> Apple said it had provided ANFR with multiple Apple and independent third-party lab results proving its compliance with all applicable SAR regulations and standards in the world.
This is nothing new. My grandmother worked in a lab testing for compliancy (testing the amount of lead in paints, etc) and had a story or 2 of her getting pressured to use the prescribed methodology which was incorrect.
When she refused her boss took it to someone else because the contract with the big company was too pricey to lose.
There's a canyon of knowledge between a lot of engineers and test labs. You would've thought that a company that provides medical certification would know how to test medical products. But the number of times I've had to explain standards to test houses is not even funny
They won’t get the contract from the OEM if they aren’t known for getting the results the OEM wants. Seems that with qualified people conducting the test they’d be out of business.
Could the exact same thing be said about whomever the French are hiring? They want to have findings or else all the money they spent ensuring compliance is effectively wasted.
that presupposes that france wants to ban the phone. charitably they just want an accurate measurement so they can apply their regulations. the lab has no incentive to find either way
No, it presupposes this list of things unrelated to france or phones (or strictly speaking, only the last item on this list):
- companies engaged in government contracts would rather continue to be engaged in government contracts than have them be terminated
- politicians would prefer to say they spent your taxpayer dollars on something that caused a change which “benefited” you, rather than say they spent them on something that had no perceptible impact
- there exist technicians engaged in testing who believe the above two are true, and have the capacity to make micro-decisions in testbench setup that can affect the general bias of the results
That all said, based on the other commented here it seems french politicians took EU guidelines for 5mm exposure and demanded those same number at 0mm. So it really is the french politicians wanting to ban the phones.
"RF engineers" is a very broad term. There's RF engineers who understand the dark arts of antenna design and bending the signal to their will, and RF engineers who can click a few buttons to make sure the antenna is within spec
No they were fully compliant, and it's certainly the case here too with the iPhone 12.
The bulk of replies to my comment are hilarious to read: ass-talking conspiracy theories presenting zero factual understanding of how RF regulation in the various markets takes place.
And that shouldn't necessarily be surprising or taken as an indication of foul play. Really small incidental differences in test setup or equipment can mean different labs doing the same test get different results.
I do find this difference to be surprisingly large, it's not like the threshold is 4W/kg and Apple claims they measured 3.9 and France claims they measured 4.1... But what do I know.
If the labs use a round robin method for validation of their testing methods the quality of their measurements should be high, shouldn’t they? In other words, who is validating apple’s labs?
I have taken products through this sort of testing in a previous life. There are many hard-to-replicate factors that influence test results.
For example, in my direct experience (not with phones, but networking gear), the way the product is placed in the test fixture and the way cables are dressed has an impact on emissions and measurements. In one scenario, as a product engineer supporting equipment through a certification lab, I had the mandate to pass with a 3 dB margin from the company I worked for, but, after days of testing and failing, it was decided that the equipment under test could pass with cables routed in a special way (which was not uncommon for normal customer use) and with quasi-peak detection (i.e. averaging the emission peaks) that ended up below the regulatory (FCC for example) passing below the regulatory mask/level by a fraction of a dB. I have always wondered whether a different test lab, without support from product engineers, would pass the same test. I think the answer in "no".
Edit: Quasi-peaking was not a dirty trick that was pulled to pass certification. It was an acceptable method of measuring emission power suggested by the lab technicians.
Thanks for the technical explanation. For a regulatory system however I would assume it’s important that a third-party that follows a standardized procedure can reproduce low emissions, otherwise who could verify that numbers were not forged?
If I bring my car to the testing to the accredited testing company in Germany, they test the exhaust fume profile and give me a certificate if it’s within range. I cannot just run my own testing regime and self-issue that.
France has a huge "cellular EM waves are bad" movement so I wouldn't trust them about this either. It's weird that they are the only country where these iPhones seem to misbehave.
Well if it was for the "cellular EM waves are bad" movement as you put it they would have a problem with most cellular phones and not specifically with the iPhone 12 don't you think?
Maybe, I'm just saying that the country has a different... opinion on EM waves so that might reflect on this type of action. Just as an example, if you go to their "CDC"'s (not exactly) website, the faq about em exposure from cellular waves starts by saying that there's no real proof for harmful effects buuuut... then goes on to basically say the opposite for the majority of the answer and the article in general.
(Q3)
>In the current state of knowledge, the Agency's work does not demonstrate a causal link between exposure to waves emitted by mobile communications and effects on health.
>However, some publications suggest a possible increase in the risk of brain tumors, in the long term, for intensive users of mobile phones, which is why the IARC (International Agency for Research on Cancer) has classified radiofrequencies as “possible carcinogenic”.
>Furthermore, the latest ANSES expert opinions have revealed, with limited levels of proof, various biological effects in humans or animals, some of which had already been reported in a previous expert opinion published in 2009: they can concern sleep, male fertility in animals or even cognitive performance.
So again, it's a different pov. And it's weird that no other country came up to the same conclusion as of now. Q7 is also funny as they recommend not using your phone a lot to avoid em exposure, which is true but in context is obviously implying that there is harm from said exposure.
Maybe it's just my own perception but it is one of the more widespread "out there" belief in France. It's even supported by national agencies, see my other comment.
Yeah, but these people typically target antennas, not 3 years old phones. And don't work for the ANFR. Source: french, living in a small town with its own anti-EM association.
I don't know the spread of this movement but it does exist. For example, the national electric company deployed a new generation of electric meter (Linky) which can communicate data to your supplier using PLC. This communication of course emits EM waves so some people objected to the installation of this meter.
IIRC the EM thing was marginal, a bigger deal was privacy (behaviours could be inferred and resold), and most of the outrage was that people feared being charged more.
It even predates 5G by a long shot, I recall anecdotes running the news headlines about some folks claiming newly installed (2G? 3G?) cell towers were causing them debilitating headaches, and covering walls and windows with tin foil made it better. It was later revealed that while the tower was indeed up it was entirely unpowered the whole time but that bit of news of course did not make it to the headlines.
But ironically those people were truly and seriously getting headaches and tin foil really made it better. People get to experience what they believe deep in their subconsious. See the Nocebo effect: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nocebo
Having 2 doctor parents and some amount of experience in the field of hypnosis, I can say these sort of things happen all the time to people.
Yes I don't think people realize how widespread stuff like homeopathy, cellular EM scare, antivaxx are widespread in Europe and the rest of the world. The US gets the spotlight but in other countries those opinions are often not even controversial (especially for less obvious stuff like radio waves etc)
OTOH, the French regulator publishing a product removal from market ON THE DAY of the marketing PR for the new iPhone is a distasteful attempt at raining on their parade.
OTOH the French regulator should not be even aware of marketing PR days for the hundred pf phones they test so your comment is a distasteful attempt to ascribe a meaning where there is none.
Also there’s a good chance Apple had some wiggle room in deciding the date that the iPhone 12 was pulled from the shelves. From apple’s perspective today sounds like a great day to pull the 12 because people would just assume it’s not available any more now that the 15 is out.
> From apple’s perspective today sounds like a great day to pull the 12 because people would just assume it’s not available any more now that the 15 is out.
It's even better because it's not available anymore exactly because of that reason :). You cannot get it in any (online) Apple Store, be it French or not.
ANFR is not the government. It’s a public agency not directly controlled by the government.
Nobody in the government cares about the iPhone 12. And concerning the current government, I’m pretty sure they are all owning iPhones, they all would love a selfie with Tim Cook and don’t even know what DAS is.
Worth noting that this is due to the French regulators applying the same SAR absorption standard as the rest of the EU but at a closer distance. Obviously radiation follows the inverse square law so this means you absorb more radiation in France ;)
Even despite this reduced allowable emission the iPhone is barely out of compliance, they will need to reduce power less than 10% or simply get another few millimeters farther away.
Is this true? The article claims that the European (EU?) regulations are 4W/kg at 0mm and 2W/kg at 5mm distance. Is the article incorrect in this? Do you have a reference to the actual SAR regulations?
Sounds like the article is incorrect. The relevant standard for EU-wide regulations is EN 50566:2013, which allows manufacturers to choose the separation with up to 25mm (most vendors standardized on 15mm because this is the maximum separation allowed under the FCC standard).
The french disagree with this standard and specify the limits at 0mm and 5mm separation, which obviously increases absorption. However, they did not increase the absorption limits accordingly.
Thus, actually most phones are out of compliance with the new french regulations (ANFR describes it as "a large proportion of phones" as being out of compliance, sounds like de-facto it's almost all). Since the EU is more of an advisory body and allows individual countries to set such limits individually, the EU has issued an application restriction which prohibits their usage in France (presumably until manufacturers patch TX power limits downwards as Apple will most likely do).
I guess you can describe that as an "EU limit" since it's an application restriction approved by the EU, but it's not the same limit as applies in the rest of the EU, it's a local application restriction issued at the request of french regulatory bodies applicable only in france.
I can get behind removing the ambiguity of manufacturer-chosen testing distances and officially specifying this at 15mm. Or if you think that's unrealistic then 5mm and 0mm also make sense, but if you move the emitter closer you're gonna get a stronger signal and the SAR threshold should be adjusted accordingly. Which the french didn't do, because they're low-key catering to the "phones cause cancer" wackos here for political play.
But this isn't just an apple thing and there will be a patch reducing your signal strength for android too, most likely. iphones just get lots of media play.
"optical center" of the antenna probably is at least 5mm even with a phone pressed against your head, given the distance the ends are away. and things like clothing or purses add interposing distance too.
again though it's all a matter of how you design the test. if the source comes closer, the output is going to go up. using the same number but way closer than everyone else is actually using a lower number than everyone else.
again, I'm OOP and (while I'm not a doctor) my take is that the scale of cellphone ownership is far too big (at 4x+ these french emission limits, per the ANFR charts) for these to be reasonable decisions. cellphones at the customary frequency bands and emissions levels just are not that much of a health hazard, or else there would have been observable results bounded by the sample size (large). And really there are practical technical limits to how much power it's worth pounding out before you overwhelm the cell site or drain your battery in an hour. It's optimal for everyone if noise floors are low.
> "optical center" of the antenna probably is at least 5mm even with a phone pressed against your head, given the distance the ends are away. and things like clothing or purses add interposing distance too.
it is, and the french are kinda catering to the wackos by letting them tinker with the EU/FCC standards. unsurprisingly when you place the phones closer than normal, you get a higher measurement, and if you do not adjust the absorption limits then wow, it's over the limit! scary!
but there's no particular reason to think that this new, effectively lower absorption limit correlates to any particular health risk, or that it's a relevant threshold for absorption now that you've moved the phone closer.
the fact of the matter is, if there was some major absorption risk from phones, we'd have seen an abrupt spike in cancer rates in the 2000s when like 90% of the population suddenly started carrying a phone against their body for 16 hours a day. The world’s greatest (and ethical!) A/B test lol.
The evidence is already in, just from weight of mass public usage. At least at these frequencies and transmit powers.
In some countries cell phones became ubiquitous even earlier, like in Japan where they started taking off in the 90s (~1 million phones by 1991, 10 million by 1995, 50 million by 1999).
I believe the concern is that non-ionizing radiation can still warm tissues, and depending on the frequency, these can be deeper than what normal sunlight or IR radiation would reach.
Whether a few milliwats of that type of warming are actually cause for concern I don't know, but even if it's bogus, that doesn't mean that regulators will not be enforcing legal maximums anyway.
>In 1996, the Federal Communications Commission, or FCC, adopted exposure guidelines that limited the intensity of exposure to radiofrequency radiation. These guidelines were designed to prevent significant heating of tissue from short-term exposure to radiofrequency radiation, not to protect us from the effects of long-term exposure to low levels of modulated, or pulsed, radiofrequency radiation, which is produced by cellphones, cordless phones and other wireless devices, including Wi-Fi.
>Yet, the preponderance of research published since 1990 finds adverse biologic and health effects from long-term exposure to radiofrequency radiation, including DNA damage.
>More than 250 scientists, who have published over 2,000 papers and letters in professional journals on the biologic and health effects of non-ionizing electromagnetic fields produced by wireless devices, including cellphones, have signed the International EMF Scientist Appeal, which calls for health warnings and stronger exposure limits. So, there are many scientists who agree that this radiation is harmful to our health.
Sorry, but the quoted article seems a bit dubious to me:
> The difference is the kind of microwave radiation each device emits. With regard to cellphones and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, there is an information-gathering component. The waves are modulated and pulsed in a very different manner than your microwave oven.
What is an "information-gathering component"? What does that have to do with pulsed emitters and (averaged) EIRP values, which definitely is a thing for some, but not all of the mentioned transmission technologies: Especially 3G and some versions of Wi-Fi use DSSS or other spread-spectrum techniques which are not pulsed, unlike TDMA.
I could even see an argument being made for "pulsing" making a difference and maybe another measure than the EIRP being needed (just like how the linear-no-threshold model for the effects of radiation on organisms might be a simplification of what's actually going on), but then it doesn't help to just throw a bunch of wildly different wireless technologies, using greatly varying transmission powers from 10 mW to 2000 mW, into a single bag and call them "very different from microwave ovens" without describing what that means.
I assume they mean each pulses at a different frequency range, the information is gathered or clumped up around its own band.
You can assume modern articles repeat themselves and say the same thing several times. I suppose this is the first useful instance I've seen... or is it?
> What does that have to do with pulsed emitters and (averaged) EIRP values
I'm definitely not an expert but I can share my layman view on the topic.
Equivalent isotropic radiated power is just power.
If you strike an object it makes a sound, it vibrates at it's own frequency. Sometimes it dampens quickly sometimes it sticks around. Like say a bell, a wine glass or a tuning fork.
It takes very little energy to push a swing and keep it going. It will eventually get rid of the energy though friction but much slower than you can gently push it up to speed. You can't push the swing at some random frequency, you have to match it exactly (1/2 or 1/4 would also work of course) just like you cant shatter a whine glass if your voice doesn't match the frequency. You can make a hell of a lot of noise (power) without shattering any wine glasses.
EIRP would be like trying to destroy the glass with just decibels.
All parts of our body big and small vibrate too, with all the liquid it dampens quickly and there is very little for magnetism to hook into but if the frequency matches exactly (or some octave of it) it doesn't seem a stretch of the imagination that one can have an effect without much power. The power just needs to exceed dampening.
With dental fillings the effect is well known.[1][2] Say mercury spreads around the body, would that have no effect on reception?
Sorry to butcher the topic, I'm just trying to picture how it might work. There are plenty of (strange[3]) studies and 5000 scientists who agree it's just bad for our health.
And of course the addicts who don't want to hear any of it :)
If it isn't, it's probably only because of a loophole lobbied for by Big Shower. Technically in France it's only a Shower in the shower region, outside of that geographically protected area it must be referred to as an hot water cleanse.
Unshielded microwave ovens definitely cause cancer. The energy penetrates the skin, and some of it plays billiards with the atoms in DNA, genetic transcription machinery, etc.
I can’t find a study because the internet is full of blog spam saying your microwave oven has shielding that keeps emissions to a safe level (of course), and studies looking at microwave radiation exposure near the cell phone limit, not 1000x higher, which is roughly what your microwave does if the shielding is missing or the safety interlock is broken.
Ionizing radiation damages DNA. But microwaves do not emit any ionizing radiation. For a microwave to damage your DNA it would have to burn your flesh. Then you wouldn't be worried about cancer, you'd be worried that you just microwaved your arm until it started burning.
I thought unshielded microwave ovens are a problem because they heat stuff, and humans operate quite close to their thermal maximum. If you're at the upper end of normal body temperatures, a change of just 8°F/4°C can bring you from normal operating temperature to cell damage.
“Cell phone radiation increases the risk for a number of biological and health disorders, including gliomas and acoustic neuroma brain cancer. Researchers discuss how to reduce the risk of cell phone radiation.”[1]
The evidence is very weak establishing a risk of any kind to radio transmission at the levels exhibited in consumer devices. And the risk of cancer specifically is even weaker.
The study mentioned by the person in the above article exposed rats and mice to levels far above any SAR limits, and across their entire body. The study authors themselves say it is not representative of human exposure. And even then, they found that male rats lived longer than their normal lifespans when exposed.
My guess is that "There are no neutrons flying around" is a flippant way to say it's not ionizing radiation, since the common ionizing radiation is made up of alpha particles, beta particles (electrons), neutrons or very high frequency photons.
Imagine it says "It's not like there are high speed neutrons flying around".
Once again, it all depends on the frequency! Gamma radiation is EM radiation and can cause nuclear fission [1], which in turn can release neutron radiation.
I'm fairly certain that no iPhone model to date emits gamma radiation, though.
Why did it take them so long to check the device? The iPhone 12 has been sold since 2020, so 3 years. They probably can't check every model released, but this is one of the most sold devices. If it was actually dangerous it would have been great to know it as soon as it got released, it's not some obscure product that no one heard of on the French market.
Governments do test products now and then, yes. But they aren't in the habit of routinely testing new products when they hit the market. I don't know what prompted this particular test, but it wouldn't surprise me if the ANFR just one day decided to test a bunch of models of iPhone (or a bunch of phone models in general) kind of arbitrarily.
There was a similar case recently where Sweden's equivalent decided to test a bunch of models of EV chargers and found some lacking.
In general, outside of these random tests, "they check the paperwork, not the thing itself" is correct.
Sure, but the "accredited" in accredited laboratory is itself a paperwork audit-based process. This is how you get your own paperwork as a manufacturer to give to an auditor to say "Look at our paperwork". It doesn't mean the regulator is somehow testing things itself.
>Someone with physics knowledge please calm me down?
All radio is non-ionizing EM, far lower frequency then visible light, thermal, etc. UV, Xrays, and gamma rays are in the opposite direction, higher frequency. Radio cannot do anything except minor amounts of heating, and at milliwatts of transmission power and inverse square law that's REALLY minor amounts of heating. There is no link to any sort of health effects from indirect distant exposure by far, far stronger things like radar or people working at AM/FM radio transmitters, nor any plausible theoretical one (though of course one should be careful with raw high power stuff that could create enough heat to cook, as well as the high voltage components that power it). Just in terms of natural exposure we face endless things that cause vastly stronger thermal effects.
I don't know if that's enough to calm you down, or if the entire planet going to massive wireless usage in the span of a decade and over a decade later no discernible significant related physical health effects (mental/social effects aside here, which are real but software not hardware) makes you feel better, but if nothing else don't get scammed by people who lump all "RADIATION!!" together as if the photoelectric effect and quantum mechanics was never discovered. Nor get hyperfocused on some specific tiny but "new" seeming device while ignoring the ginormously bigger ones around you take for granted and never think about (rightly in most cases).
That argument is actually the same error that GP criticizes: Wavelength (i.e. quantized energy) matters a lot.
Being irradiated by hundreds of watts of direct sunlight is fine for a short while (and causes skin cancer in the long term!), hundreds of watts of microwave radiation for the same duration is already pretty bad, and the only good thing about hundreds of watts of hard gamma radiation is that you don't have to worry about the long-term effects too much.
With mobile devices, we're talking about dozens or at most hundreds of milliwatts of microwave radiation though; there might be some effect, but I personally doubt it would be significant enough to worry about – earlier cell phones used way higher power levels, and I'm not aware of any link to cancer there. And they've been around for a while!
Last time I read up on it, the heating effect of holding any metal or plastic slab to the side of your head dominates any additional heat transfer from the EM radiation, even for fairly deep tissues.
I don't believe that low frequency would have adverse affects but I would like them to _really_ look into higher frequencies (as we approach microwave) just so, you know, we actually know if it's bad or not.
None of this "oops arsenic wallpaper is actually bad" "oops asbestos is actually bad" "oops lead in fuel is actually bad" "oops microplastics could actually be bad" stuff.
And we do care about walking in sunlight, it's called sunblock/suncream. People that spend their lives in a lot of sunlight are at higher risk for skin cancer, have you never seen what someone's skin looks like after a career of working outdoors?
As a Kiwi I guess I'm just more aware of the Sun; thanks to the rest of the world we have a huge ozone hole above us so our UV levels can get pretty mad around 11:00-13:00 in Summer.
..oops sun screen is actually bad too (Octocrylene is the latest problematic newcomer), and would need a very thick application to get the claimed effectiveness.
And then if you’re curious to know more about ionizing radiation and the scale at which we absorb it and where it really becomes concerning, there’s an XKCD for that: https://xkcd.com/radiation/
EM radiation striking your body is essentially just going to impart energy into your atoms/molecules.
All of the EM radiation emitted by a phone is very very far down in the non-ionising range. That means it can't directly damage the atoms/molecules in your body, it will just be heating those atoms/molecules a bit.
Wifi is 2.4GHz, 5GHz or 6GHz
Bluetooth is 2.4GHz
3G/4G/5G are in the same kinda range, with the exception of mmWave 5G which is up around 30GHz.
Infrared starts around 300GHz, then there's the whole visible light spectrum, and it's only once you get into ultra-violet around 3PHz (yes, Petahertz) that you reach the ionising band, where the radiation imparts enough energy into your constituent atoms/molecules that electrons are broken free. These free electrons will then damage your cells/DNA.
So far, there is no evidence that anything in the parts of the spectrum that are licensed for phones/wifi/bluetooth/etc are at all dangerous to humans.
Worry far more about the sun:
"Hence, a cell phone cannot transmit more than 0.125 Watts of energy to your head, while sunlight will transmit 43.8 W. This means that sunlight heats your head 350 times faster than a cell phone. In fact, since sunlight is a much higher frequency than cell phones, the sunlight energy is more dangerous (see Equation [1])."
Probably not the kind of physics knowledge you're expecting, but your regular phone probably also tends to be "tied" to your thigh in your pocket or to your hand when in use. If that's fine with you (weight and distraction concerns aside), a watch isn't that different.
I have a Samsung watch without cellular but with bluetooth communications instead.
Can someone eloborate what the difference is between celluar connections and other wireless tech like headless phones or watches? Is there any difference except strength etc.
Never believed it before, but suddently the thought of wireless technologies being bad gave me a reality check and I realized I have never questioned it.
> The World Health Organization states on its website that following a large number of studies that "no adverse health effects have been established as being caused by mobile phone use".
Nothing about the ultra has changed that fact that you still have to own an iPhone to pair it with, right? It can’t really be considered an independent device?
It has an esim and cellular connectivity, so you can leave your phone home on an outing, but there are things you can configure on your watch only when paired with an iPhone.
At the present, we don't have enough evidence to be concerned about low-power EM radiation. However, this does not rule out the possibility that in the future, we might find a causal link between that kind of radiation and adverse health outcomes. What we do know at the moment is that this type of radiation can heat tissues. What are the long-term biological consequences of that? We don't really know. My advice: try to minimize your exposure out of caution, but don't get too worried about it.
Just to be clear, I don't think that low-power EM radiation poses a health risk. I am just saying that if you are worried about it (like OP is) you can simply reduce your exposure to it. Doing so is relatively easy and has a minimal quality of life impact. As others have mentioned, low-power EM radiation in the frequency range used by cellphones is non-ionizing, so it can't cause cancer or severe health issues in the same way that ionizing radiation can.
My point is that if OP cares about those risks, they'd prioritize other higher risks first, and they'd run out of quality of life long before they got to this one.
As for those telephones that are already in use, Apple must adopt all necessary
corrective measures to bring the telephones into conformity as soon as possible,
otherwise, Apple will have to recall the equipment.
We are mother nature and mother nature is us. It's all intertwined. An iPhone is as natural as a banana (earth -> tree -> banana, earth -> human -> iphone). The unnatural would be, by definition, impossible.
> The way things are, the totality of all things in the physical universe and their order, especially the physical world in contrast to spiritual realms and flora and fauna as distinct from human conventions, art, and technology.[0]
Without this exception "natural" loses all meaning; nothing would be considered artificial because everything inevitably comes from the earth.
I've seen people use "constructed" instead of "artificial", and I think it does make sense because it relates to the human action and intention behind the changes we make to the environment. I'm not too sure what would be the alternative to "natural" though.
About what? That we formed civilization, instead of being in packs hunting and gathering? Probably nothing, because mother nature is not personified being.
Apple might be able to fix this by asking the user if they're using a case,
Anyone using a case thicker than ~2mm will probably sufficiently reduce the surface SAR to bring it into compliance.
One might imagine a software update that asks if you're using a case. If you choose yes, nothing happens. If you choose no, then peak transmit power is reduced by 1dB (which will reduce upload speeds ~20%, and may reduce range too)
If you’re using an Apple case, you might not even get prompted, as the communicate their identity to the phone already (to show their color on screen).
I don't see anyone in this thread arguing against an abundance of caution. But an abundance of caution doesn't mean the "phones cause cancer people were right"
Yes, which is why the radiation limits for cell phones was set to 10x lower than the lowest amount that might be theoretically even slightly harmful.
Now one testing lab in France says that one particular phone is slightly (less than 10%) higher than those already very conservative, cautious limits.
Most likely scenario: the testing lab used the wrong methodology. This is what happened in France many times previously.
Also possible: the testing lab is right, some phones are slightly out of compliance. They're still safe. The radiation levels are still way below levels that are even theoretically harmful.
Or maybe because possibly interfering the operation of other electrical devices, that have only been tested to operate with certain levels of external interference; is a bad thing!
one side of the "debate" seem to be taken solely by Joel Moskowitz, who's cited in every article that promotes the message of "phone radiation is harmful"
The other side is funded and heavily influenced by the ”buy our Goji berries to shield your body from toxins and our shielding bracelet to stop harmful radiation from altering your chakras” quacks. There are no neutral parties in the argument
The US government has the funds to sponsor all of your neighbors. They could conspire with the US government to pretend like they go to work every day, so that they fool you, who are the only sucker in your neighborhood whose life isn't getting paid by the US government.
I honestly don't think it matters who has funds to do what... :) The "natural health" industry is a multi-billion dollar industry as well, and is a much more insidious than the telco industry if you ask me.
Aren’t all countries doing boosters? Which countries don’t have boosters? Do you know of any specifically?
This comment surprised me so I looked it up. The WHO report from Jan 2023 says 91 countries are reporting data on boosters. [1] The ‘our world in data’ site shows booster coverage for most of the world, only missing some countries in Africa and maybe small countries and islands too small to see on the map. Aside from the US, there’s booster coverage in Australia, Canada, China, Russia, India, all of Europe, all of South America, among others. This URL has the map view scrolled to May 2022, which appears to be the peak of the data reporting for boosters. [2]
So yes, boosters are being rolled out for older people and at-risk groups, all over the place.
I pretty much found these just by googling: <random country name> covid booster 2023
If/when you are an eligible age, will you get your health authority's recommended annual/winter flu jab? (e.g. the multivalent vacine offered to all eligible older adults in the UK).
In this day and age there's virtually no barrier to entry for spreading health disinformation and the quack health industry is huge, they sell a _lot_ of schlock. The fact that the people who are factually correct happen to also hold power doesn't matter since the kooks have no barriers to entry for spamming their disinformation across the internet and they're actually hard to avoid (as we see here). The people who are factually correct are generally at a disadvantage since the truth is boring and quacks can sell sensationalism ("your phone causes cancer!").
No, non-ionizing radiation is still not linked to cancer. However, SAR limits still exist because there is concern about localized heating of body tissue. As an extreme example, putting your head in a microwave and turning it on is not a good idea. Not because it will give you cancer, but because it will cook your head.
Not right, but influential on EU regulators. Hopefully EU citizens find such results as a mark of shame rather than pride and move towards fact-based policy. Emotion-based policy is dangerous.
According to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37496859, it seems like the article is wrong and the iPhone 12 isn't actually in violation of EU regulations. It's just in violation of France's regulations because France is weird.
Aspartame is still fine, and it is one of the most researched substances. This type of reasoning, that you are using, is down right unscientific, conspiratorial, and dangerous.
The general issue I've found with people that take this mindset is that they focus so much on the 0.000000001% risks that they miss a lot of 1% risks. Which I would say is unscientific in terms of minimizing ones risks.
This is a commonly (mis)-used argument, that misses the fact that if the statistics tell us the risk is less than some value (lets say 10^-6), the assumption is that the risk is 10^-6. Often, statistical tests have the power to detect very rare effects, but not effects that are even rarer. So less than 10^-6 does not mean the risk is one in a million, it means we do not know how low the risk is (could be 10^-23), but we know that it is no higher than 10^-6.
Someone who chooses not to do something over a 0.000000001% risk is either irrationally bad at math and statistics or needs to get some help with their anxiety. Experts would call things with a 0.000000001% risk "extremely safe" because in comparison to other daily risks inherent to existing as a human, that number is much much lower.
The risk of dying in a car in the US is 12,890,000 times higher.
The problem with academics and people that reason this way is that they put themselves on a pedestal and assume that their model represents reality 1:1 with a zero margin of error. You must trust the model otherwise you are labeled a conspiracy theorist. I don’t just distrust the study, I distrust the model and the risk assumptions put in place. I don’t need a nanny state to shove down my throat things I don’t want. For what it’s worth, I’d be happy for everything to be deregulated and everyone taking their own decision. Calling people conspiracy theorist or stupid because they don’t agree with you is just bizarre.
> I don’t just distrust the study, I distrust the model and the risk assumptions put in place.
We're talking about the most studied food additive in history. There isn't a single study or single model we're talking about here, it's a large body of evidence.
> I don’t need a nanny state to shove down my throat things I don’t want. For what it’s worth, I’d be happy for everything to be deregulated and everyone taking their own decision.
Then be comfortable making your decision that way. There's no need to misrepresent scientific consensus to justify a dislike for aspartame.
The fact of the matter is that "aspartame causes cancer" is a claim which is not supported by any rigorous science by anyone with any "model".
The WHO said that it's a possibility. Group 2B classification is extremely precautionary and includes a lot of scary-sounding chemicals, but also a lot of quite ordinary things like aloe vera and kimchi. Many licensed medicines and permitted food additives are classified in Group 2B - while there's a possibility that they may be carcinogenic, there isn't enough evidence to justify withdrawing those products from the market.
It's pretty clearly not though. We've had a huge adoption of mobile phones in a very short time, and we've seen no corresponding signal in the cancer rates across the globe. So the effect size is bounded to some extremely low value, probably zero.
> It's pretty clearly not though. We've had a huge adoption of mobile phones in a very short time, and we've seen no corresponding signal in the cancer rates across the globe. So the effect size is bounded to some extremely low value, probably zero.
> Cancer incidence across Europe has risen by approximately 50% over the past two decades from 2.1 million to 3.1 million cases between 1995 and 2018 in Europe.
> There are several factors that help to explain the increase in incidence: population growth, population ageing, exposure to risk factors, improved screening and improved outcomes in other diseases (meaning that more people are reaching an advanced age, leaving them at risk of cancer). The incidence of different cancer types varies widely between different European countries, due to these factors.
There are better epistemic standards available than "numbers went up so my hobby horse causal ideal is doing it" despite its popularity on social media.
People living longer and cancer being diagnosed and reported more are the reasons for higher cancer rates. The rates of all kinds of cancer have been rising. If it was being cause by radio waves you would expect it to be certain kinds of cancer. Radio waves from mobile phone don't penetrate flesh very far, so you would expect skin cancer to increase more than other cancers.
High power radio transmissions have been used since the 40s.
It is far more likely that it is due to numerous other causes, some even with proven links – there is, however, still no links to mobile phone use, and no known mechanism by which it could even happen. Non-Ionizing Radiation causing cancer is probably as close to a physical impossibility as you get.
Besides, there are numerous of other sources of radiation that is much stronger, including visible lights. You should ban visible light before you ban mobile phones! This stuff is ridiculous,
Proving a link between cancer and one specific environmental factor is the physical impossibility you're looking for.
Epidemiological studies tracking humans over time aren't controlled and will at best show a correlation worth studying, lab animal studies aren't great analogs given all the confounding factors and environmental differences with humans in real life, and unless the cancer causing agent acts quickly a controlled human study is likely impossible as controlling variables over years simply won't happen at scale.
Also the idea that visible light should be banned because radiation is an asinine argument meant to just badger without actually making a point.
Even that is a strong correlation though, and a simplified one at that. Context matters even for sun exposure, if solar radiation was a direct cause of cancer you should reliably see consistent skin cancer rates among people with similar complexion and exposure rates.
I've seen some really compelling research looking into diet changes that may impact risk of skin cancer, specifically an increase in saturated fats helping to reduce risk. The idea is that saturated fats are envloved in the process of your body turning UV into vitamin D. With more saturated fats in your system the UV has effectively has a job and is processed by the body.
My point is simply that the body is complex, cancer generally develops over years, and trying to narrow down a common link strong enough to claim causation is tricky if not impossible.
> if solar radiation was a direct cause of cancer you should reliably see consistent skin cancer rates among people with similar complexion and exposure rates.
...which you do.
> My point is simply that the body is complex, cancer generally develops over years, and trying to narrow down a common link strong enough to claim causation is tricky if not impossible.
That sounds like weasel language to try to muddy the waters to me. If it's tricky or impossible to nail down the effect must be small, and probably not worth caring much about.
I'd assume the same baseband firmware but antenna slightly different. I have one too. I think the SAR test is pretty laughable but also would rather have it done than not.
I'd really like to know what bands its speaking on when exceeding the values (2G/LTE-x).
It is possible however that this SAR violation only applies to certain bands or that the cell tower already is requesting a lower transmit power. Therefore there is a good chance users don't see much impact.
As someone who bought a 1k+$ phone from Apple i would be pissed if they dropped upload speed by that much. Surely there has to be an SLA that they have to uphold. No?
In a way, you have had an unfairly high upload speed for the last 3 years, while every other phone manufacturer has been sticking to the rules and therefore sees lower speeds.
Individual countries within the EU have their own regulators who make their own enforcement decisions.
The EU isn't a super-state and EU law isn't applied by some overarching entity. On a technical level, each country ratifies and applies their own laws in their own ways.
Given this, other countries could act on this too, but it's the French regulator who has chosen to do so.
> The EU isn't a super-state and EU law isn't applied by some overarching entity
Yes-and-no: the EU Commission serves as the "executive branch" (Americanisms...) of the EU, and while the EU isn't a true federal superstate union yet, but there's enough similarities that the EU Commission probably does 80% of the work it would be doing if the EU were.
While the majority of EU directives are enforced by member states, the EU can enforce itself via several routes (e.g. there is now an EU public prosecution, and the EU parliament can vote to apply sanctions on its own members for non-compliance (e.g. Hungary).
That only prosecutes the misuse of EU funds (and perhaps the EU VAT border regime?) and even then only with cooperation with local prosecutors. In addition, the EU prosecutors are from the participating member states - several EU members are not yet participating.
> EU Commission probably does 80% of the work it would be doing if the EU were.
It's very far from that; notably health-and-safety enforcement is largely in the jurisdiction of members states.
EDIT: I'll admit I overlooked the US system's origins origins and concepts in France - but even though these concepts are not American in origin, the US is where all the mentions lead-to today.
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It is an Americanism because the term implicitly assumes two things:
1. That the government is split into branches, following how the US system evolved.
2. That executive power must be confined to a single branch, also how the US is organized.
Then, consider that other-countries-that-are-not-the-US do exist, many of those are liberal democracies that arguably function better than the US for various scores - and of those very few (if any?) of those are modelled on the US’ system. While some other countries have a US system but score poorly overall (e.g. Liberia).
It is demonstrable that deep separation between the agents of the government - and the state - is unnecessary for a functioning liberal-democracy today: many countries using the Parliamentary system have an executive cabinet and an executive PM role which, under the US system, is considered part of the legislature - and the US is hardly the best example of “separation” of the judiciary when you consider how explicitly political the judge appointment process is - and the volume of politically-motivated and arbitrary SCOTUS rulings over the past 120+ years.
———
I understand that (non-crackpot) political-scientists would agree that judicial independence alone is far more important to a functioning democracy than a system that constantly pits an executive President against the legislature whenever their political party affiliation differs.
Don’t get me wrong: accountability is of paramount importance; I just want to communicate that having “separate but co-equal branches of government”, “separation of powers” (and other thought-terminating-cliches from middle-school civics class) is both unique to the US - and is demonstrably unnecessary for a functioning liberal democracy.
> It is an Americanism because the term implicitly assumes two things:
> 1. That the government is split into branches, following how the US system evolved.
> 2. That executive power must be confined to a single branch, also how the US is organized.
I'm pretty sure these principles are originally French. The American system was built around these principles as well, but calling them American is a whole new level of Americentrism.
Separation of powers into three branches is basically a prerequisite for belonging to the EU, as it is considered a basic requirement for a democracy.
For that matter, the US and France are probably two of the modern democracies that have the least separation between these powers (on paper).
> I'm pretty sure these principles are originally French. The American system was built around these principles as well, but calling them American is a whole new level of Americentrism
I'll concede that - certainly.
> Separation of powers into three branches is basically a prerequisite for belonging to the EU, as it is considered a basic requirement for a democracy
The EU is concerned more with judicial independence, not constitutional separation-of-powers: most EU countries (and especially its founding and early members) do not have separation strictly along judicial/legislative/executive boundary lines: The UK, Germany, Spain, and others all have an executive parliament; France and the US are in the minority here.
> most EU countries (and especially its founding and early members) do not have separation strictly along judicial/legislative/executive boundary lines
1. Let's not count the UK because it's the earliest democracy, and also is the messiest one (no written Constitution...) and also it's not the earliest or current member of the EU.
2. What exactly is an 'executive parliament'? My understanding is that in parliamentary democracy, the parliament chooses the executive, but the executive powers lie solely with the executive (government), and the parliament in itself does not have any direct executive function. It can only legislate, not execute. Certainly that's the case for Germany and Central European parliamentary systems I know a little bit more of. Might be different in the US but we are talking about the EU now.
Sorry - I was being sloppy and made-up a term that at-the-time made sense to me but I didn't proofread my post...
But I was referring to any parliamentary system where executive power is held by (a subset of) the members of that parliament (i.e. how the PM's cabinet's members are MPs) - basically what Canada and the UK has, for example.
Ah ok now I understand. Don't know about Canada but the UK is certainly an exception in this regard. In Germany and rest of Central Europe the PM and ministers are not required to be MPs, in fact currently in Slovakia we have a interim government without any MPs at all. Also in Slovakia when a MP is made PM or member of government he is temporarily released from the parliament and a substitute from the party list is temporarily taking his MP place. In some other countries sitting MPs while in government still have to take care of their MP duties.
The EU is not and never (on human time scales) will be, as there is no appetite for a federal union in many member states and unanimity would be required.
Anything can happen in the same way as it happened with Maastricht and the Euro: cooperating countries would just go forward with new entities that inherit the previous institutions, dissolving or mothballing old entities. In the long run, the hard core inevitably wins.
Anything that includes France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, will inevitably drag everyone else one way or another.
> Anything that includes France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, will inevitably drag everyone else one way or another.
Maybe so, but whatever it became wouldn't be the EU and wouldn't include most of the current members states. It's obviously still an impossibility, as there is no appetite in any of those four countries for a federal EU.
You're making up your "obvious" reality there. EU federalism was born in France and remains strong in the other three countries I mentioned - it might not be a clear majority at the moment, but it's definitely a popular idea among large swaths of the population. The evolution of EU structures undeniably goes in that direction year after year, with stronger and stronger federal institutions.
There has never been even a hint of a popular federal movement in any of the countries which you mentioned, so I don't think I am.
> EU federalism was born in France and remains strong in the other three countries I mentioned - it might not be a clear majority at the moment, but it's definitely a popular idea among large swaths of the population.
That's a bold claim that I'm sure you'll be able to back up?
Honestly, I think you've allowed your own preferences and wishful thinking to cloud your judgement here.
> a bold claim that I'm sure you'll be able to back up?
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14651165221101505 - this paper explicitly sets out to find non-federalist views, reporting that 44% hold "traditional" views (federalists and separatists), which would indicate federalism is about 20-25% of the population - that's a "large swath", in my book. And that's pure-federalism; the generic support that can likely be turned is much higher.
I mean, that's just a random source. The news focus on anti-europe trends these days because, for so long, pro-europe ones were the mainstream default.
Your source doesn't at all support your claim. Meanwhile, there is no indication in any polling that any of the countries you mention have even single-digit support for federalisation.
As I said, you've either blinded yourself or you're intentionally dishonest.
Technically, all of them are required to join once their structural problems are solved - it's not that they chose not to adopt but rather that they were left out to avoid compromising the currency. Most of them have a clear political will to join the eurozone. The only real exception is Sweden, which effectively enjoys a de-facto opt-out like Denmark, for historical reasons (although they are increasingly under pressure to join).
Regardless, the hard core has won because the Euro is now a cornerstone of EU policies, whether the non-EZ countries like it or not. Every project, every accounting in the Union is now done in Euros.
> Technically, all of them are required to join once their structural problems are solved - it's not that they chose not to adopt
Denmark has a real opt-out. They chose not to adopt in a referendum.
> Most of them have a clear political will to join the eurozone.
No they absolutely don't have that. Even leaving out Sweden and Denmark - it's a toxic political issue in Czechia even though de facto euro is widely used in the business. And while Hungary has currently no chance to fulfill the technical conditions, there is also no political will to join until Orban is in power (and that will be a long time). The ruling party in Poland (PiS) is also explicitly against the euro, as is majority of the population.
> the hard core has won because the Euro is now a cornerstone of EU policies
The Euro won through merit - it just makes sense to use a common currency in the common market.
> Denmark has a real opt-out. They chose not to adopt in a referendum.
I know. My sentence was meant to highlight how Sweden is de-facto in a similar position, if not de-jure.
> it's a toxic political issue in Czechia even though de facto euro is widely used in the business.
Translation: it's happening no matter what.
Hungary and Poland are currently suffering from backwards political headwinds. In the past they would have happily joined (but couldn't). But again, like in Chzechia, it's basically happening de-facto no matter what. Once sanity prevails, governments typically find that having multi-currency systems is a headache.
My country has a supreme law written in 1978. Any other law that conflicts with this one is illegal and must be repelled. Anyone who wants to overturn our 1978 law is effectively declaring war to us.
The first modification to that 1978 document came 14 years later, done for the sole purpose of keeping it in compliance with the Maastricht Treaty. The line in the sand you are fervently defending was crossed a long time ago.
I guess this is why geeks are largely not involved in political processes. People seeing all topics as 1s and 0s are called maximalists and typically laughed out of the room.
> and EU law isn't applied by some overarching entity.
It is. EU law as a whole is ultimately applied by an entity, the Court of Justice of the European Union. It is overarching, over national courts, over national governments, and over EU bodies.
Then within EU law, you have several branches and distribution of who has authority etc. Primary EU law is the foundational basis (some would say a "constitution" effectively even though the word has been a political minefield) and does provide some "overarching entity" in some areas.
Then within Secondaru EU law, you have regulations, orders, directives, etc. Many regulations and orders have an EU overarching entity, and in many cases the European Commission has a central role.
> On a technical level, each country ratifies and applies their own laws in their own ways.
That is a gross mischaracterisation and overgeneralization of EU Directives.
EU Directives as a general rule* don't have "direct effect" in a Member State. They set a goal agreed at the EU level, and the Member State are bound to implement the means in their national laws to reach the goal. That usually (but not always) means at a national level the adoption of a legal act by national Parliament.
*as a general rule because as always there are exceptions.
They should, but it's up to each country to enforce EU regulation.
The other countries radio regulation agencies have either not made the same measures, not measured the iPhone emissions at all, or have not yet decided what they were going to do.
- EU ratification
- national implementation
- national enforcement
The ratification is typically accompanied by an implementation deadline (usually in years) so there'll be cases of some countries following EU regs earlier than others.
Finally there's enforcement which is entirely in the hands of nation states pretty much - just because something is written in statute doesn't necessarily always translate to actual action.
I think the parent comment was poking fun at apple telling consumers they were holding the phones wrong, back when the case was part of the antenna and calls would drop.
>>> Poe's law is an adage of internet culture saying that, without a clear indicator of the author's intent, any parodic or sarcastic expression of extreme views can be mistaken by some readers for a sincere expression of those views
The truth is much more boring. Most devices don't get tested by governments, companies use certified labs to test their devices and then get the relevant certificates (CE markings etc) based on the paperwork from those certified labs. The surprising part here is that they decided to test the iPhone 12 at all, not that they haven't done it earlier.
It is related to the big tech UE regulation still missing out critical parts. For instance meta messaging regulation seems to be server based and not related to small tech client/protocols interop (for instance, IRC bridges, noscript/basic (x)html web, etc).
In what way do you think it is dangerous? Spoiler alert; it's not.
The main reason there are such power limits is because electrical devices are tested to withstand certain levels of interference from external sources.
Mobile phone vary their transmitting power depending on how close they are to the tower, so they do not jam other signals and it allows them to save power. Most of the time they are operating at a fraction of their peak power, where maximum power output is only used to ping towers when signal is lost.
"These limit values result from the work of the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection, ICNIRP. In 1998, the ICNIRP ruled in view of the state of available scientific knowledge and only retained the proven effects of exposure to waves, in particular the heating of tissues."
The regulation specifies a test that measures frequencies up to only 10GHz, which is far below ionizing radiation frequencies.
I don’t doubt that there has been extensive testing on radiation but knowing exactly which atoms and molecules are essential for the human body to sustain life and the corresponding energy levels at which those atoms and molecules ionize is probably outside the scope of high school physics.
It’s not clear where the boundary is within the UV-spectrum, because different materials react differently. But it is still within UV-light, and not at low red, definitely not at radio frequency.
> Apple said it had provided ANFR with multiple Apple and independent third-party lab results proving its compliance with all applicable SAR regulations and standards in the world.
https://www.reuters.com/technology/apple-disputes-french-fin...