SMs Worse Than Cell Phones – Two Orders of Magnitude

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Debunking ‘Cut-and-Paste Science’
New calculations suggest that continuous whole-body exposure to electro-magnetic radiation from so-called ‘smart’ meters – which operate around the clock – may be between 50 and 160 times worse that from cell phones.

For over 40 years Committee to Bridge the Gap, under the leadership of Dan Hirsch, has provided accurate, authoritative scientific information on the public health dangers posed by ionizing radiation emitted by nuclear materials and technologies – much to the discomfiture of the nuclear industry. Now Hirsch has weighed in on the non-ionizing radiation emitted by ‘smart’ meters, cell phones and other other wireless RF devices. [ For more on CBG – the Committee to Bridge the Gap – click here. ]

Hirsch’s critique of the recent draft report on ‘smart’ meter RF emissions issued by the California Council on Science and Technology (CCST) in response to requests from State legislator Jerad Huffman and others, shows that “the CCST draft report does not appear to include much if any independent work on the subject but rather merely pastes in a table taken from an 8-page pamphlet released a few weeks earlier by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), an advocacy group for the electric power industry.”

Hirsch observes, “The EPRI pamphlet is not a peer-reviewed scientific study. It is a brief item for an advocacy group that is supported by industry. If the elected officials wanted the industry’s views, it would have asked for them. Instead, it wished an independent, science-based study by an entity without the kinds of conflicts of interest EPRI has on this matter. But the CCST draft report is basically simply a cut-and-paste job from the EPRI brochure.”

Working with two graduate student assistants, Hirsch used the CCST’s own figures to calculate corrections to the multiple errors he found in the CCST report. His findings focus on whole-body exposure and ‘duty cycles,’ or the length of time ‘smart’ meters operate (24/7) as compared with the much shorter normal operation times of cell phone and microwave ovens. They are summarized in the chart below. [ Download a full PDF of the Hirsch critique here. ]

Figure A. Comparison of Radio-Frequency Levels to the Whole Body from Various Sources in μW/cm2 [microwatts per centimeter squared] over time – corrected for assumed duty cycle and whole body exposure extrapolated from assumed cell phone dose at ear.