Answer to Question #4646 Submitted to "Ask the Experts"

As I feel that some television sets are worse than others with regard to their levels of radiation, are there TVs that have lower radiation emissions? If not, are there filters that can be placed over the sets that can remove or lower the emissions?

Concerns with radiation emitted from television receivers have been in reference to x rays that became important when color televison sets that operated at appreciably higher voltages than did black and white sets became available to the public.
Since the late 1960s, television receivers approved for use in this country have had to meet stringent standards of x-ray emission established and enforced by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH); such receivers do not emit radiation at levels that are considered a public health concern.

The Food and Drug Administration approves TVs produced by various manufacturers according to FDA standards and, to my knowledge, does not make comparative evaluations among manufacturers. The FDA has stated, in essence, that modern TVs emit such low levels of radiation that no special viewing precautions are necessary.

In the early days of the standard, the FDA recommended viewers maintain at least a six-foot distance between themselves and the receivers, but this distance recommendation is no longer felt necessary because emissions are so extremely low.

You can go to the FDA CDRH site to review its thoughts and recommendations on this.

You can also review related questions on the Ask the Experts Web site under Consumer Products.

George Chabot, PhD, CHP