Many experts today are already comparing the mobile phone industry to the cigarette industry of the early 20th century. Are Cell Phones the Next Cigarettes? asks MSN Money. Mobile Radiation: Like Tobacco Smoke? questions Business Week.
On Feb. 7, 2008, a neurosurgeon, Vini Gautam Khurana, MBBS, BSc(Med), Ph.D., FRACS, published Mobile Phones and Brain Tumours—A Public Health Concern.
“It is anticipated that this danger has far broader public health implications than asbestos and smoking and directly concerns all of us, particularly the younger generation, including very young children,” Dr. Khurana says.
The analysis is a 69-page “systematic and concise yet comprehensive review.” His objective was to scientifically and objectively review mobile phone usage data. He spent 14 months reviewing more than 100 sources in recent medical and scientific literature, including the press and the Internet.
“The link between mobile phones and brain tumours should no longer be regarded as a myth,” he says.
Dr. Khurana’s advice for pregnant women is to stop using mobile phones while pregnant or holding a child.
“Many oncologists say they limit their own cell phone usage, don’t hold mobiles against their ear, and instead use speakerphones, headsets, and hands-free setups,” writes Olga Kharif for Business Week. Kharif reports that Columbia University associate professor Martin Blank, who studies the effects of electromagnetic radiation on living cells, doesn’t even own a cell phone.
An MSN article says, “It took years for the hazards of smoking to come to light. Now there's debate over the safety of mobile phones.” The article refers to advice given by the director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI) and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) Cancer Centers. Dr. Ronald Herberman, a faculty member for the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, gave 10 specific points of precautionary advice to the faculty and staff. Dr. Herberman, said, “I am convinced that there is sufficient data to warrant issuing an advisory to share some precautionary advice on cell phone use.”
In Secret Link Between Cigarettes and Cell Phones? Dr. Joseph Mercola discusses why Herberman “finally elected to speak out publicly.” It may have to do with the 610-page BioInitiative Report, which was published in 2007. Dr. Mercola says that this report “documents serious scientific concerns” about the regulations for radiation, radiofrequencies, and electromagnetic fields, like those created by wireless technology.
In another article from Business Week, Jay Yarow shares the words of Dr. Michael Kelsh, principle scientist and epidemiologist for the scientific consulting firm Exponent, “It was 15, 20 years after people began smoking that we saw concerns associated with it. ... Down the road, the same could happen with phones.”
But what about all those studies that can’t find conclusive evidence for cell phones causing cancer? A New York Times article posted June 3, 2008, tells how the CTIA-The Wireless Association says, “The overwhelming majority of studies that have been published in scientific journals around the globe show that wireless phones do not pose a health risk.” This organization stands to profit from cellular expansion. Because of this, their credibility is questionable. Tobacco companies also failed to see a link between tobacco and health risks before 2006.
The New York Times article also points out that, according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), “Three large epidemiology studies since 2000 have shown no harmful effects.”
A September 14, 2009, article in Reuters writes, “Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, newly empowered to investigate health matters as chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, promised on Monday to probe deeply into any potential links between cell phone use and cancer.” According to Reuters, Harkin compared cell phones to cigarettes, “Decades passed between the first warnings about smoking tobacco and the final definitive conclusion that cigarettes cause lung cancer.”
The average period of phone use in those FDA studies was only about three years. Yet many scientists agree that in order to really see the detrimental effects from the use of cell phones, one must study a case for longer than three years.
“The latency period for brain tumors can be 10 to 15 years,” says Kelsh. Brain tumors don’t show up overnight. They take years to develop. The reality is that most studies of cell phones have looked at short-term effects of cell phone use.
Cell phones only gained widespread use in the last 10 to 15 years. Now is when those studies are more likely to arise.
Swedish Studies Are First to Show Tumor Risk
“It is no surprise that Swedish researchers were among the first to report a positive association between cell phone use and brain tumour risk,” writes Dr. Khurana.
Sweden was first to mass deploy mobile telephones and is the former world headquarters of Ericsson, the mobile phone company who held 35 to 40 percent of the mobile market through the 1990s.
In November 2004, Epidemiology reported what researchers Lönn, Ahlbom, Hall, and Feychting found one of the first links between cell phones and brain tumors. The conclusion to this Swedish study said, “Our data suggest an increased risk of acoustic neuroma associated with mobile phone use of at least 10 years’ duration.” And the researchers said that the chance of developing that tumor were almost four times greater “on the same side of the head where the cell phone was normally used.”
In March 2007 Occupational and Environmental Medicine published the conclusions of another Swedish study. This time, researchers Hardell, Carlberg, Söderqvist, Mild, and Morgan made their conclusion evident by naming their analysis. Long-term use of Cellular Phones and Brain Tumors: Increased Risk Associated with Use for ≥ 10 Years.
Wireless Association Lobby Knows of These Dangers
In 2009, Dr. Mercola reported that CTIA’s own research now shows the detrimental effects of mobile phones. In an article titled, Secret Link Between Cigarettes and Cell Phones, Mercola includes the study’s results, which were “the opposite conclusion from the one they were hoping for."
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Mobile Phones: An Emerging Public Health Concern
Source: The Epoch Times
Date: 04/18/2010
