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Electromagnetic Smog over Alaska

The use of radio for two-way communication and audio and video broadcasting is increasing in urban areas of Alaska; consequently there is an increase in the electromagnetic smog people are being exposed to.

At least one home located near transmitters on the mountain slope above Anchorage now is engulfed in radiowave emissions that exceed, by more than 200 times, the legal limit the Soviet Union allows for its citizens. Suspecting ill effects upon his family, the home owner asked the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services to measure the radiowave levels in his home. Responding, the Department measured power levels in the house up to a high of 250 microwatts per square centimeter.

This level of radiation caused no official alarm because there is no legal limit to electromagnetic radiation levels in the United States, and the measured radiowave energy in the home is only one-fourth the voluntary standard recommended by the American National Standards Institute: 1000 microwatts in the frequency range wherein the human body is most likely to be affected. Soviet law evidently dictates that a worker's environment should not exceed 10 microwatts and that the general public not be continuously exposed to levels above 1 microwatt.

As early as 1968, the U.S. President's Office of Telecommunications Policy recommended the placement of legal controls on radio-frequency radiation, yet we still have no enforceable standards. Currently, both Canada and Sweden are revising their standards downward.

If a person's body is immersed in a radiowave field, the electrons and ions in the body try to oscillate in unison with the radiowaves. In this way the body extracts energy from the waves. At worst, the body simply cooks, as does meat in the microwave oven. However, usually the effects are more subtle: prolonged exposure to high radiation levels causes irreversible effects such as eye cataracts, hearing problems, weight loss and premature senility. Short-term exposure to moderately high radiation levels or long-term exposure to lesser levels may only cause reversible effects such a slow heart beats, chest pains, impairment of mental ability and other effects of subjective nature such as memory loss, insomnia, headaches and irritability.

The reversible effects--especially the subjective ones--are hard to test for, and there has not been enough research to prove just what levels of exposure do create problems in humans. Therefore it is most difficult to say what level of exposure is safe and what level is not. Tests on animals seem to be showing ill effects from exposure levels well below the voluntary U.S. standard.

The reason why radiowaves cause the subjective and other changes in humans likely is the impact upon body chemistry, particularly the chemistry involved in the workings of the nervous system. Exposure to levels well below the recommended U.S. standard does cause changes in calcium, potassium and sodium concentrations vital to the transmission of nerve pulses, and hence to information transfer in the brain.

At present, the American citizen who is worried about this matter can do little to protect himself other than to try to avoid personal exposure. The Anchorage family living in the house that they consider to have too high an exposure to radiowaves have done just that. They moved their sleeping quarters down into the basement of their home, where the radiation level is low.