Children are uniquely vulnerable to EMFs just as they are to other environmental toxins. As wireless is now ubiquitous, children will receive a greater cumulative exposure than today’s adults, with exposure starting before they are born (Miller et al., 2019). Both their ongoing physical development and physiology put them at greater risk.
- Children absorb proportionally higher doses of cell phone RF-EMF in the eyes and critical brain regions than adults due to their smaller heads, thinner undeveloped skulls and the higher water content in both their bodies and brain (Fernandez et al., 2018).
- Children’s developing brains are more susceptible to neurotoxic exposures (Redmayne and Johansson, 2014 and 2015).
- Children have more active stem cells and stem cells have been found to be more sensitive to RF-EMF exposure (Markova et al., 2010).
- Safety limits for RF-EMF from cell phones and cell towers are outdated as they were set over two decades ago in 1996 and are based on the body of a large adult, not a child (Gandhi et al., 2012).
The nervous system is sensitive to EMFs (Bertagna et al., 2021). Cell phone radiation has been found to alter brain activity (Volkow et al., 2011, Bin et al., 2014), impact neurotransmitters and alter neuron development (Kaplan et al., 2015, Li et al., 2021, Chen et al., 2021). Teenagers were found to experience memory damage to the area of the brain most exposed to cell phone radiation after just one year (Foerster et al., 2018).
Experimental animal research has found a variety of adverse impacts especially in the brain regions critical to memory and learning (Sonmez, et al., 2010, Dasdag et al., 2015, Shahin et al., 2018, Obajuluwa et al., 2017, Tan et al., 2021, Hasan et al., 2021).
Miller, A., Sears, M., Morgan, L., Davis, D., Hardell, L., Oremus, M., & Soskolne, C. (2019). Risks to Health and Well-Being From Radio-Frequency Radiation Emitted by Cell Phones and Other Wireless Devices. Frontiers In Public Health, 7. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2019.00223
Hardell L. Effects of Mobile Phones on Children’s and Adolescents’ Health: A Commentary. Child Dev. 2018 Jan;89(1):137-140. doi: 10.1111/cdev.12831. Epub 2017 May 15. PMID: 28504422.
Anthony B. Miller, L. Lloyd Morgan, Iris Udasin, Devra Lee Davis, Cancer epidemiology update, following the 2011 IARC evaluation of radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (Monograph 102), Environmental Research, Volume 167, 2018, Pages 673-683, ISSN 0013-9351
Fernández, A.A. de Salles, M.E. Sears, R.D. Morris, D.L. Davis, Absorption of wireless radiation in the child versus adult brain and eye from cell phone conversation or virtual reality, Environmental Research, 2018, ISSN 0013-9351
