France halts iPhone 12 sales over radiation levels::Apple has been told it must recall every iPhone 12 sold in the country if it cannot fix the problem.
Fair play to France. It’s above legal levels, properly threatening tech giants is what they need to comply.
Frances is notable for being very strict about cell phone radiation. They require every phone sold to include a headset with mic, not for hand free driving, but because the government says that talking on the phone normally exposes your head to dangerous levels of radiation.
We have no evidence of health danger when it comes to wifi & co, but customers should be able to choose if they want the phone away from their head or not is more how I understand it. Consumers here are indeed well protected, it’s quite nice tbh
As for why
EMR radiation isn’t the type that can cause cancer (which happens when the radiation wavelength is low enough to ‘ionize’ genetic material), but it can heat up tissue the same way a microwave might. With tissue heating, standards are likely set based on the risks / concerns that a country’s health authority thought were reasonable enough. This might also vary depending on different parts of the body.
If they set a standard and a malfunction is causing the phone to exceed that limit, it’s worth stopping sales so that it can be fixed.
Has there been any cause of RF leading to burns or fever? The idea that a cell phone could transfer enough energy to make even the slightest difference seems insane to me. I can’t imagine it’s physically possible for the health risk to be any worse than raising your thermostat by 1° would be.
This seems like nothing more than pandering to psuedoscientific quakery.
This is literally like if France said, “your flashlight is too bright; it’s causing cancer and must be stopped”. The use of the term, “radiation” in this context is disingenuous because they’re basically saying, “the wifi is too strong”. Technically visible light is the same kind of radiation as microwaves, radiowaves, wifi and x-rays. The reason why x-rays are considered harmful and wifi/microwaves/radio/visible light isn’t is because x-rays are much higher energy than the others, and are able to ionize materials they come into contact with. This can cause cancer. You know what doesn’t cause cancer? Wifi. Unless you’re shitting out enough microwave radiation (also not cancer-causing) to cook an egg, it’s pretty harmless. This is the kinda shit anti-vax Facebook moms get upset about. They hear “radiation” and their knee jerks so hard it shatters their jaw.
‘Here is a hard limit. Don’t exceed it’
Apple alone out of every mobile phone manufacturer, including themsleves as this is a single model in question exceeds
You: YOUR LIMIT IS BAD
My point is that the limit is goofy. Other manufacturers may not exceed it, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s goofy to begin with.
I feel like the limit itself COULD be reasonable (there’s more to the potential harms than ionizing radiation /cancer), but popscience news sites are going to make misleading headlines anyways
A Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) of 5.2 W/kg technically does exceed limits and device manufacturers agree to meet regulations. However, SAR values are not constant and can vary with real-world usage. Phones often operate at lower power levels, reducing actual SAR exposure.
A weak microwave, for theoretical comparison, would likely put out hundreds of Watts per kg.
People are way more likely to get heat damage from the battery than the radio waves from a cellphone
Me browsing this on a 12Pro:
“Phew”
Radio waves are on the other end of the electromagnetic spectrum from cancer-causing light. It’s very well settled that radio waves cannot cause cancer.
Next step: France bans the Sun
