“I am pleased that, as a result of the Supreme Court’s decision today, one of the Commission’s major achievements in promoting broadband access will continue to protect consumers and drive investment,” acting FCC chairwoman Mignon Clyburn said in a brief statement. “Removing obstacles to the timely build-out of wireless broadband services remains a key priority.” 

Cities and counties across the USA challenged the FCC’s authority to set the 90 day time limits for officials to act on applications for cell phone towers when they are co-located with existing sites and 150 days for new sites.

The cities of Arlington, Los Angeles and San Antonio along with the Counties of Texas, Los Angeles and San Diego petitioned the nation’s highest court to review the legality of the FCC rules that were first introduced in November 2009.

However, in a 6-3 opinion (pdf) handed down on May 2o, Justice Antonin Scalia found that federal agencies are entitled to the same deference in deciding their own jurisdiction as they are in other matters involving the statutes they enforce.

When an agency action is challenged in court, Justice Scalia wrote, “judges should not waste their time in the mental acrobatics needed to decide whether an agency’s interpretation is…’jurisdictional’ or ‘non-jurisdictional,’” because every dispute boils down to whether or not the statute authorizes the agency’s authority.

“Congress has unambiguously vested the FCC with general authority to administer the Communications Act through rulemaking and adjudication,” something the commission did in adopting a definition of a “reasonable period” for local authorities to act, Justice Scalia wrote.

The 1996 Telecom Act, section 704, requires state and local governments to act on requests to “place, construct, or modify” wireless facilities “within a reasonable period of time” but there was often disagreement about what was reasonable with some sites delayed for many years which resulted in the FCC’s administrative ruling on what was considered “reasonable” under the Telecoms Act. The same section also provides that:

‘No State or local government or instrumentality thereof may regulate the placement, construction, and modification of personal wireless service facilities on the basis of the environmental effects of radio frequency emissions to the extent that such facilities comply with the Commission’s regulations concerning such emissions.’

A coalition of local governments appealed the FCC’s 2009 ruling to the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. But in January 2012, the Fifth Circuit upheld the FCC ruling and said that the FCC had the statutory authority to interpret the Telecoms Act and the timeframes were lawful, as well.

The appeal court found that its precedent required it to apply the Chevron deference, which the court interpreted to mean that in every circumstance – even where the issue is whether or not an agency has jurisdiction – a court must defer to an agency’s “reasonable statutory interpretation” of the Acts it administers.

“The contention that Chevron deference is not appropriate here because the FCC asserted jurisdiction over matters of traditional state and local concern is meritless,” Justice Scalia wrote. “These cases have nothing to do with federalism: The statute explicitly supplants state authority, so the question is simply whether a federal agency or federal courts will draw the lines to which the States must hew.”

In dissent, Chief Justice John Roberts, joined by Justices Anthony Kennedy and Samuel Alito, warned that the majority had granted too much power to the vast “federal bureaucracy.

“With hundreds of federal agencies poking into every nook and cranny of daily life,” he wrote, “the danger posed by the growing power of the administrative state cannot be dismissed.”

People who already have mild to moderate hypertension experienced a slight jump when receiving phone calls, even if they are otherwise relaxed, the researchers found.

The main effect was in patients who already have high blood pressure and don’t use their phone very often. The change was less dramatic in people who were accustomed to getting a lot of mobile phone calls.

The preliminary study, conducted on 94 middle-aged participants who were taking medication for mild to moderate hypertension, was meant to find out whether getting mobile phone calls during blood pressure monitoring affected the measurements.

Before the test, researchers asked patients how often they spoke on their mobile phones, and then took down their phone numbers.

The patients then underwent two series of six blood pressure measurements as they sat alone in an armchair, with a monitor that took readings at automatic one-minute intervals. At each interval, the device measured systolic and diastolic blood pressure and heart rate.

During either the first or second of the two series, an investigator called the patient’s mobile phone three times with an unknown calling number, until the patient picked up the phone and spoke.

The investigators then compared the average blood pressure and heart rate measures with and without receiving phone calls.

The result of the research was presented in May at the 28^th Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Society of Hypertension (ASH) in San Francisco and was conducted by researchers from Guglielmo da Saliceto Hospital in Italy.

The results showed that when patients answered the unknown mobile phone calls, their average blood pressure rose from 121/77 to 129/82. Heart rate did not change significantly.

The rise in systolic blood pressure (the top number in a blood pressure reading) was less apparent in patients who used their cell phones more than 30 times a day, as well as those who were taking beta-adrenergic blockers to lower their blood pressure.

Dr. Giuseppe Crippa said in a media release that he is unsure why using cell phones more often might reduce the blood pressure spike but they do not believe that it is due to the radio-frequency signals from the phone.

One explanation, he suggested, is that the patients who habitually made more mobile phone calls were younger, “which could show that younger people are less prone to be disturbed by telephone intrusions.”

“Another possibility is people who make more than thirty calls per day may feel more reassured if the mobile phone is activated since they are not running the risk of missing an opportunity,” Dr Crippa said.

Dr. Gary Schwartz, a professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, said that the issue is disturbance in general and not mobile phone calls. He added “Just engaging in conversation, whether or not it’s on the phone, can raise the numbers and give an inaccurate reading.”

Preliminary research (pdf) presented by the Mayo Clinic at the SLEEP 2013 conference in Baltimore suggests that it’s possible to use your smartphone or tablet before bed without disrupting a good night’s sleep.

“In the old days people would go to bed and read a book,” said co-author Lois Krahn, M.D., a psychiatrist and sleep expert at Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Ariz. “Well, much more commonly people go to bed and they have their tablet on which they read a book or they read a newspaper or they’re looking at material.”

“There’s a lot of concern about using mobile devices and that prompted me to wonder, are they always a negative factor for sleep?” Dr. Krahn said.

“We found that only at the highest setting was the light over a conservative threshold that might affect melatonin levels.”

In the study the researchers investigated how levels of light emitted from mobile devices at different distances from a user’s face compared to the threshold of light that suppresses the secretion of melatonin, 30 lux.

In a dark room, they used a sensitive light meter to measure the light coming from two Apple tablets and a smartphone: an iPad, an iPad 3 with retinal display, and an iPhone 4.

They discovered that when brightness settings were lowered or the devices were held just more than a foot from a user’s face, it reduced the risk that the light would be bright enough to suppress melatonin secretion and disrupt sleep.

The measurements showed that when the brightness was lowered to the minimal setting, the LED lights of all three devices were well below the 30 lux melatonin-suppressing threshold.

When held 14 inches away at the brightest setting, the iPhone 4 measured 8 lux and the iPad 1 measured 21 lux. The iPad 3, however, measured 32 lux — just above the threshold.

The results, which have yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, suggest that if you must use your smartphone or tablet before bed, you should either keep the screen brightness at the lowest setting or hold it at least a foot from your face in order to avoid disrupting sleep.

Last month Harvard academic and sleep expert Professor Charles Czeisler called for more research into the effects of artificial light after he published an article in journal Nature.

He said that modern humans are exposed to four times more light than 60 years ago and it was disrupting our sleep patterns.

He explained that the decline in the number of hours slept per night is affecting public health, including a greater risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, depression and stroke in adults and concentration problems in children.

Last year the American Medical Association issued a warning (pdf) “that exposure to excessive light at night, including extended use of various electronic media, can disrupt sleep or exacerbate sleep disorders, especially in children and adolescents.”

Smart Devices and Sleep – Mayo Clinic (View YouTube video)

The systematic analysis by researchers from the Health Council of the Netherlands analysed all population studies comparing mobile phone use and brain tumour cases and found no clear evidence of a causal relationship between the two.

“Currently data is available for up to 13 year mobile phone usage. It shows no clear evidence that using a phone for such a time period results in an increased risk for brain tumours or other tumours in the head,” the Health Council said.

The scientific expert committee looked specifically at studies on mobile phone use and tumours of the head and found there was no link, except for one subset of data which showed a weak association with one form of malignant tumour – glioma.

“The conclusions in the report result from an elaborate search and evaluation of the available epidemiological studies into a possible association between the incidence of certain tumours in the head and exposure to the radiofrequency electromagnetic fields from mobile telephones,” the advisory report (pdf) to the Dutch State Secretary for Infrastructure and the Environment said.

“Only for gliomas (malignant brain tumours) weak and inconsistent indications for an association with longterm use of a mobile phone were found. A [sic] the same time no increase of this type of brain tumour was observed in the cancer statistics of the Netherlands,” the Health Council concluded.

“These might be explained by various types of bias and chance, but it cannot be excluded that there is a causal relation. However, the Committee estimates the likelihood for a causal relation to be very low.”

“Brain cancer incidence data for the Netherlands indicate no increase in gliomas following the period of rapid increase in mobile phone use in the age groups that use them most: those of 20-29 and of 30-59 years.”

The review found no evidence to suggest a possible association with mobile phone use and an increased risk of developing other forms of head tumours including meningiomas (tumours of the meninges), acoustic neuromas (tumours on the acoustic nerve) and parotid gland tumours.

The researchers said their conclusions differed slightly to those of an expert committee assembled by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in 2011, which classified radiofrequency electromagnetic as “possibly carcinogenic to humans”.

“Even before the IARC started its project, the EMF Committee of the Health Council initiated a systematic analysis of the epidemiological literature on this subject,” the Dutch report said.

“Its conclusions are slightly different from those of IARC. The Committee concludes that there is no clear and consistent evidence from epidemiological studies for an increased risk for tumours in the brain and other regions in the head in association with mobile phone use up to approximately 13 years. However, a slightly increased risk can also not be excluded.”

The researchers highlighted the importance of continued research in the area to ascertain if there are any long-term health risks that may not be visible in current research and specifically recommended the ongoing monitoring of cancer statistics.

This report is the first of three to be published by the Health Council of the Netherlands.

The Committee is currently preparing a systematic analysis of the animal studies on the carcinogenicity of radiofrequency electromagnetic fields, which is expected to be published later this year.

In a third report, expected early 2014, the Committee will discuss the observations from the first two reports in the light of the recently published IARC evaluation.

Belgium: No 4G in Brussels before 2015

The Brussels government has postponed making a decision on amending the city’s strict base station exposure standards, which will mean the European capital will go without 4G until 2015.

Germany: The nocebo effect – media reports may trigger symptoms of a disease

Media reports about substances that are supposedly hazardous to health may cause suggestible people to develop symptoms of a disease even though there is no objective reason for doing so. This is the conclusion of a study of the phenomenon known as electromagnetic hypersensitivity.

Global: WHO to hold stakeholder meeting on upcoming RF health criteria

The World Health Organization (WHO) has announced (pdf) an International Stakeholder Seminar on RF policies and is seeking the views of stakeholders and interested parties in the process of preparing an Environmental Health Criteria monograph on radiofrequency (RF) fields.

India: India may ban import of phones not displaying radiation level

India may ban import of mobile phones that don’t display their radiation emission levels from September.

Italy: Mobile phones cause blood pressure to rise

An Italian study has found talking on a mobile triggers significant increases in systolic blood pressure that corresponds to the “surge” that occurs with each heartbeat.

South Africa: Carrying mobile phones in front pocket could affect fertility in men

According to Men’s Health, South African researchers found that men who carried mobile phones on their hip or in their front pants pocket had slower-swimming sperm, and less-concentrated sperm-both of which could cause fertility issues.

Spain: CCARS – Radio Frequencies and Health 2011-2012

The Spanish Scientific Advisory Committee on Radio Frequencies and Health has published a new report (in Spanish) that covers health studies, exposure levels, Spanish judicial decisions and risk perception.

Sweden: Wireless Networks dangerous for students?

The SSM (Swedish Radiation Authority) does not agree with journalist Mona Nilsson that children’s health is being put at risk from wireless networks in schools. They say that wireless networks are not at all as dangerous.

UK: BBC medical myths – Are mobile phones dangerous in hospitals?

With the exception of holding phones next to critical care equipment, there is no convincing evidence supporting blanket bans on the grounds of electromagnetic interference. 

USA: Top court says FCC can set cell tower deadlines

The Supreme Court has handed the telecommunications industry a victory, ruling that federal regulators can set deadlines for state and local authorities to act on applications for new cell phone towers.

“Within the past decade, a quiet revolution has occurred in consumer electronics, with a massive shift toward wireless connectivity in household devices,” Kenneth R. Foster, Professor Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania said in a recent article in Microwave Magazine.

“Of the 35,000 new grants by the FCC between January 2010 and April 2012, by far the largest fraction of new approvals is for devices employing digital communications and networking technologies,” Professor Foster said.

“The world is already awash with wireless devices, and many more are coming over the horizon.”

However, along with this growth there has been widespread concern about possible health effects of exposure to radio-frequency (RF) energy emitted by wireless-enabled devices, in particular around use of Wi-Fi in schools and wireless-enabled electric utility meters, known as “smartmeters,” in residences, Professor Foster explained.

“While the RF exposures from such devices are far below U.S. and international safety limits, some aspects of the exposures (their involuntary nature or perhaps the novelty of the technologies) have been particularly troubling to the public,” he said.

“Consequently, political leaders have called for studies on possible health effects of wireless technology.”

However, he said developing a research program to search for biological effects of emissions from wireless devices is fraught with difficulties such as:

1)      a lack of identified mechanism for producing biological effects and consequently lack of hypothesis to inform studies,

2)     a large parameter space to be explored, and

3)     the presence of many different sources of RF energy in the home that transmit in similar frequency ranges and at similar power levels.

“Perhaps the best that health agencies could do would be to continue to monitor closely the health literature for new developments that might lead to testable hypotheses about possible health effects of wireless devices,” Professor Foster said.

However, this wait-and-see approach will not be politically popular with members of the public who feel that their health is already being impacted by wireless technology, he said.

“Simple things like utilizing openable cases, using screws rather than adhesives, and providing easy access to parts that are most likely to break, like screens, greatly improve the repairability of cellphones and significantly extend their life, CEO of iFixit Kyle Wiens said.

“It is imperative for designers to incorporate sustainable features into their products not only to make them last longer but to help promote a more sustainable and environmentally friendly future.”

The IEEE said when you consider that it takes approximately 75kg (165 pounds) of raw materials to manufacture a cell phone, over 30l (eight gallons) of water to produce one microchip and more than 1.7 Billion mobile phones expected to be shipped in 2013 – there is a considerable environmental impact from manufacturing such a large volume of electronic devices.

Extending the lifespan of mobile devices by making them cheaper and easier to repair, could also increase the number of recycled and refurbished smart phones shipped to developing countries for the second hand market, which could in turn stimulate the global economy, the IEEE said in a press release.

“Upstream cellphone manufacturing, which includes the mining of raw materials, mine tailings, and fresh water polluted in the process, as well as the energy required to refine and manufacture the device, can be reduced by employing designs that enable easier and more economic device repairability,” IEEE Fellow Stu Lipoff said.

“In this way, refurbished phones from the first market can have an extended life through use in secondary and tertiary markets. This process would not only help reduce the environmental impact from the manufacturing process but also provide more advanced technology for developing nations, helping to stimulate global commerce.”

The IEEE said a recent paper showed that extending the current average one year service life of a mobile device to four years, could lead to a reduction in environmental impact by about 40 per cent.

The organisation said the trend with modern mobile phones was to cram more advanced technology into smaller and sleeker devices, which leads to more closed designs that make damaged devices nearly unfixable.

The Swedish Radiation Safety Authority`s (SSM) scientific council of international experts assessed all the relevant research published in 2011 and 2012 and said there was now less convincing evidence that mobiles could cause cancers, such as brain tumours.

“Subsequent to the last Council report published in 2010, IARC in 2011 classified radiofrequency electromagnetic (RF) fields as possibly carcinogenic to humans (Group 2B) based on an increased risk for glioma and acoustic neuroma associated with wireless phone use, the SSM’s eighth Independent Expert Group report on Electromagnetic Fields said.

“Since then, numerous epidemiological studies on mobile phone use and risk of brain tumours and other tumours of the head have been published.

“The collective of these studies, together with national cancer incidence statistics from different countries, is not convincing in linking mobile phone use to the occurrence of glioma or other tumours of the head region among adults.”

“Recent data from laboratory studies related to cancer do not seem to support the conclusion of IARC that RF EMF is a possible carcinogen.”

The researchers said that it was still not possible to make firm conclusions about the possibility of long-term health risks associated with mobile phone use, but current analysis of brain cancer trends of mobile phone users for up to 15 years use had found no elevated risks.

“The overall data on brain tumour and mobile telephony do not indicate an effect of mobile phone use on tumour risk, especially not when taken together with national cancer incidence statistics from different countries, the SSM report said.

“There is still only limited data regarding risks of long term use of mobile phones, but compared to the previous report, the evaluated exposure duration has increased to approximately 13-15 years of use.”

However, the researchers said it is possible that current data could not detect small to modest increased risks of cancer “restricted to heavy mobile phone use, to rare histological subtypes [of cancer] or to longer latency periods (>15 years).”

The researchers also said it is too early to draw firm conclusions on the risk of brain tumours for children and adolescents, but that current scientific evidence does not indicate an increased risk.

The SSM’s scientific council which produced the report was made up of scientists from around the world including the current head of the World Health Organization EMF Project Dr. Emilie van Deventer, Prof. Martin Röösli from the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Dr. Lars Klaeboe from the Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority and Dr. Eric van Rongen from the Health Council of the Netherlands.

The expert group also reviewed the latest research on possible health effects from base station exposures and said: “These new data do not indicate health risks for the general public related to exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields from base stations for mobile telephony, radio and TV transmitters, or wireless local data networks at home or in schools.”

There was also no evidence to support the belief of people who claim to be sensitive to electromagnetic fields that wireless signals are the cause of their symptoms.

“While the symptoms experienced by patients with perceived electromagnetic hypersensitivity are real and some individuals suffer severely, studies so far have not provided evidence that exposure to electromagnetic fields is a causal factor,” the SSM report said.

The research found that cell phone radio frequency field strength was more than five times stronger when in transit, compared to when in operation at a stationary position.

The media reported the study found stationary cell phones emitted 0.08 volts per meter and in transit cell phone’s emitted 0.42 volts per meter and this was a potential health risk.

“Inside subways, the radio waves coming out of cell phones are constantly trying to connect to base stations. This process requires a large amount of electromagnetic energy. Also when in a sealed elevator, these waves bounce off you,” researcher Jun-hyuk Lee from the Occupational Medical Research Institute, Hanyang University, told Arirang TV.

“This is not new information. Cell phones adjust their output power according to the quality of the radio link and operate at very low powers when in areas of good signal and power may increase due to handovers, especially for GSM, to ensure that the call is not dropped and this may be more frequent when moving at speed or in urban areas,” Senior Director of Research and Sustainability for the GSMA Dr Jack Rowley said.

A study in 2000 showed 2G networks require more power during handover and average output increased to 20 to 50 per cent of the phones’ maximum for a short time. The average power output of a mobile phone operating on 2G networks was 35 per cent of the phone’s maximum power output compared to less than one per cent for 3G networks.

“However, all cell phone models are tested to ensure they cannot exceed the international exposure limits even when a phone is operating at full power,” Dr Rowley said.

To improve battery life and network capacity cell phones and their base stations have always reduced their power output to the minimum level required to make a quality connection, this also has benefits for the environment, he said.

A recent analysis of more than 3.5 million calls – made from specially designed ‘trace mobiles’ that can register the transmitted and received powers during a call – on 2G and 3G networks confirmed the earlier results.

Suggestions by the researcher that the radio waves bounce around elevators and increase exposures to dangerous levels have not been found to be correct either.  Earlier studies have found that exceeding the safety standards due to simultaneous use of several mobile phones in enclosed areas is highly improbable, Dr Rowley said.

“Compliance tests are done at the maximum power of the phone and the exposure limit for the public includes an added safety factor of 5000 per cent to ensure all users are protected against all established hazards. Therefore, compliance is not in question due to the variation in power output during use in different urban environments,” Dr Rowley said.