauseated.
It was very dramatic. Food was a big part of it. She could only eat a few foods. And the foods she could eat were just kind of going through her without really getting digested.
She also had a serious back problem, like a protruding disk in her lower back that no matter what she did, stayed inflamed. The pain was so great that for about 5 years she was forced to lie down most of the time.
She say’s, “some people, they get ill after they remodel their house or they move into a new house, or remodel the office. Or there was a significant pesticide exposure or crop duster or something like that. But I would say I’m kind of the scary story for everybody because there wasn’t anything obvious.”
Ann slowly started winding down and then had these dramatic drop-downs. The icing on the cake was when she went for an MRI scan. “When I had an MRI scan – and this is of interest for people with EMF issues – I got very ill after that.“ From that point on Ann couldn’t even breathe in fumes from certain foods without getting ill.
Today she still admits to being careful but thankfully her condition has radically improved.
INTERVIEW
Thursday, 5th April at 1:00 p.m. EST (10 AM PST or 6 PM GMT) I’m interviewing environmental illness consultant and leading MCS advocate Dr. Ann McCampbell.
Dr. Ann McCampbell 
is author of the booklet: Multiple Chemical Sensitivity.
Dr. McCampbell is a medical doctor who trained in internal medicine and worked in women’s health until she became severely ill with multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) in 1989. She’s been a leading MCS advocate for over 25 years.
She’s co-chair of the Multiple Chemical Sensitivity’s Task Force, New Mexico and was a founding member of the Chemical Sensitivity Foundation. In 2005, Dr. McCampbell worked with other MCS advocates to help create an Indoor Environmental Quality report for the U.S. Access Board which included recommendations for increasing accessibility in public buildings for people with chemical and electromagnetic sensitivity.
The theme of my interview with Dr. McCampbell is how to overcome MCS and EMF sensitivity. Listen to my revealing interview with Dr. Ann McCampbell and learn:
• the link between MCS and EMF sensitivity – a recent study has found a common pathological mechanism for both sensitivities
• how Dr. Martin Palls work is relevant to MCS – and how this can be tweaked to get better results and be less of a burden on the body
• how Annie Hopper’s brain re-training protocol may be used to complement an environmental medicine approach
• the mechanisms that come into play in the body which create chemical hypersensitivity – and how this can be detected by blood tests
• who you should try and consult if you think you are MCS – most doctors have no training or experience with MCS
• Ann’s top 3 tips (borne out of 25 years of experience) for dealing with MCS
• hidden infections can be a root cause or contributor – Ann recommends 3 other types of analysis work that can help get to the bottom of MCS
• an inexpensive heat and light treatment that can be used to improve blood flow and circulation and increase oxygenation of the tissue so waste products are able to move away
• a little known rescue remedy – just 30 minutes a day can leave you feeling much better
• Ann’s top 4 tips for EMF protection – she discusses EMFs with almost everyone who consults with her
• why she believes EMFs are such a big issue – in the 25 years that she’s been dealing with these issues the chemical world has been quite stable
• the book she now recommends for MCS sufferers – it’s the book she wishes somebody had handed her when she got sick and there seemed to be no answers
I’ve chosen the teleseminar format so that you can follow via your computer or using your telephone. If you’re not sure what time it’s on where you live you can check your local time here https://www.worldtimebuddy.com/
The interview will last approximately one hour and it’s FREE to listen to. *****To access this interview make sure you are signed up to my newsletter.***** (If you received notification of this interview by email you don’t need to sign up again.) If you’re signed up to my newsletter I’ll send you an email on the day of the interview with a link to the interview. The replay is also FREE for 24 hours after the event for everyone that’s signed up to my newsletter.
www.electricsense.com/13766/overcome-chemical-emf-sensitivity/
Winnipeg Considering Ban on Perfume by City Workers
CTV News, Winnipeg, Canada
March 28, 2018
A new resolution could see City of Winnipeg workers soon barred from wearing perfumes and colognes. The resolution has been put before a city council committee for consideration, and would need to be adopted by council to be implemented. It says some scented products, such as perfumes, lotions and body sprays, can trigger sensitivities and aggravate asthma allergies in some people.
The hope is to create an overall workplace policy banning the use of scented products, in all City of Winnipeg workplaces. The committee meets next Wednesday. If passed, administration will report back in 3 months with a policy.
Increasing Prevalence of Multiple Chemical Sensitivities (MCS)
Here is more great work by my colleague Anne Steinemann, PhD. Important documentation that, as suspected, the prevalence of MCS is increasing significantly.
National Prevalence and Effects of Multiple Chemical Sensitivities
Steinemann, Anne PhD
Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine: March 2018 – Volume 60 – Issue 3 – p e152–e156
Objective: The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of multiple chemical sensitivities (MCS), its co-occurrence with asthma and fragrance sensitivity, and effects from exposure to fragranced consumer products.
Methods: A nationally representative cross-sectional population-based sample of adult Americans (n = 1137) was surveyed in June 2016.
Results: Among the population, 12.8% report medically diagnosed MCS and 25.9% report chemical sensitivity. Of those with MCS, 86.2% experience health problems, such as migraine headaches, when exposed to fragranced consumer products; 71.0% are asthmatic; 70.3% cannot access places that use fragranced products such as air fresheners; and 60.7% lost workdays or a job in the past year due to fragranced products in the workplace.
Conclusion: Prevalence of diagnosed MCS has increased over 300%, and self-reported chemical sensitivity over 200%, in the past decade. Reducing exposure to fragranced products could help reduce adverse health and societal effects.
Full article available at https://journals.lww.com/joem/pages/results.aspx?txtkeywords=steinemann.
EWG Guide to Safer Cell Phone Use
I just discovered this handy 1-page Guide to Safer Cell Phone Use by EWG (Environmental Working Group)
Go to end of this article and click on Guide to Safer Cell Phone Use, then click on Download Our Guide.
TUESDAY, AUGUST 27, 2013 – EWG’S GUIDE TO SAFER CELL PHONE USE
Back in 1996, when the Federal Communications Commission set a legal maximum on cell phone radiation, Motorola was touting its tiny $2,000 StarTac, the first clamshell phone and an early adopter of — texting! Sixteen years later, cell phones — with 6 billion subscriptions worldwide and counting — have revolutionized how we communicate. The technology that powers them has changed just as dramatically. Today’s smartphones vibrate, rock out, show high-def movies, make photos and videos, issue voice commands, check email, go underwater, navigate with global positioning systems and surf the web in 3-D. They sport dual core processors and batteries that let you – or your kid — talk for close to 20 hours. (The StarTac maxed out at just 3 hours.)
Yet those 16-year-old FCC rules still stand. Are they up to the job of protecting the public from radiation coming out of those multi-tasking marvels and the networks that enable them?
We doubt it.
Studies conducted by numerous scientific teams in several nations have raised troubling questions about possible associations between heavy cell phone use and serious health dangers. The World Health Organization has declared that cell phone radiation may be linked to brain cancer. Ten studies connect cell phone radiation to diminished sperm count and sperm damage. Others raise health concerns such as altered brain metabolism, sleep disturbance and behavioral changes in children.
These studies are not definitive. Much more research is needed. But they raise serious questions that cast doubt on the adequacy of the FCC rules to safeguard public health. The FCC emissions cap allows 20 times more radiation to reach the head than the body as a whole, does not account for risks to children’s developing brains and smaller bodies and considers only short-term cell phone use, not frequent calling patterns over decades.
The FCC’s safety standards for cell phone radiation were based on studies conducted in the 1980s, These studies have long since been rendered obsolete by newer research. Yet for years the FCC refused to update or even review its standards. Instead, the federal agency simply sat on its hands while cell phones became ever more powerful and ubiquitous.
The agency is finally moving to meet the realities of the 21st century and the Information Age. On June 15, FCC chairman Julius Genachowski circulated a proposal to his four fellow commissioners calling for formal review of the 1996 regulations. To advance, his plan must be approved by a majority of the commissioners. If they agree, the FCC could take the long overdue step of modernizing its safety standards. But the pace is likely to be glacial.
Americans need new, more protective cell phone standards that reflect the current science and society’s heavy dependence on mobile communications.
Consumers need — now more than ever — real-world, relevant data on how much radiation their phones emit under various circumstances. The FCC does not require the cell phone industry to disclose these data. One important study showing that certain networks could expose consumers to 30 to 300 times more radiation than other networks was hidden from the public until the information was dated to the point of irrelevancy.
Given this appalling lack of information in the face of a cell phone market where just about anything goes,
the Environmental Working Group is suspending publication of the EWG guide to cell phones until the FCC makes the responsible decision to require cell phone makers to generate and disclose data about device and network emissions under real-world conditions. We strongly believe that as cell phones become more powerful and ubiquitous, it is critical that people have a right to know how much radiation they can expect their cell phones to generate. As things now stand, the FCC’s cell phone safety rules are as obsolete as the StarTac.
In the meantime, EWG recommends that consumers take steps to reduce their exposures to cell phone radiation by holding phones away from their bodies, using earpieces and following and other simple tips in EWG’s updated Guide to Safer Cell Phone Use.
https://www.ewg.org/research/cellphone-radiation#.WrAYlsgh3jA