Friday, February 18, 2011

Surprise! China's Safety Standard >100 times stricter than Canada's

中文按此
Many people would be surprised to know that CHINA actually has a safety standard in electromagnetic radiation which is much stricter than our Canadian one.

Reasons:

(1) During the Cold War, the embassies of the communist countries and US/UK were heavily zapping each others with low-level microwave, causing embassy staff to have cancers and mental illnesses. China was well aware of the potential harm that electromagnetic radiation could lead to.  
De-classified Naval Research Report on MICROWJAVE AND RADIO-FREQUENCY RADIATION compiled in 1971, after the Cold War was over:

(2) China is one of the few countries (if not the only one!) which has conducted large-scale microwave radiation study on humans. In the 1980s, in one study they use 1312 workers, divided them into a control group plus two groups of different occupational radiation levels. In another study, they used 1859 youngsters (kindergarten to college age). 1170 subjects were divided into various ages and exposure levels. Another group of 689 subjects at the same ages and grades acted as the control group. The "results showed that chronic exposure to EMFs are associated with a variety of non-specific symptoms, including increased frequency of neuroses, liability of vegetation nervous system, and slight changes in peripheral blood, lens, and non-specific immune function... the existence of health hazardous effects of RF (radiofrequency) and MW (microwave) could not be denied." http://www.salzburg.gv.at/Proceedings_%2820%29_Chiang.pdf

Based on those studies, the "General Public Exposure Limits to RF Radiation in China (by Ministry of Health)" for the range of >0.3-300 GHz (incl. Wi-Fi range 2.4 GHz) was set at 10 μW/cm2.

In 2006, with further EMF studies and scientific findings, National Institute for Environmental Health and Related Product Safety in Beijing called for a further reduction on the exposure level.  According to
Professor Zhaojin Cao, "To sum up, recent ten years (1994-2004) epidemiological studies in EMF in China found that low intensity EMF might have some bad effects on health, and what should be highly concerned is that some bad effects were caused by exposure lower than the present EMF limit. As above mentioned, precaution strategy should be adopted when amending and prescribing new exposure limit for the public." 
Prof. Zhaojin Cao directs the National Institute for Environmental Health & Related Product Safety, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, located in Beijing China. Since 1997, he has published research on mobile phone health effects and protection. He is a member of the WHO EMF Project's International Advisary Committee (IAC). He is a member of the Chinese Biomedicine Engineering Association, and is the editor of the Journal of Hygiene Research. 
Please note that Health Canada's current "safety" limit is 1000 μW/cm2 - more than 100 times higher than that of China and many countries in the world:

    *  USA\Canada = 1000 μW/cm2 (microwatts /cm2)
    *  Italy, Russia, Poland, Paris (France),
        China, Switzerland, Hungary = 4.25-10 μW or lower/cm2

    *  Belgium (Brussels, Wallonia, Flanders),
        Bulgaria, Luxembourg = 2.4 μW
    *  Salzburg (Austria) = 0.001-0.0001 μW/cm2 (outdoor-indoor)
  
Latest  ( 2011 ) Safety Limit proposed by European Scientists based on biological effects discovered: 0.017 μW/cm2