Non-ionizing electromagnetic hazards and harms

[austin_howell]

So I am starting the RMF for a device that will be used at home and will communicate information to a centralized service via cell communication. I am trying to understand the hazards and harms associated with non-ionizing radiation (RF emissions) and haven't found many resources. There are some obvious hazards, like if we used zero engineering consideration then we could potentially pump out a high risk amount of power closer to that of a microwave and cause thermal burns. I have also found some studies that analyze the long term of effects of cell phones and cell communication, but nothing that is definitive about real harms.

I've found some helpful information on from the FDA Guidance on wireless devices, as well as a technical report published by the General Account Office. However, both of these seem to be helpful to better an understanding of RF emissions and how to "engineer" a safe device, but neither really discusses the immediate harms of RF emissions.

 

[Miner]

Have you seen the FCC's information on this? Or OSHA?

 

[Randy]

Harm from non-ionizing radiation? Easy to answer.........Put a mouse or a frog in a microwave and turn it on high, you'll see the harm.

Lay in a tanning bed for 10 hours straight, more evidence of harm.

Take a high energy x-ray of your mouth or any other part of your anatomy about 100 times in a single day and enjoy the results.

Alpha, Beta and Gamma are bad but so is non-ionizing in the long run

 

[Tidge]

Take a high energy x-ray of your mouth or any other part of your anatomy about 100 times in a single day and enjoy the results.

I am reminded of a favorite movie line:

Ra-di-a-tion. Yes, indeed. You hear the most outrageous lies about it. Half-baked goggle-box do-gooders telling everybody it's bad for you. Pernicious nonsense. Everybody could stand a hundred chest X-rays a year. They ought to have them, too.

 

[DanMann]

Are you concerned about the cell communications causing harm to the user or interfering with other instruments or something else? For IVDs, you can look at the IEC 61326 series of standards and I believe there are similar under IEC 60601 for non-IVDs. These then reference out to other standards on EMC and RF. The instrument I was involved in had transmitter components certified to the applicable ETSI standard, then the instrument was tested for EMC to IEC 61326.

 

[dgrainger]

ICNIRP - International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection are great source of scientific information:

ICNIRP | Publications

Publications

www.icnirp.org

 

[Randy]

ICNIRP - International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection are great source of scientific information:

ICNIRP | Publications

Publications

www.icnirp.org

Most times something says "International Commission" whatever I cringe.

 

[Tidge]

I reviewed a couple of the papers at the linked site; I think they are informative. I was specifically looking for something like a introductory (or general) survey of possible (optical) harms from light sources and I felt like those resources were a reasonable starting point.

Of course, I recall the days when 60601-1 equated LEDs with lasers... at least one of the docs I reviewed casts some shade on that era, yet in a very professional and informative manner.

 

[d_addams]

So I am starting the RMF for a device that will be used at home and will communicate information to a centralized service via cell communication. I am trying to understand the hazards and harms associated with non-ionizing radiation (RF emissions) and haven't found many resources. There are some obvious hazards, like if we used zero engineering consideration then we could potentially pump out a high risk amount of power closer to that of a microwave and cause thermal burns. I have also found some studies that analyze the long term of effects of cell phones and cell communication, but nothing that is definitive about real harms.

I've found some helpful information on from the FDA Guidance on wireless devices, as well as a technical report published by the General Account Office. However, both of these seem to be helpful to better an understanding of RF emissions and how to "engineer" a safe device, but neither really discusses the immediate harms of RF emissions.

Don't confuse identifying the hazards with assessing the likelihood and severity of harm from the hazards.

The hazards for such a device are inherent in designing a device which uses (generates) a non-ionizing electromagnetic communication scheme. So your hazard would be something like EM signal is being sent out. Some hazardous situations would be exposing living entities (humans/animals) to the EM radiation, causing interference to other devices, accepting interference from other devices. The mitigation is likely to be ensuring the EM signal meets certain recognized standards for use in household/commercial applications and the device has a certain level of EMI resistance.
There has to be a lot of papers out there discussing the potential and realized harms associated with the hazard of EM signals (i.e. people wear tinfoil hats for a reason).

 

[austin_howell]

Thank you to @Minor and @dgrainger for the resources. Both which I think provide the information I was looking for!