The danger, if any, from any source of RF is greatest when you are in the near field of the transmitter. If a person were to climb up a cell tower and park their rear end on top of an antenna, they might notice a sensation of warmth after a while, maybe.
But if you are on the ground near a cell tower that is, say 25 feet tall, you are almost certainly not in the near field of that RF source and it will not cause you harm. The inverse square law applies to calculations of RF power as distance from the source increases. Calculations of the near field of an RF source depend on a number of factors, primarily transmitter power.
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When you hold a cell phone up against your head and talk to someone, your skull definitely is in the near field of the transmitter in that phone. On the brighter side, cell phones are designed to use a minimum amount of power and the intensity of the RF field coming from a cell phone is obviously not sufficient to cause immediate harm.
It is a fact that cells in living animal tissue can be heated using RF. Transmitting antennas that use a great deal of power can present a real danger of immediate harm by way of RF burns, but this requires several orders of magnitude more power than any cell phone could possibly produce.
Cell phone towers present absolutely no threat to humans or wildlife. Your home computer and your TV expose you to much higher levels of RF than any cell tower in your neighborhood. Not many cell phone tower woo proponents are worried about the RF generated inside their homes by the devices they use to receive bad information.
It is conceivable to me that a real scientific study could find that very high usage of cell phones might present some health issues, but a skeptical attitude to such claims is certainly indicated.
Using a handsfree device or wired headset might reduce your exposure to RF from cell phones, but this is not certain, as in some cases a wired headset may act as an external antenna for the phone and slightly increase your exposure. Handsfree headsets replace the RF from the cell phone with RF from a Bluetooth transmitter, but the Bluetooth device almost certainly uses lower power levels as it is only expected to operate in a small area.
It might be prudent to use landline phones instead of cell phones when that option is available. It might be a good idea to keep cellphone conversations short. It might be a good idea not to stand very close to your microwave oven when it is operating.
You are living in an RF soup, especially at your place of employment and in your home. Cell phones are only one source of RF exposure, although they prolly are usually the most powerful in daily life.
. I've never known anyone to get cancer from eating more than five cell phone towers a day. And don't tell me that's anecdotal evidence!
