No, smartwatches haven't been found to emit ‘dangerous levels' of radiation

The Citizen

03-05-2025

'Stop wearing these smartwatches,' says a man in a video shared on Instagram and Facebook. 'I've warned you about electromagnetic frequencies, radio frequencies this close to your body.'
The man is Daniel Pompa, a chiropractor who goes by the name 'Dr Pompa' online. (Note: Pompa is based in the US but his videos have been reuploaded to Facebook in other countries, where Meta's fact-checking system flagged them as potentially false.)
Pompa has warned many times that electromagnetic radiation emitted by wireless devices is dangerous, and many other users have shared similar claims on Facebook. But these claims are false. Pompa's evidence, when he provides any, is nonsense, and this is just another variation on a common myth that Africa Check has repeatedly debunked.
This instance of the claim is only unusual in that Pompa makes the additional claim that the bands in smartwatches contain 'forever chemicals' which, he claims, 'are being absorbed right into your bloodstream'. While Pompa quotes a study to support this claim, he misrepresents the study's findings and their implications.
'Dr Pompa' an unreliable source
Pompa is not a medical doctor, an early indication that he is an unreliable source of medical advice. His website describes him as having an 'undergraduate degree in communication' and a 'diction of chiropractic degree'. Life University, where he claims to have received his chiropractic degree, offers a doctor of chiropractic degree. But this also does not make him a medical doctor or trustworthy source.
Pompa is qualified only as a chiropractor. Chiropractors fall into a grey area between legitimate healthcare and pseudoscience, with scientific evidence supporting the use of chiropractic treatments to treat back pain but little else.
It has been found that chiropractors frequently make false medical claims when advertising, both about their own treatment abilities and about established medical treatments such as vaccines. Medical doctors have warned that chiropractic training is not equivalent to an actual medical qualification and that chiropractors often mislead the public about their capabilities, including by using the title doctor.
Life University, where Pompa received his degree, claims that its doctor of chiropractic degree is based on the philosophy of vitalism, a discredited theory that an undetectable 'vital force' makes living things behave differently from non-living matter. Modern doctors have called vitalism 'irrelevant' to medical practice. Even chiropractors have criticised vitalism as an obstacle to legitimacy. One chiropractor wrote in 2002 that chiropractors 'should expect to be met by ridicule from the wider health science community' for basing their practices on vitalism.
One should always be suspicious of medical advice from anyone claiming to be a doctor who does not actually have medical expertise, and doubly so when the training the person has is based on discredited or dubious theories. But, his credentials aside, is there any evidence for Pompa's claims?
A kernel of truth
Pompa does present evidence for one claim: that the watch straps of some smartwatches have been found to contain 'forever chemicals'.
Pompa quotes a study published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology Letters, which tested 22 watch bands for the presence of 'per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances' or PFASs.
PFASs are known as forever chemicals because they are extremely long lasting. This long lifespan, along with their widespread use in a wide variety of products and industries, has made PFASs extremely common in the environment. Experts are concerned that environmental exposure to PFASs could have a number of negative health effects in humans and animals.
The study which Pompa quoted found that 14 watch bands contained one particular PFAS, known as PFHxA (perfluorohexanoic acid). So there is some truth to what Pompa says. But he also misrepresents the study and its findings.
Pompa paraphrased the study, saying: 'That's what they said, that the forever chemicals are being absorbed right into your bloodstream.'
The study's corresponding author, physicist Dr Graham Peaslee, told Africa Check: 'We did not study dermal absorption in our study.' Dermal absorption refers to absorption through the skin.
The paper cited two other studies, including one which tested the absorption of various PFASs through the skin. This study exposed PFASs dissolved in methanol to materials with similar properties to human skin over a period of 36 hours and measured the resulting absorption. If PFHxA was absorbed from watch bands through real skin at a similar rate, then the body would absorb very high levels of the substance from the watch band. However, the study only expressed that this might be a risk.
It is also not the case that all watch bands contain PFHxA. The study focused specifically on watch bands that were marketed as containing 'fluoroelastomers'. According to Peaslee: 'What the average reader might not catch is that fluoroelastomers are a type of PFAS, and while the polymer itself is probably not terribly dangerous to humans, my students knew that all fluoropolymers are produced with and in the presence of short-chain PFASs, which we often find with them.'
Of the watch bands studied, 14 were found to contain PFHxA and all of these were among the 15 that contained fluoroelastomers. Pompa seems to confuse these two numbers.
Peaslee said: 'Rather than scaring people who are exposed to PFASs from their water and food for the most part, I prefer to point out that it is a precautionary approach to avoid potential hazards where they are not necessary.'
He explained that watch bands which do not contain PFASs are readily available. Among brands which did use fluoroelastomers, he said, 'major manufacturers are also taking note of the study' and he expected them to begin using alternative materials.
The study even mentioned recent government regulations, such as a September 2024 European Union regulation banning PFHxA in various consumer products.
So, not all smartwatch bands contain PFHxA and the dangers of wearing those that do are currently unknown. Pompa does say that 'natural rubber' watch bands do not contain forever chemicals but implies that all other smartwatch bands do, and isn't clear about what is, or isn't, known about the risks of wearing a watch band.
Radio frequencies are not harmful
What about Pompa's regularly repeated claim that 'radio frequencies this close to your body' are 'not a good idea'?
Electromagnetic (EM) radiation is better known as light. Specific colours of light correspond to specific frequencies of EM radiation. Together, these frequencies make up what is called the electromagnetic spectrum. Radio frequency (or RF) radiation has a very low frequency and carries very little energy. It is used by wireless communication technologies like mobile phones, WiFi routers and radios.
These technologies are not harmful to humans. Much higher-energy radiation, called ionising radiation, can damage cells in the body, causing health problems including cancer. However, lower energy radiation called non-ionising radiation, which includesRF radiation, does not cause the same damage. Major decades-long studies of the potential effects of these technologies on human health have shown no evidence to support Pompa's claims.
As Africa Check has explained several times in the past, non-ionising radiation can damage objects by heating them. This is how infrared heat lamps and microwaves heat things. But wireless communication devices are simply not powerful enough to heat objects this way.
Peaslee is a professor of physics and we took the opportunity to ask him whether he was aware of any way in which RF radiation could cause harm.
Peaslee said: 'I am very aware of the people who are afraid of EM radiation from cell phones, and to my knowledge there isn't a shred of scientific evidence to support their claims.'
Aside from the fact that these devices generate very weak electromagnetic fields, cell phones and smartwatches are only a few of the sources of EM radiation which a person may encounter every day. Singling out communication technologies from other sources like 'microwaves, key fobs, nearby radio and TV stations and all sorts of other devices' would be essentially impossible, Peaslee explained.
Factual inaccuracies
While Pompa does not present any evidence of the dangers of EM radiation, he regularly uploads videos to social media in which he uses a handheld EM radiation detector to show that devices ranging from smartphones to baby monitors emit radiation. These videos are filled with factual inaccuracies, not least of which are Pompa's claims that these devices damage cells and cause cancer.
In various videos, Pompa incorrectly claims that all EM radiation is non-ionising, and that non-ionising radiation causes cell damage. He also insists that various devices emit 'absolutely damaging' radiation despite no evidence that they exceed the strict safety guidelines set by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection. This suggests that he does not understand what EM radiation is, or when it might represent a health risk.
Pompa has shown no evidence of danger, and his claims are based on gross misrepresentations of what EM radiation is.
This is the same old false claim about EM radiation, and Pompa has provided no new evidence to support it.
This article was originally published on africacheck.org.
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