Brain cancer linked to youngsters using cellphones

An international group of scientists is calling on Canada and other countries to bring in tougher safety standards for cellphone use after a Swedish team found a fivefold elevated risk of malignant brain tumours in children who begin using mobile phones before the age of 20. The plea  and the science underlying it  is published in the forthcoming edition of Pathophysiology, devoted to peer-reviewed research about the biological effects of the global explosion of wireless technologies and devices like cellphones, cordless phones, wireless Internet and cell towers. The findings of 15 studies from health researchers in six different countries, looking at the effects of electromagnetic fields and radio frequency radiation on living cells and on the health of humans, should jolt government agencies into action as a precautionary measure, Dr. David Carpenter, director of the Institute for Health & the Environment at the University at Albany, and one of the co-authors, said in an interview. "What stands out is the consistency of the association of exposure and disease. The evidence, as I see it, is sufficiently strong that there needs to be public warnings, there needs to be establishments of exposure guidelines and that the present guidelines  in Canada, the United States or anyone else are not protective of human health. "I see us facing a major problem in the future because of the fact that young children are on cellphones constantly, and we may be setting ourselves up for an epidemic of brain cancer, the same thing we did with cigarette smoking and lung cancer." According to Columbia University physiology professor Martin Blank, who edited the special issue, the laboratory studies "point to significant interactions" of both power frequency and radio frequency with cellular components, especially DNA. The epidemiological studies "point to increased risk" of developing certain cancers associated with long-term exposure to radio frequency, he said. Dr. Lennart Hardell is among the scientists who contributed to the special edition of the journal. The oncologist from Sweden's University Hospital found that after one or more years of cellphone use, there is a 5.2-fold elevated risk of malignant brain tumour in children who begin using mobile phones before the age of 20 years; the odds for other ages was 1.4. "There should be special precaution for children and young persons about the use of mobile phones," Hardell said in an interview. In Canada, 71 per cent of youth between the ages of 12 and 19 have a cellphone, according to new data compiled by Toronto-based Solutions Research Group. The penetration nears 80 per cent for this age bracket in Toronto and Vancouver, where cells are seen as an essential social tool as well as a matter of safety for parents, according to the research firm specializing in the youth market. Solutions Research Group estimates that among nine- to 12-year-olds, one in four own cellphones. Also, their research shows 70 per cent of mothers with tweens share the cellphone with their kids occasionally for calls, texts or games. Overall, there are 21.5 million Canadian wireless phone subscribers, representing a national wireless penetration rate of 67 per cent. And half of all phone connections in Canada are now wireless, according to the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association. A spokesman from that agency, Marc Choma, said these subscribers, including parents of younger user s, need to look at all the evidence about the safety of cellphones rather than cherry-picking a few. "You have to look at the overwhelming amount of research that is out there. It's been done for decades now, and you have vast amounts of scientists around the world that have been studying this issue, and you can't just look at one study or you can't just look at two studies. You have to look at in the totality of all the work that's out there." Government agencies responsible for compiling and analyzing this body of work  including Health Canada and the World Health Organization  "continue to say that the evidence that is out there that has been reviewed for years and years and years, that there is no demonstrated risk for human health," said Choma. But Toronto Public Health last year recommended parents take precautions to minimize any potential risks to their children from cellphone use, acknowledging the "uncertainty in the science on health risks from cellphone use, particularly where it concerns children." After the agency released its position last July on cellphone use and kids, Health Canada issued a statement, reaffirming that the department "currently sees no scientific reason to consider the use of cellphones as unsafe. There is no convincing evidence of increased risk of disease from exposure to radio frequency electromagnetic fields from cellphones."

How Much Radiation Does Your Phone Emit

Cellphones emit varying levels of radiation, depending on make and model. (Lisa Poole/Associated Press)
The technology news site CNET has compiled two interesting lists showing which cellphones give off the most and the least radiation. In publishing the information, CNET editors note the data aren’t   meant to imply that cellphone radiat ion poses a risk, nor is it meant to say that the phones are safe. As I recently reported in my Well column last week, the data on cellphone safety are mixed, although a few recent international studies have suggested a link with three types of brain tumors. The Food and Drug Administration also says there’s not enough information to determine conclusively whether cellphones are safe or unsafe. The charts focus on the specific absorption rate, or SAR, of a cellphone, which is a way of measuring the quantity of radio frequency energy that is absorbed by the body, according to CNET. For a phone to pass F.C.C. certification, that phone’s maximum SAR level must be less than 1.6 W/kg (watts per kilogram). In Europe, the level is capped at 2 W/kg, while Canada allows a maximum of 1.6 W/kg. The SAR level listed in our charts represents the highest SAR level with the phone next to the ear as tested by the F.C.C. Keep in mind that it is possible for the SAR level to vary between different transmission bands and that different testing bodies can obtain different results. Also, it’s possible for results to vary between different editions of the same phone (such as a handset that’s offered by multiple carriers). Four Motorola phones top the list, with the V195s putting out the maximum 1.6 W/kg. The popular BlackBerry Curve 8330 rounds out the No. 5 spot. The list of lowest-radiation cellphones includes the LG KG800 and the Motorola Razr V3x, which put out 0.135 W/kg and 0.14 W/kg, respectively. If you don’t see your phone on the list, the site includes lists of cellphones by brand name. My iPhone was listed under other brands, but I was interested to learn that its SAR number is 0.974.

Danger on the airwaves Is the Wi-Fi revolution a health time bomb

Go into a Starbucks, a hotel bar or an airport departure lounge and you are bound to see people tapping away at their laptops, invisibly connected to the internet. Visit friends, and you are likely to be shown their newly installed system. Lecture at a university and you'll find the students in your audience tapping away, checking your assertions on the world wide web almost as soon as you make them. And now the technology is spreading like a Wi-Fi wildfire throughout Britain's primary and secondary schools. The technological explosion is even bigger than the mobile phone explosion that preceded it. And, as with mobiles, it is being followed by fears about its effect on health - particularly the health of children. Recent research, which suggests that the worst fears about mobiles are proving to be justified, only heightens concern about the electronic soup in which we are increasingly spending our lives. Now, as we report today, Sir William Stewart (pictured below right), the man who has issued the most authoritative British warnings about the hazards of mobiles, is becoming worried about the spread of Wi-Fi. The chairman of the Health Protection Agency - and a former chief scientific adviser to the Government - is privately pressing for an official investigation of the risks it may pose. Health concerns show no sign of slowing the wireless expansion. One in five of all adult Britons now own a wireless-enabled laptop. There are 35,000 public hotspots where they can use them, usually at a price. In the past 18 months 1.6 million Wi-Fi terminals have been sold in Britain for use in homes, offices and a host of other buildings. By some estimates, half of all primary schools and four fifths of all secondary schools have installed them. Whole cities are going wireless. First up is the genteel, almost bucolic, burgh of Norwich, which has installed a network covering almost the whole of its centre, spanning a 4km radius from City Hall. It takes in key sites further away, including the University of East Anglia and a local hospital, and will be expanded to take in rural parts of the south of the county. More than 200 small aerials were attached to lamp posts to create the network, which anyone can use free for an hour. There is nothing to stop the 1,000 people who use it each day logging off when their time is up, and logging on again for another costless session. "We wanted to see if something like this could be done," says Anne Carey, the network's project manager. "People are using it and finding it helpful. It is, I think, currently the largest network of its kind." Not for much longer. Brighton plans to launch a city-wide network next year, and Manchester is planning one covering over 400 square miles, providing free access to 2.2 million people. So far only a few, faint warnings have been raised, mainly by people who are so sensitized  to the electromagnetic radiation emitted by mobiles, their masts and Wi-Fi that they become ill in its presence. The World Health Organization estimates that up to three out of every hundred people are "electrosensitive" to some extent. But scientists and doctors - and some European governments - are adding their voices to the alarm as it becomes clear that the almost universal use of mobile phones may be storing up medical catastrophe for the future. A recent authoritative Finnish study has found that people who have used mobiles for more than ten years are 40 per cent more likely to get a brain tumour on the same side of the head as they hold their handset; Swedish research suggests that the risk is almost four times as great. And further research from Sweden claims that the radiation kills off brain cells, which could lead to today's younger generation going senile in their forties and fifties. Professor Lawrie Challis, who heads the Government's official mobile safety research, this year said that the mobile could turn out to be "the cigarette of the 21st century". There has been less concern about masts, as they emit very much less radiation than mobile phones. But people living - or attending schools - near them are consistently exposed and studies reveal a worrying incidence of symptoms such as headaches, fatigue, nausea, dizziness and memory problems. There is also some suggestion that there may be an increase in cancers and heart disease. Wi-Fi systems essentially take small versions of these masts into the home and classroom - they emit much the same kind of radiation. Though virtually no research has been carried out, campaigners and some scientists expect them to have similar ill-effects. They say that we are all now living in a soup of electromagnetic radiation one billion times stronger than the natural fields in which living cells have developed over the last 3.8 billion years. This, they add, is bound to cause trouble Prof Leif Salford, of Lund University - who showed that the radiation kills off brain cells - is also deeply worried about wi-fi's addition to "electronic smog". There is particular concern about children partly because they are more vulnerable - as their skulls are thinner and their nervous systems are still developing - and because they will be exposed to more of the radiation during their lives. The Austrian Medical Association is lobbying against the deployment of Wi-Fi in schools. The authorities of the province of Salzburg has already advised schools not to install it, and is now considering a ban. Dr Gerd Oberfeld, Salzburg's head of environmental health and medicine, says that the Wi-Fi is "dangerous" to sensitive people and that "the number of people and the danger are both growing". In Britain, Stowe School removed Wi-Fi from part of its premises after a classics master, Michael Bevington - who had taught ther e for 28 years - developed headaches and nausea as soon as it was installed. Ian Gibson, the MP for the newly wireless city Norwich is calling for an official inquiry into the risks of Wi-Fi. The Professional Association of Teachers is to write to Education Secretary Alan Johnson this week to call for one. Philip Parkin, the general secretary of the union, says; "I am concerned that so many wireless networks are being installed in schools and colleges without any understanding of the possible long-term consequences. "The proliferation of wireless networks could be having serious implications for the health of some staff and pupils without the cause being recognized." But, he added, there are huge commercial pressures" which may be why there has not yet been "any significant action". Guidelines that were ignored The first Stewart Report, published in May 2000, produced a series of sensible recommendations. They included: discouraging children from using mobiles, and stopping the industry from promoting them to the young; publicizing  the radiation levels of different handsets so that customers could choose the lowest; making the erection of phone masts subject to democratic control through the planning system; and stopping the building of masts where the radiation "beam of greatest intensity" fell on schools, unless the school and parents agreed. The Government accepted most of these recommendations, but then, as 'The Independent on Sunday' has repeatedly pointed out, failed to implement them. Probably, it has lost any chance to curb the use of mobiles by children and teenagers. Since the first report, mobile use by the young has doubled.

Cell phone cancer link inconclusive but experts advise caution

WASHINGTON (CNN) The science is still out, but evidence so far indicates people should limit how much we use a cell phone, BlackBerry or iPhone due to a possible cancer risk, a Senate subcommittee heard Monday. While no solid connection between mobile communications devices and human cancer has been established, studies indicating the likelihood of such a link call for a precautionary approach, medical experts testified at the hearing chaired by Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa. Recommendations included using such devices less, keeping them away from the body, and limiting their use by children. "Children have a configuration of their skull that does allow penetration of cell-phone radiation," noted Dr. John Bucher, associate director of the National Toxicology Program at the National Institutes of Health. However, Bucher stopped short of declaring a causal link between cell-phone use and human cancer. Other witnesses before the Senate Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Subcommittee noted the relatively short history of widespread cell-phone use, dating back only two decades. Early studies are inconclusive, said Dr. Siegal Sadetzki of Tel Aviv University, but those done on subjects after 10 years of cell-phone use were showing higher incidences of tumors and other problems. She cited a correlation between the amount of use, the side of the head where the device was held for talking, and incidences of tumors in salivary glands in that area. "Until definite answers are available, some public health measures  especially for children should be instituted," Sadetzki said. "It's not whether we should use cell phones, but how we should use them." None of the participants in the hearing including Harkin  said they were giving up their cell phones, but all agreed that restricting use and keeping the units away from the body were good ideas. Dr. Devra Davis  a founding director of the Center for Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute criticized U.S. regulators and researchers for a lack of attention to the issue. She called for updated standards based on new research, and increased funding for more extensive research. "I am not alarmed   I am concerned, because the world has changed very rapidly and we have a right to know," Davis said.

Keep That Phone Out of Your Trouser Pocket

It's the strongest warning yet. John Aitken, a well-known fertility researcher, is advising men who want to have children not to keep active mobile phones below their waists. This issue, he says, "deserves our immediate attention." Aitken's research group at the University of Newcastle in Australia has found that human sperm exposed to mobile phone radiation (1.8 GHz) for 16 hours had reduced vitality and motility, two key indices of fertility. Notably, he has also confirmed his own previous study, published in 2005, which showed that RF radiation could lead to DNA damage. In that earlier experiment, he had exposed mice to 900 MHz signals and then looked at the animals' sperm, in contrast to the new study in which he exposed semen collected from human volunteers. The new data show striking dose responses for all three effects over a wide range of SARs above 0.4 W/Kg and up to 27.5 W/Kg. The changes in motility and vitality became statistically significant at 1 W/Kg and the DNA damag e at 2.8 W/Kg. In all cases, the statistical reliability of the effects became much more significant with higher SARs. These new results appear in a paper published on July 31 in Plus ONE, a Web-based, peer-reviewed journal. All Public Library of Science journals offer free access to all. "After 16 hours exposure, there was clear evidence of DNA damage," Aitken said at a fertility conference in Brisbane last fall when he first presented these findings. Aitken is the director of the Australian Research Council's Center of Excellence in Biotechnology and Development. "Several independent lines of evidence suggest that RF-EMR has the potential to influence semen quality and could be an important contributor to DNA damage in the male germ line," Aitken told Microwave News. He said that he would like to see more studies done, especially ones with the statistical power to determine whether RF can indeed affect male fertility. In an interview published last month, Martine Hours, the chief science advisor to the French RF research program, also called for more fertility studies. Importantly, Aitken also demonstrates a "potential causative mechanism" as to how RF radiation can lead to DNA damage. He acknowledges that cell phone signals do not have enough energy to directly break chemical bonds, but, he goes on, "[T]his form of radiation may have other effects on larger scale systems such as cells and organelles, which stem from the perturbation of charged molecules and the disruption of electron flow." Specifically he believes that the RF can cause leakage of electrons from the mitochondria and produce reactive oxygen species (ROS), which in turn can attack DNA. This process, he states, is unrelated to thermal stress. Over a decade ago in a follow-up to their landmark 1995 study which showed that RF radiation can lead to DNA breaks in the brains of exposed rats, Henry Lai and N.P. Singh showed that the DNA breaks were caused by free radicals. (For more on EMFs and DNA damage, see the recent review by Lai, Singh and Jerry Phillips of the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs.) Aitken found an analogous dose-response relationship for the production of free radicals with increasing SAR  a highly significant one  to the ones for motility, vitality and DNA damage. "[T]he profiles of all the observed effects with respect to SAR were intriguingly similar, suggesting a common underlying mechanism," Aitken writes. Another of Aitken's results may also be quite meaningful: Only a subset of the sperm cells was vulnerable to RF-induced oxidative stress. "[A]ll of the responses examined showed an extremely rapid change at low SAR exposures that then reached a plateau at a point where around 30% of the sperm population was affected," Aitken reports, but he is quick to add, "[T]his does not mean that a majority of spermatozoa would not, ultimately, be affected by RF-EMR in vivo." It might well depend on the duration of the exposure, he says. These new results from Australia are consistent with those of Ashok Agarwal and coworkers at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. In a paper published last year in Fertility and Sterility, Agarwal also reported decreases in sperm motility and viability and increases in ROS in human semen. He concluded, "[K]eeping [a] cell phone=2 0in a trouser pocket in talk mode may negatively affect spermatozoa and impair male fertility." Yet, in a subsequent interview with Newsweek, when he was asked where he kept his phone, Agarwal replied: "In my pants pocket." Because, he explained, he does not use a hands-free set (the phone is on standby, not talk mode, there, resulting in less exposure). And because "I already have two children." Agarwal had previously observed an association between semen quality and cell phone use among men who had visited an infertility clinic. "Semen analysis ... showed a decrease in sperm count, motility, viability, and normal morphology with the increase in daily use of cell phone," he reported

Cell phones - a wake up call

Mobile phones are a modern day convenience in our society. But, does this advance in technology come at a price to human health Humanity engages various forms of radiation in our everyday life. From microwaves to X-rays, we are surrounded by EMF waves (electromagnetic radiation). Modern medicine thanks Madame Currie for her discovery of the X-ray, but recognizes radiation poisoning eroded her health and eventually claimed her life. Almost two billion people worldwide use cell phones, many of whom are children. This usage represents an unprecedented exposure to electromagnetic radiation in the population. Estimates put EMF radiation exposure at 100 times what it was only a few decades ago. Is this safe  Today, 30 to 50,000 new cases of brain and eye cancers are attributable to cell phone usage. Projections indicate this number will rise to 500,00 by 2010. These energy waves carry information invisibly over great distances and can penetrate solid objects, humans included. As these are human-made forms of radiation, they are seen as foreign. Our bodies, well designed as they may be, do not have a built in protective mechanism for this kind of radiation, unlike solar radiation. Some fear humans put their health at risk bathing in a sea of EMF radiation. Founder of the Safe Wireless Initiative, Dr. George Carlo, a world public health authority on cell phones, cautions harm from wireless technology may be even more tragic than global warming. His research suggests cell phone radiation can cause genetic damage. He found exposure allowed for leakage of the blood brain barrier. Normally, the blood brain barrier is a tightly controlled border. His research suggests even moderate use of wireless communication technology dramatically increases the risk of brain tumors. Dr. Carlo explains when people are under stress, their nervous system goes into a sympathetic state, otherwise known as the fight or flight response. At a cellular level, stress causes cells to close down, as if they are in a sympathetic lock position. In such a state, nutrients have difficulty getting into cells and waste has trouble getting out. This leads to energy deficiency and an inability to communicate with other cells. From a health stand point, this is bad news. Essentially, the whole biological system is not functioning well and the immune system will follow suit. People who are sensitive to cell phone radiation describe symptoms such as anxiety, insomnia, concentration difficulties, poor digestion, memory problems, immune dysfunction and reproductive trouble. If electromagnetic pollution is responsible for such a collection of health dysfunction, people will waste a lot of time taking prescriptions that miss the mark. Making a lifestyle change may be the better solution. Because the health of you and your loved ones is so very valuable, consider using wireless tools sparingly.