Health Effects of Mobile Telephones

[Zeno Swijtink]

“Overall the studies published to date do not demonstrate an increased risk within approximately 10 years of use for any tumor of the brain or any other head tumor.”

Health Effects of Mobile Telephones
Kenneth J. Rothman
Epidemiology:
July 17, 2009 - Volume Publish Ahead of Print - Issue - ppg
doi: 10.1097/EDE.0b013e3181aff1f7

The safety of mobile telephones is a pressing question, now that the brains of nearly half the humans on the planet have become exposed within a short span of time to a physical agent to which their ancestors’ genes could not have adapted. It is no surprise then that epidemiologists have taken an interest in possible health effects of microwave exposure from mobile telephony. Few had experienced this novel exposure until 25 years ago, but nonionizing radiation from mobile telephones now regularly bathes the cerebral cortex of billions of people. This radiation has been demonstrated to affect communication channels across cell membranes by inhibiting or closing gap junctions,1,2 lending some plausibility to the idea that use of mobile telephones might have consequential biologic effects.

Conducting epidemiologic research of microwave exposure from mobile telephones, however, has proven to be problematic. The diseases of greatest concern that might be related to microwave exposure are malignancies of the brain and of other tissues that are in close proximity to the mobile telephone antenna when the telephone is placed against the ear. These malignancies include glioma, meningioma, acoustic neuroma, and tumors of the salivary gland. All are rare, thus posing the first challenge to epidemiologists. The second challenge is a low prevalence of relevant exposure. Although mobile telephony is fast becoming ubiqui- tous, most theories about the carcinogenicity of microwave exposure posit long induction times, perhaps even decades, between an exposure sufficient to induce a cancer and the appearance of the cancer. If using mobile telephones causes cancer with a long induction time, use of today’s mobile telephone may be inducing many future cancers but relatively few of today’s cancers, given the comparatively small number of users until recent years.

Unfortunately, rare disease and rare relevant exposure barely begin to describe the difficulties of studying the effects of using mobile telephones. By far the greatest obstacle is exposure assessment. Biologic exposure from using a mobile telephone extends just a few centimeters from the telephone, but people use telephones in myriad ways. They are sometimes held to the left ear, sometimes held to the right ear, and sometimes placed away from the head while used in speakerphone mode or with headsets. They are carried by some who seldom make or receive calls, and used by others as a nearly continuous channel of communication. All these factors strongly influence the biologic exposure to micro- waves of susceptible tissues. Adding to the difficulty is the problem that the technology itself has been changing rapidly. Most users today employ telephones with “third- generation” technology, and “fourth-generation” is on the way, but the study of tumors occurring now might reflect the effects, if any, of first- and second-generation telephones that are no longer used. Finally, the transmission output of telephones is constantly changing, waxing and waning as it adjusts to the distance from cell towers or to shielding materials such as building walls. Thus, without an elaborate metering effort that would be impractical for any but a small subsample of users, a person’s actual tissue exposure to microwaves can only be vaguely estimated, even from telephone call records.

Even if metering were possible to sample some periods of exposure, it would hardly be possible over the length of time that a cohort is being followed. Furthermore, because the outcomes of primary interest are rare, nearly all of the studies conducted to date have.

to cont. click here and click through to pdf

[PeriodThree]

This is good news in general, but an important point is that the health effects, if any, are based on the intensity of EMF or temperature exposures.

That intensity decreases with the inverse of the square of the distance between you and the source...basically if you double the distance from the radio (phone or cell tower) you get 1/4 of the exposure.

If you are not carrying or using a cell phone than your exposure to other people's phones and to Cell towers is less than your exposure to the background EMF from the sun.

“Overall the studies published to date do not demonstrate an increased risk within approximately 10 years of use for any tumor of the brain or any other head tumor.”

[Karl Frederick]

As I understand it, the health effects of particular interest are based partially on the intensity of the EMF, and partially on other characteristics of the signal (carrier frequency, duty cycle, and modulation rates) and not at all on the thermal effects, since there is not sufficient power in the signal from a cellular phone to cause an appreciable temperature rise in a user's body. The sun's electromagnetic signal characteristics are not similar to those of cell phones. The old EMF standards (still in effect) were based on keeping the power below the threshhold at which it would cause damage associated with heating parts of the body (typically the most sensitive were thought to be the eyes and reproductive organs).

The concern of several recent researchers is that those old radiation standards are far too lenient, because subtle effects begin to show up at much lower power levels. Apparently at greatest risk are children, whose skulls are smaller and thinner and more easily penetrated by signals from cell phones pressed to their ears.

I'd like to see a well-informed response to the study Zeno posted -- perhaps a response from the EMF Working Group at the Collaborative on Health and The Environment. I am not comforted by the difficulties of making good measurements of the details of exposure.


Karl

This is good news in general, but an important point is that the health effects, if any, are based on the intensity of EMF or temperature exposures.

That intensity decreases with the inverse of the square of the distance between you and the source...basically if you double the distance from the radio (phone or cell tower) you get 1/4 of the exposure.

If you are not carrying or using a cell phone than your exposure to other people's phones and to Cell towers is less than your exposure to the background EMF from the sun.

[Zeno Swijtink]

See the further discussion of this editorial and of the meta-study it comments on at Microwave News ~ Home Page

In a recent email on the eList of the Collaborative on Health and the Environment Working Group on Electromagnetic Fields Michael Lerner, president and founder of Commonweal, a health and environmental research institute in Bolinas, commented on this publication as follows:

(...) The Rothman article, available in PDF, is very important.

If you read the whole PDF of the article, note how very even-handedly Rothman covers the issues.

This is not a ringing endorsement of the proposition that we "know" that cell-phone use increases cancer risk substantially.

Rothman essentially says the jury is out on cancer risk. He acknowledges the concerns of skeptics about the tremendous importance of cancer latency. He describes the enormous methodological problems of exposure analysis. He says your conclusions about future risk depend in large part on whether you include or exclude the Hardell studies from the analysis.

He further makes the point that by far the larger currently demonstrable risk is behavior change/distraction related to cell phone use while driving.
It is especially important that CHE EMF give high salience to balanced commentaries like Rothman's.

For that reason I strongly endorse (...) that this is a milestone.

Michael

[Karl Frederick]

Thanks Zeno, for the summary from Michael Rothman and for the links to Microwave News. To add a little juice to Rothman's view that "the jury is out on cancer risk," let me point to a March 9, 2009 Microwave News article about professor Bruce Armstrong, the head of the Australian Interphone study team. Here's an excerpt from the article:

In a nutshell, Armstrong finds that there are “suggestions” of an increased risk of brain tumors among long-term users of mobile phones.

He advocates a policy of precaution, especially for children, and recommends that RF health research continue. Armstrong’s fundamental message is “we don’t know” what the cancer risks really are. This is different from what we’ve heard in the past. Back in 2000, the Stewart panel in the U.K. also recommended caution, more out of recognition of our collective ignorance than any hard data. Armstrong is saying there is now a basis to support such concerns. Yes, the risks are uncertain and ambiguous, but the possibility that using a cell phone could lead to a tumor is no longer hypothetical. The risks may be small or they may be large, but the possibility is there. [my emphasis - KF]

Armstrong, an Interphone insider, has changed the conversation. How dangerous are mobile phones? Here’s what Armstrong tells Tracee Hutchison, a radio and TV journalist, in an accompanying interview:
“I think the short answer is that we don’t know. I certainly can’t say that it’s harmful. Nor can I confidently say it is definitely safe. So, I am sitting on the fence right now.” Armstrong then explains how he manages his own cell-phone risks: “There’s a general principle in public health referred to as the ALARA principle (ALARA means ‘as low as reasonably achievable’). As far as I’m concerned, I make my use of a mobile phone as low as reasonably achievable. So if I’ve got a landline phone, I don’t use the mobile and if there’s a landline phone nearby, I’ll go and get to it, rather than use the mobile… I adopt the ALARA principle in my own use of a mobile phone.”
(continued . . .)

Here's a link to the full article: https://www.microwavenews.com/docs/MWN.Mar9-2009.pdf

There is much more to electromagnetic-biology than just looking for a conclusion about cancer. There is enough evidence of EM radiation-caused biologic changes (e.g. - DNA damage) to warrant continued study. There are $millions being invested in healing uses, as well as more $millions for weaponry applications. Until the science is a lot clearer, I'll continue to exercise what seems an imperfect yet justifiable caution, and minimize my exposure where possible. It's contrary to what some might expect of a teen-ager who had a ham radio license in high school, or a young man who earned a degree in Electrical Engineering, or a career engineer and manager of radio systems and components design for many of the past 40 years.

Karl