128 Cell Phone Safety [22 August 2011]

I’ve written about this before [columns #004 March 23, 2009 & #068 June 21, 2010] but two recently published studies show why there is still some uncertainty about cell phone safety. It is not surprising that the study which reported no conflict of interest found serious cause for concern while the one funded by the telecommunications industry (along with other conflicts of interest) was more reassuring. 

The first study “Long-Term Exposure to Microwave Radiation Provokes Cancer Growth…” Exp Oncol 2011 begins “In this review we discuss alarming epidemiological and experimental data on possible carcinogenic effects of long term exposure to low intensity microwave radiation…” and calls for “urgent reevaluation… of safety limits for non-ionizing radiation…” 

The second study “Mobile Phones, Brain Tumours and the Interphone Study: Where Are We Now” National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, 2011, concludes: “Although there remains some uncertainty, the trend in the accumulating evidence is increasingly against the hypothesis that mobile phone use can cause brain tumours in adults.”

Not true says Dr. Magda Havas, Associate Professor of Environmental & Resource Studies at Trent University, who reviewed these studies in her website [www.magdahavas.com]. She found that the NIEHS study ignored “inconvenient” evidence and misinterpreted other data. For example the Interphone Study referred to does in fact show an increase in ipsilateral gliomas (brain tumours on the phone side of the head) after 10 years of exposure. The NIEHS study also dismisses childhood studies for being shorter than 15 years, ignoring a study which showed that those who started using a cell phone before the age of 20 increased their risk of brain tumours 5 fold well before 15 years. 

You can reduce your risk by minimizing the use of your cell phone (see my March 2009 column for tips) and by installing an electromagnetic shield on your phones. I recently found a source of inexpensive cell phone radiation shields [www.cellshieldforyou.com]. 

This article is intended for educational purposes only; for medical advice consult your licensed health practitioner.