Subject: Microshield's claims of shielding effectiveness (fwd) Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 085213 -0500 (CDT) From: "Roy L. Beavers" <rbeavers@llion.org> To: emfguru <rbeavers@llion.org> -------------------------------------------------- .......Jerry, has funding been withdrawn??? See last paragraph (below)......guru...... ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 09:21:25 EDT From: MICROSHLD@aol.com To: rbeavers@llion.org Cc: radiation@iafrica.com Subject: Microshield's claims of shielding effectiveness Dear Roy, I read with some interest an e mail from someone called Wolfgang which I thought deserved a reply. Please be aware that the Microshield's aerial guard is not positioned in front of the antenna at all, but rather at the side and also physically touches it. Antenna radiation attenuation is in fact by absorption and not reflection and Wolfgang’s correct observation that the radiation “bends” around shields, does not therefore apply to our product. Since launching to the public nearly two years ago, we have been aware of a succession of copy shielding products follow us onto the market, claiming to reduce emissions by the same level as the Microshield. These can be generally broken down into four groups as follows. GROUP 1 Shields without antenna protection These products do not even bother to address the antenna, which is of course responsible for over 90% of the total radiation given off by a mobile. Any device which fails to do this is therefore only dealing with 10% or less, of the phone’s total emissions. Claims by these products of 90% protection therefore, relate to the remaining 10% and not total radiation emissions. A simple test using a small hand held microwave detector will reveal how ineffective these products are. The Waveguard is an example of this group. GROUP 2 Shields with reflective antenna guards Unlike group 1 products, these make attempts to address antenna emissions which normally involve placing shielding materials in front of or wrapped around, the antenna, with the intention being to reflect the radiation away from the user. They are very similar in design to early Microshield prototypes, which we found performed poorly for digital phones as the radiation from digital mobiles simply swerves around the shield. They will however have a limited attenuating value for older analogue mobile models. One such product the Nett Anti-Rad 75, claims to be tested to shielding levels of 93%, but a phone call to the testing house they used, confirms that they have no equipment available to test digital phones. In essence, Nett have made the mistake of testing a digital phone using analogue measuring equipment, which will give the false impression that high levels of shielding are being achieved, when in fact they’re not. We made a similar mistake ourselves when we tested our first prototype. The testing house they used is also not NAMAS approved, which is normally considered a minimum prerequisite for any official industry EMC testing. Other shielding performance claims by certain products, relate to the shielding properties of the actual materials used themselves, rather than the effect they have in situ within the device. Most products in this second group do not address the other 10% of microwave emissions from the main body of the phone or just as importantly, the Extremely Low Frequency (ELF) emissions, which are modulated with the radio signal for transmission purposes. Some scientists have suggested that it may be these and not the microwaves, which are the cause of the headaches etc. experienced by many users. The Phoneshield and the Protector are also part of this copy group. GROUP 3 : Cellular Industry Products Low Radiation Phones The cellular industry is now hard at work behind the scenes trying to address the problem and this has resulted initially with the release of 2 low radiation phones from new low profile manufacturers. The term “low radiation” now appears to be inaccurate, as they actually emit the same amount of radiation as all the others, but direct it into different parts of the body other than the head. If DNA damage is being done as research suggests, then exposure to any part of the body would be inadvisable. It is now in fact apparent that these phones may intensify the radiation and any damage which may being caused, would ironically be greater than by a conventional mobile. In the case of the Hagenhuk, the radiation is being directed onto the wrist of the user and reports are being received of electric shock-like surges going up the arm from the wrist to the shoulder . These phones also still allow exposure by the user to the ELF emissions (see Group 2 above). As at the time of writing, one of these products has been withdrawn from the market altogether and the other has been repackaged with reference to low emissions being removed from their marketing claims. Hands-free kits These are cumbersome and unless the user is able to place their phone some distance away, all they are doing is transferring the radiation exposure to another part of the body e.g. the hand and wrist, or organs near the waist (see above re: DNA damage). No real safe distance is yet known, but the Australian mice studies involved exposure by the animals concerned at distances of 55 cms (nearly 2 ft). In addition, the radiation will still interfere with devices such as hearing aids, heart-pacemakers, in-car computer systems such as ABS, PC screens, Hi-Fi’s, ordinary desktop phones etc. Recently, microwave emissions have been detected coming out of the ear piece of these kits and complaints have been received from users of ear pains. It would appear that the device is “leaking” up the wire and some RF is being picked up with the wire acting as a receiver aerial. Because the ear piece is not terminated, the peak RF level appears to be at the ear piece end, which is of course situated within the ear. GROUP 4 : The Mystics This group involves users needing to believe that objects such as gem stones, liquid gels etc. could have special microwave attracting properties which will somehow divert emissions away from the head. Unfortunately, none of these products have so far been able to convince our spectrum analyser, which shows that emissions on or around the phone remain unchanged with the head still being the main recipient. Reports by manufacturers therefore of their products providing relief to users who suffer symptoms, may be down to some form of placebo effect. The most recent example of this group is called the Ray Away. Other products say they change the way that microwaves react with us biologically, which inherently makes substantiation of their claims more difficult. You can see from the above how easy it has been for the cellular industry to criticise shielding products and hence why we have been anxious to distance ourselves from them as a generic group. Many other accusations have been levelled at us in an attempt to bring our product down and some are dealt with below. The use of a Microshield radiation protection case with a mobile phone has been accused of causing the phone to power up in response to being shielded, with the inference being that the radiation which the case protects against, is simply replaced by a further surge and thus the user is still exposed. To understand the processes at work here, it is important to realise that in the course of a normal cellular phone call, the head has it’s own shielding effect on the phone’s reception, due it’s natural ability to absorb radiation. In fact, according to cellular industry sponsored research, as much as 80% of the total radiation emitted by a mobile is absorbed by the user’s head. The phone’s response is to increase it’s power level to maintain signal strength, which in turn exposes the head to a further dose of radiation. This powering up is harmless to the phone, as it will drop the call rather than do itself any damage by overpowering. There is however an additional drain on the phone’s battery as a result. The Microshield case in essence, acts as a substitute for the head and absorbs the radiation which would otherwise penetrate into the user. This does of course cause the phone to increase it’s power level, just as the head does, but the important point to note here is that the Microshield’s attenuating capacity comfortably exceeds the maximum level of radiation a digital mobile phone could emit. Thus the increased radiation caused by this powering up process does not, contrary to the views expressed by some industry observers, leave the user open to further exposure. The maximum emissions from a GSM digital handset working at full power are around 35Db, whilst the Microshield’s shielding capacity is nearer 60Db. A simple analogy would be to think of a lift containing 3 people, where it’s capacity was say 12 persons. You would not expect the lift to fail, if at the next floor a further 3 people got on. To support this, we refer you to the tests which Microshield Industries PLC commissioned on the BABT GSM network simulator at Assessment Services. These were carried out with the phone fixed on it’s maximum power setting and thus the shielding effectiveness readings obtained, were worst case scenarios as far as the phone’s emissions were concerned. Other ill informed commentary has suggested that if such high shielding levels were being achieved, then the phone would not operate. If this were the case, then the shielded readings in all our test results could not have been obtained, as with the call being dropped, emission levels would have dropped to zero and no readings would have been possible. As the BABT and British Telecom simulator tests quite clearly demonstrate, readings were taken and therefore a call must have been in place to achieve this. More importantly, British Telecom have also recently carried out their own network simulator tests incorporating the use of a salt water column to replicate the user’s head. Their results confirm that the Microshield selectively targets the radiation which would otherwise be absorbed into the user’s head, but leaves sufficient emissions in other directions to maintain call integrity. This observation explains how such high levels of shielding can be obtained whilst still allowing the phone to operate. Irrespective of any test results of course, is the testimony we continue to receive from users who report either a reduction or disappearance altogether of symptoms they experience from using their mobile. One final observation has been that the Microshield will cause the battery to run down very quickly. This observation ignores the fact that there is already a draining effect created as a result of the phone’s powering up response caused by the shielding effect of the head. In fairness however, the shielding provided by the Microshield case with the aerial guard set in high shield mode, will indeed cause an additional extra drain on the life of the battery charge i.e. talk/standby time. This is because when set for high protection levels, the aerial guard is more efficient at absorbing radiation than the head, but remember that the guard is fully adjustable and shielding can be altered during a call to cater for signal strength fluctuations. When positioned in high shield mode, talk time reductions have been measured on average at 12%, but with today’s modern long life batteries this should not present a problem for the average user. A heavy user may find themselves recharging their battery slightly more often, but ironically it is these very users which research suggests are probably most in need of the shielding which the Microshield case affords. If you like I can send or fax you the BABT and British Telecom data which has been checked by Alisdair Philips. His analysis states that we reduce the SAR by 100 fold. BT say in their letter to us that "the product performed as descibed in the accompanying literature". The claims we make therein by the way, is that we reduce exposure by as much as 90%. We were concerned what the remaining radiation was doing to the user as we still do not know if this problem is dose or frequency related, but we were greatly encouraged by Roger Coghill's latest research findings which are currently going through the perr review process. Amongst other findings it showed that the Microshield had a positive effect on white blood cell death in human cells exposed to mobile phone radiation. Please do speak to us first before MAKING SWEEPING STATEMENTS ABOUT SHIELDING PRODUCTS. WE'RE SUPPOSED TO BE ON THE SAME SIDE! Finally, did you read Jerry Phillip's research sponsored by Motorola showing DNA damage in human Molt-4 T-lymphoblastoid cells at cellular phone frequencies? I've got the paper here if you want a copy. Apparently funding has now been withdrawn since publication a couple of months back. Regards John Simpson Archive provided courtesy of WaveGuide, http://www.wave-guide.org Reprinted with permission of Roy Beavers, http://www.feb.se/EMF-L/EMF-L.html