Mobile phone use unhealthy?
On 25 August 2009, the EM Radiation Research Trust (45 Queen Street, Exeter, England) published a very robust international report on the health risks of mobile phone use. The radio radiation to the ear is said to be similar to the radio radiation in a microwave oven and as such 'cook' parts of the brain next to the ringing ear.
We use the word radio radiation where ElectroMagnetic (EM) radiation is meant.
Privacy First presents this report in PDF form for download HERE and the quotes from scholars in response to this report download HERE. In fact, this is a long-term medical experiment on four billion people.
The situation is similar to asbestos and second-hand smoke, but in this case it is different. In the first place, you don't notice anything (no pain because brains are insensitive) except maybe a heated ear. In the second place, bystanders are not affected. Thirdly, mobile phone use is fun and necessary, which can definitely not be said of asbestos. Meanwhile, asbestos and smoking in public are banned by law. None of that is likely to happen with mobile phones.
There is also the group of techno-optimists who argue that technology will probably find a solution to it soon.
Let us hope so.
Below, for completeness, is an announcement in the English press denouncing an earlier investigation that had been paid for by international phone companies.
Cellphones Cause Brain Tumours, Says New Report By International EMF Collaborative
This report, sent to government leaders and media today, details eleven design flaws of the 13-country, Telecom-funded Interphone study. The Interphone study, begun in 1999, was intended to determine the risks of brain tumours, but its full publication has been held up for years. Components of this study published to date reveal what the authors call a 'systemic-skew', greatly underestimating brain tumour risk.
The design flaws include categorising subjects who used portable phones (which emit the same microwave radiation as cellphones,) as 'unexposed'; exclusion of many types of brain tumours; exclusion of people who had died, or were too ill to be interviewed, as a consequence of their brain tumour; and exclusion of children and young adults, who are more vulnerable.
Lloyd Morgan, lead author and member of the Bioelectromagnetics Society says, "Exposure to cellphone radiation is the largest human health experiment ever undertaken, without informed consent, and has enrolled some 4 billion participants. Science has shown increased risk of brain tumours from use of cellphones, as well as increased risk of eye cancer, salivary gland tumours, testicular cancer, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and leukemia. The public must be informed."
International scientists endorsing "Cellphones and Brain Tumours: 15 Reasons for Concern" include Ronald B. Herberman, MD, Director Emeritus, University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute; David Carpenter, MD, Director, Institute for Health and the Environment, University at Albany; Martin Blank, PhD, Associate Professor of Physiology and Cellular Biophysics, Columbia University; Professor Yury Grigoriev, Chairman of Russian National Committee on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection, and many others.