The influence of the reflective environment on the absorption of a human male exposed to representative base station antennas from 300 MHz to 5 GHz.
Vermeeren G, Gosselin MC, Kühn S, Kellerman V, Hadjem A, Gati A, Joseph W, Wiart J, Meyer F, Kuster N, Martens L. · 2010
View Original AbstractReflective surfaces can increase cell tower radiation absorption by up to 630%, yet safety guidelines ignore real-world environments.
Plain English Summary
Researchers used computer modeling to study how reflective surfaces like walls and ground affect radiation absorption in the human body when exposed to cell tower antennas at various frequencies. They found that reflective environments can dramatically change radiation absorption levels - sometimes reducing it by 87% and other times increasing it by 630% compared to open space exposure. This reveals that current safety guidelines, which don't account for reflective environments, may not adequately protect people in real-world settings with buildings and metal surfaces.
Why This Matters
This research exposes a critical blind spot in how we assess EMF safety. The science demonstrates that reflective surfaces in our environment - walls, buildings, metal structures - can dramatically amplify or reduce radiation absorption in unpredictable ways. What this means for you is that the safety assessments used to approve cell towers assume you're standing in an empty field, not in the real world surrounded by reflective surfaces. The study's finding that current safety guidelines 'not always showed to be compliant' when accounting for realistic environments should concern regulators. Put simply, we're using safety standards based on idealized conditions that don't exist in the places where people actually live and work.
Exposure Information
Specific exposure levels were not quantified in this study. The study examined exposure from: 300 MHz, 450 MHz, 900 MHz, 2.1 GHz, 3.5 GHz and 5.0 GHz
Study Details
This study investigates numerically the variation on the whole-body and peak spatially averaged-specific absorption rate (SAR) in the heterogeneous virtual family male placed in front of a base station antenna in a reflective environment.
The SAR values in a reflective environment are also compared to the values obtained when no environm...
It has been observed that the ratio of the SAR in the virtual family male in a reflective environmen...
Show BibTeX
@article{g_2010_the_influence_of_the_2658,
author = {Vermeeren G and Gosselin MC and Kühn S and Kellerman V and Hadjem A and Gati A and Joseph W and Wiart J and Meyer F and Kuster N and Martens L.},
title = {The influence of the reflective environment on the absorption of a human male exposed to representative base station antennas from 300 MHz to 5 GHz.},
year = {2010},
url = {https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20808028/},
}