Syneurgy Blog

New Research Could Mean Cellphones That Can See Through Walls

Mike — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 13:39:03 +0000

ScienceDaily (Apr. 18, 2012) — Comic book hero superpowers may be one step closer to reality after the latest technological feats made by researchers at UT Dallas. They have designed an imager chip that could turn mobile phones into devices that can see through walls, wood, plastics, paper and other objects.

The team’s research linked two scientific advances. One involves tapping into an unused range in the electromagnetic spectrum. The other is a new microchip technology.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120418135306.htm

Cell Phone Use in Pregnancy May Cause Behavioral Disorders in Offspring, Mouse Study Suggests

Mike — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 22:02:31 +0000

ScienceDaily (Mar. 15, 2012) — Exposure to radiation from cell phones during pregnancy affects the brain development of offspring, potentially leading to hyperactivity, Yale School of Medicine researchers have determined.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120315110138.htm

“Of Mice and Men” & cell phones by Dariusz Leszczynski

Mike — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 13:07:58 +0000

http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/between-rock-and-hard-place/2012/jan/31/mice-men-cell-phones-toxicology-health-risk/

Wake-Up Call

Mike — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 03:14:19 +0000

The electromagnetic radiation surrounding us – especially from cell phones – may pose unseen dangers to our health. Learn what you can do to reduce your exposure to EMFs.

By Pamela Weintraub / December 2011

My Brooklyn neighborhood is one of the most historic in New York. Up the block, the F. G. Guido Funeral Home, built circa 1840, was a destination of choice for many a Mafia send-off. The Gothic arches of St. Paul’s Church, across the street, have welcomed Episcopalians and music lovers since 1849. Along with hundred-year-old brownstones graced by deep front gardens, these national landmarks are assiduously protected from change. But, one modern feature has silently infiltrated this vintage section of Brooklyn: electromagnetic frequencies, or EMFs for short.

Invisible to the eye, EMFs are powering an ever-expanding thicket of appliances and electric lights, and more recently, a burgeoning network of cell towers, wireless routers and the ever-present cell phones that gird our lives.

Life without cell phones and other wireless conduits has become nearly unthinkable, but a growing chorus of experts now worries that our near constant immersion in these force fields could be endangering our health.

We are exposed “to as much as 100 million times more electromagnetic radiation than our grandparents were,” notes Ann Louise Gittleman, PhD, author of Zapped: Why Your Cell Phone Shouldn’t Be Your Alarm Clock and 1,268 Ways to Outsmart the Hazards of Electronic Pollution (HarperOne, 2010).

Worry intensified this year after the World Health Organization (WHO) analyzed the data and called cell phones a possible carcinogen. The jury is still out on the range of possible effects, but a raft of studies now links EMFs — especially those from cell phones carried close to our bodies — to brain tumors, damaged DNA, fertility problems and autism.

With cell-phone usage surging from a hundred million people worldwide in 1997 to some 5 billion today, even small increases in risk could pose a serious global threat. A Council of Europe committee has even warned that EMFs might bring about a health crisis comparable to those once spawned by smoking and asbestos.

In an effort to lower risk, some communities are taking action to reduce EMF exposures. The National Library of France, for example, has dismantled its wireless system. Germany has advised against wireless technologies in residential neighborhoods.

But when it comes to cell phones, initial change might have to come one person at a time.

“Studies show people would rather leave home without their wallet than their cell phone. The cell phone has become an extension of the body,” says Devra Davis, PhD, former researcher for the National Academies of Sciences and president and founder of the Environmental Health Trust, an organization devoted to educating the public about controllable environmental health risks and policy changes needed to reduce them.

Read on to learn more about EMFs and the best ways to reduce your own exposure risks.

EMFs are Everywhere

What is all the fuss about, anyway? Electromagnetic frequencies — essentially different forms of radiation that vary along what physicists call the “electromagnetic spectrum” (see illustration below) — abound in nature. They build up after thunderstorms and travel through the planet from pole to pole. Light is the most familiar EMF, but modern technology also generates EMFs: x-rays, radio waves and microwaves, to name a few.

What makes one form of electromagnetic radiation fundamentally different from another? In a nutshell: Its wavelength and frequency. Shorter waves have to cycle up and down more frequently to travel a given distance, so they are more energy intensive; some, like x-rays and gamma rays, emit so much energy they can break living tissue apart, a characteristic that has caused experts to label them “ionizing.” By contrast, longer waves, like TV waves, radio waves and microwaves, have to cycle up and down less frequently to travel a given distance. That means they emit less energy; they don’t ionize living tissue and have been widely embraced as safe.

It wasn’t until January 1993, when TV talk-show host Larry King did an interview with a Florida man, that confidence began to erode. King’s guest, David Reynard, had filed a claim against the cell-phone manufacturer NEC and the carrier GTE Mobilenet. According to Reynard, in 1988 he’d given his wife, Susan, a cell phone for her birthday. Seven months later, he told King, she was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor that closely resembled the size and shape of the phone’s antenna. A month after Reynard filed the lawsuit, Susan was dead.

Could the cell phone really have been the culprit? Experts like Davis hypothesize that it could have been. The effect on the brain and other vulnerable tissue is much like snapping a rubber band, she explains. “Snap it once, and it stays intact, but snap it constantly and irregularly, and the rubber band falls apart.”

Given how widespread cell-phone usage is, and how quickly Susan Reynard’s cancer (a rare, malignant astrocytoma) developed, lawyers couldn’t prove that her cell phone was to blame. Yet studies and counter-studies have cast an increasingly disturbing — though uncertain — light on the damage that nonionizing wavelengths might cause.

In 1994 University of Washington scientists exposed live rats to cell-phone-like radiation and then examined their brains. DNA from brains of exposed rats was damaged, while DNA from unexposed rat brains remained intact.

Many consider a series of studies from Lund University in Sweden to be the pivotal evidence to date. By 2003 the Swedish researchers were reporting that cell-phone radiation breached the blood-brain barrier, the vascular and immune barricade keeping toxins out of the brain. In one study, the Swedish scientists exposed 32 rats to cell-phone radiation for just two hours, varying intensity among the rats in order to reflect the types of exposures human cell-phone users might receive. When the rats were euthanized roughly 50 days after exposure, and their brains studied, scientists found significant blood-vessel leakage and shrunken, damaged neurons. The higher the level of radiation, the more damage was done.

Ever since the Swedish study, increasing numbers of people have been claiming a link between their brain tumors and their cell phones. Countless studies, most of them small, have shown evidence of harm. But these studies have been countered by just as many studies finding no risk at all.

To help get to the truth, a multinational study called INTERPHONE compared cell-phone usage in brain-tumor patients with usage in a healthy control group without brain tumors. Results, reported in 2010 in the International Journal of Epidemiology, were mixed. According to researchers, risk of getting a brain tumor was higher for those using cell phones the most — 30 minutes a day or more for at least 10 years. On the other hand, people using cell phones for shorter periods of time were reported to have less risk than those using only landlines; for these moderate users, the study implied, cell phones had a protective effect.

Writing an editorial on the study in the same issue of the journal, Rodolfo Saracci, MD, of the National Research Council in Pisa, Italy, and Jonathan Samet, MD, of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, tried to shed some light. Addressing the tepid findings on risk for heavy users only, they commented that, in contrast, “none of today’s established carcinogens, including tobacco, could have been firmly identified as increasing risk in the first 10 years or so since first exposure.”

As for the so-called protective effect, they found no biological mechanism to explain it. Given that, most experts say it probably reflects a flaw in the design of the study — and not a benefit
from EMFs.

This year’s critical WHO report labeling EMFs a “possible” carcinogen followed fast on the heels of the INTERPHONE study. According to Samet, who led the WHO working group that reviewed the evidence, the cancer–cell-phone link cannot be dismissed.

“The evidence is credible,” he comments. But Samet also points out that without a known mechanism for how cancer is induced, it’s impossible to elevate the risk label to its next level of concern: from “possible” to “probable.” More research will be required.

Young Brains and Cell Phones

Could there be too much of an emphasis being put on brain cancer, which is still a rare diagnosis? “A much larger concern is damage to neural connections in the developing brain and to the reproductive health of men and women,” says Davis.

When it comes to reducing EMF-exposure risks, every millimeter of separation between a cell phone and the brain is protective. With thinner skulls and smaller ears, children are closer to the radiation source. In fact, researchers have long reported significantly higher absorption rates of radiation for children — about twice as much for those under age 8.

When it comes to disruption of neural connections, compelling research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association this year shows that 50-minute cell-phone calls increase glucose metabolism in the area of the brain closest to the phone antenna — specifically, the orbitofrontal cortex and temporal pole, regions involved in sensory integration, language, decision making, and social and emotional processing.

Although the study’s lead author, psychiatrist Nora D. Volkow, MD, of the National Institute of Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health, does not know whether the metabolic increases can cause damage over time, she does say that, if they do, children and adolescents (because they have the most neuroplastic brains) would be at greatest risk. “As of right now, we don’t know what happens when you get repeated exposures. What happens over the course of 10 or 15 years?” she wonders.

Research presented at a conference held in Istanbul this May underscores Volkow’s concerns. After Turkish researchers exposed adult rats to mobile-phone-like emissions, they found damage to the cerebellum, a part of the brain important for language, attention and motor control. After exposing pregnant rats to similar radiation during gestation, the researchers documented cell loss in the newborn rats’ hippocampus, a part of the brain pivotal to memory formation.

It appears that cell phones can also threaten fertility. Research from the University of Athens showed that cell-phone radiation could cause DNA fragmentation in the ovarian cells of insects, drastically reducing reproductive capacity.

At the same conference, research was presented from Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, where researchers exposed rats to two hours of cell-phone radiation a day for 35 days. At the end of that period, exposed rats had high levels of free radicals that resulted in an increased risk of infertility and cancer.

The news is disturbing for humans as well: Research from the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio recently suggested that cell phones may lower sperm count in men — especially those who kept the phone on “talk” mode, and carried it on their body, most often in their pants pocket.

Communities React

The most specific findings come from studies of rodents, hardly the highest level of evidence. But right now, that is the best evidence available. Cell-phone technology is new, and definitive human evidence won’t emerge until decades of use enable long-term follow-up and the kind of epidemiological evidence true proof demands.

Some communities aren’t content to wait those decades for consensus when they can do something now. The San Francisco Commission on the Environment called for a review of cell-phone safety standards, safety warnings at the state and federal levels, and safety information at the point of sale. The mayor and town council of Jackson Hole, Wyo., have voted for a cell-phone safety-awareness campaign for the city and the public schools.

For its part, the cell-phone industry insists on more research before it issues warnings or changes its products in any way. Some compare this to the tobacco industry’s resistance to conceding risk and issuing warnings that smoking can cause cancer. “Whilst the vast majority of scientific studies have not shown any adverse health risks, there are some studies that have raised questions that need to be addressed by further research,” according to the Mobile Manufacturers Forum, an international association of telecommunications-equipment manufacturers established in 1998.

Most cancer advocacy organizations insist on better evidence as well. “Studies thus far have not shown a consistent link between cell-phone use and cancers of the brain, nerves, or other tissues of the head or neck. More research is needed because cell-phone technology and how people use cell phones have been changing rapidly,” according to the National Cancer Institute in Washington, D.C.

The furious yin and yang of the debate continues as this article goes to press. In July the Journal of the National Cancer Institute published a study comparing 352 Western European children who had brain tumors with 646 without tumors; cell-phone use, the researchers reported, created no increased risk for the disease.

Still, Davis calls those conclusions “astonishing and deeply disturbing.” The research, conducted from 2004 to 2008, couldn’t possibly capture the quadrupling of cell-phone use over the last few years, she says. “And how,” she wants to know, “can a study lasting just four years answer questions about tumors that can take a decade to form?”

Although Davis agrees that we have not yet proven harm to the standards that science demands, she says that shouldn’t stop us from taking cautionary measures now. “The need for research should not be allowed to become an excuse to carry on as though everything is fine, until we have incontrovertible proof that it is not,” she writes in her book, Disconnect: The Truth About Cell Phone Radiation, What the Industry Has Done to Hide It, and How to Protect Your Family (Dutton Adult, 2010). We may not yet have an epidemic of brain tumors in countries that have used cell phones for little over a decade, she points out. “But 10 years after cigarettes began to be heavily smoked, we also did not have an epidemic of lung cancer. Years from now our grandchildren will look back and ask: Did we do the right thing and act to protect them, or did we harm them needlessly, irresponsibly, and permanently, blinded by the addictive delights of our technological age?

Cellphone use can affect your health – article Sioux City Journal.com

Mike — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 05:11:08 +0000

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Cellphone use can affect your health

Cellphone use can affect your health By Scott Sneller, D.C. Multicare Physicians Group Sioux City Journal | Posted: Thursday, December 1, 2011 12:00 am | No Comments Posted

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Metro CreativeTexting too much can lead to thumb pain. As experts in ergonomics, doctors of chiropractic can help their patients use technology safely, avoiding unnecessary injury and strain, or treat the aches and pains that may already exist.

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Check your pockets. If you have a cellphone, chances are it might be buzzing, or is it? Take it out of your pocket and send a text. Do your thumbs sometimes struggle to find the keys and ache, or do you even text at all?

As technology has advanced, it has allowed us to constantly keep in touch with the world, keeping it at our fingertips and in our pocket. However, a couple of new trends in health care have emerged with this widespread and incessant use of cellphones: Phantom Vibration Syndrome and Blackberry Thumbs.

Phantom Vibration Syndrome is just what it sounds like. It’s becoming an increasingly documented phenomenon: cellphone users feel what they think is their cellphone buzzing,…but it’s not – in fact – it’s on silent mode, in another pocket, or even on the nightstand. It may not be as serious as an auto accident, but one study found that in habitual users of mobile devices, up to 70 percent of participants experienced this phenomenon, and of the 70 percent, up to 12 percent even described it as “bothersome.”

So why does our body trick us into thinking we have an incoming text message or phone call? The answer may be simpler than you might think: we love to be rewarded. A new cellphone user is on a learning curve: he or she becomes accustomed to feeling the lower-amplitude vibrations, and in turn receives a text, a Facebook alert, or a host of any other information that can be sent to a cellphone. As a result of repeatedly responding to the vibrating stimulus, users feel rewarded to get new messages. This trains users’ bodies to respond and detect the signal more quickly and efficiently. As the behavior is repeated, the connections in the brain become stronger, making the behavior automatic.

Since the brain is “anticipating” the stimulus and wants the reward, it makes any similar stimulus stand out. For example: at a party, if you hear your name, you immediately turn to look for the source. Our brains learn to filter out excess input so we can get more important – and in some cases life-threatening – information and respond quickly. Similarly, brushing the clothing where the cellphone is held can illicit the same response.

However, the phantom vibrations can be stronger depending on where you hold your phone, as well as how long you have held your phone there, and how long it’s in that spot each day. Research has shown that holding it in the same spot every day, more than six hours, or longer than six months increases the risk of feeling these phantom vibrations. Age plays a role as well. Younger cellphone users are more susceptible to the vibrations.

The good news is that this new syndrome is reversible and relatively harmless. Studies have suggested that moving the phone to another pocket and/or turning off the vibrate feature will help decrease any phantom vibrations.

Blackberry Thumb is the next more recent technology-induced syndrome to look at.

To better understand the role texting plays in a typical teen’s life (not to deny many adults as well), look at these statistics:

 Cells are selling: About 75 percent of 12-17 year-olds in America now own a cellphone.

 Non-verbal communication: Half of those teenagers send 50 or more text messages a day.

 Text time: One-third of teens send more than 100 text messages daily.

 Text tops talk: Two-thirds of texters say they are more likely to use their cellphones to text their friends rather than talk to them.

 The changing face of friendship: More than half – 54 percent – of teens say they text their friends at least once a day, but only 33 percent talk to friends face-to-face daily.

 The electric life: Americans between ages 8 and 18 spend an average of seven and a half hours a day with an electronic device, be it a computer, smartphone, or television.

As it turns out, our thumbs weren’t designed with texting in mind. Using the thumbs in a continually flexed position has spurred a rise in repetitive stress injuries to the thumb, and more commonly referred to as “Blackberry thumb.” The term was coined in the late 1990s when the Blackberry first hit the market and its constant chronic users found themselves with painful, achy, swollen thumbs. While Blackberry thumb doesn’t exclusively come from using the Blackberry phone, it can be caused by repetitive use of any cellphone when the thumbs are in the flexed position for long periods of time. As mobile phone technology develops, handsets are getting smaller with buttons closer together. Small, fine movements tend to aggravate more than larger movements. Our thumbs were designed to help us grip and grasp objects, not to continually text and type.

Prolonged flexion of the thumb causes a buildup of scar tissue on the flexor tendon, as well as inflammation and swelling. As the tendons are held in the bent position, they build up scar tissue, which is then caught on the tendon sheath. When the finger is straightened, it may “snap” or “pop.” In some cases the finger may lock in the flexed position, necessitating using the opposite hand to forcefully straighten the thumb. In other cases the actual nerves in the thumb can be inflamed and irritated, which can cause local pain in the fingertip rather than at the base of the thumb.

Since thumbs are the primary digits used to press the cellphone keys, they take most of the brunt. Imagine leaning against a wall for hours and hours with nothing but your thumbs. After a while, this would obviously get uncomfortable. The same thing happens with texting with one’s thumbs. Hundreds and thousands of times of pressing down onto the cellphone keys adds up every day until the thumb gets irritated. Symptoms of Blackberry Thumb, AKA repetitive stress injury (RSI), include pain, cramping, numbness, discomfort, and tendon snapping or locking at the base of the thumb.

If gentle massage of your thumbs web doesn’t do the trick, treatment for the thumb can include physical therapy, ice packs, anti-inflammatories, joint manipulation, medications, paraffin baths, splints, or even surgery in extreme situations. Stretching is usually enough to cure most cases, along with decreasing the use of the device, or switching hands. However, in cases where the pain is constant, or interferes with daily activities, it’s essential that cellphone users experiencing these symptoms seek treatment before their injuries worsen or become chronic.

In our patient base at Multicare Physicians Group we have seen cases of this repetitive stress injury cured almost exclusively with conservative treatment. However, severe and chronic cases do exist, and we urge anyone having any of these symptoms to see their doctor sooner, rather than later.

So, the next time you reach for your vibrating phone to return a text, you may just think twice.

For more information, or to schedule an appointment at Multicare Physicians Group, call (712) 276-4325.

Multicare Physicians Group is located at 3930 Stadium Drive in Sioux City.

Mobile phones and cordless technology – are they safe?

Mike — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 13:07:36 +0000

11 September 2011

Mobile phones and cordless technology – are they safe?

Listen Now – 2011-09-11 |Download Audio – 11092011

Lyn McLean is the Director of EMR Australia and former director of EMR Association of Australia. She is a community representative on several government and industry committees and has lobbied for precautions to protect the community against the harmful effects of electromagnetic radiation.

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Robyn Williams: Do you have a mobile phone? Most people do apparently, most teenagers have several. Frankly, I don’t know how they can afford them. I’ve always felt that, if God had meant us to have mobile phones he’d have given us prehensile ears. Watch out, they will evolve, and quite soon, along with thumbs the size of bananas.

I don’t have a mobile phone. Not because I’m worried, like Lyn McLean is, about radiation, but because I don’t like being called. Why should we be prepared to receive phone calls anywhere at any time? Most, these days, come from people I’ve never met, who want to flog a holiday, a hotel, or some incomprehensible adjustment to my phone plan, which I don’t have.

Lyn McLean has written a book called The Force – living safely in a world of electromagnetic pollution. She’s less concerned about the world of terrorism and September 11, it seems. Here’s why:

Lyn McLean: At the end of May the International Agency for Research on Cancer and the World Health Organisation, announced that radiofrequency radiation from mobile phones is ‘possibly carcinogenic’. This decision was based on evidence that mobile phone users have a higher rate of glioma brain tumours. The announcement is a dramatic shift in policy for the World Health Organisation which has consistently argued against mobile phone risks for several decades.

Also in May the Council of Europe, said that mobile phone frequencies ‘appear to have more or less potentially harmful, non-thermal, biological effects on plants, insects and animals as well as the human body’. It urged its 47 member states to keep people’s exposure ‘as low as reasonably achievable’.

Just a few weeks beforehand, Russia’s peak radiation body – the Russian National Committee on NonIonising Radiation Protection – said much the same thing. Its scientists agreed that ‘the mobile phone is an uncontrolled source of harmful exposure’.

The Council of Europe and the Russian scientists agreed that measures should be put in place to protect children who are particularly vulnerable to mobile phone radiation. This is because their skulls are thinner and so their brains absorb more radiation than adults and they have more stem cells that are vulnerable to radiation. As well as this, children have a possible lifetime of exposure, unlike previous generations. Both authorities recommended educating children about safe phone use and the Russians suggested banning the advertising of mobile phones to children.

All of these authorities I’ve mentioned called for precautions to protect people from unnecessary exposure to radiofrequency radiation. The Director of the International Agency for Research on Cancer, Dr Christopher Wild said, ‘it is important to take pragmatic measures to reduce exposure such as hands-free devices or texting.’ The Council of Europe called on its member states to ‘take all reasonable measures to reduce exposure’ especially for children and the young. And the Russian scientists called for ‘urgent precautionary measures’.

The importance of these announcements can’t be overstated. However the mobile phone industry might like to play them down, these statements represent the first time that such influential organisations have recognised the risks of mobile phone radiation. And they join the many that have already done so.

What these authorities are suggesting – either implicitly or explicitly – is that mobile phone radiation may be dangerous and that international standards are not providing adequate protection. That’s because these standards protect against only a very limited number of effects: the short-term effects that occur when radiation heats the body. What they don’t protect against is the long-term, non-heating effects of radiation – the sort of radiation you’d be exposed to if you used your mobile phone every day or if you lived near a base station.

It’s these continuous, low levels of radiation that have had many independent scientists worried for years. Some of them have found that mobile phone radiation can cause breaks in DNA strands, changes to cell behaviour, effects on hormones, breaches of the blood-brain-barrier, stress in cells, reductions in fertility and immunity and so on. All without heating the body.

Having a radiation standard that protects only against some of the effects of radiation and not others just isn’t good enough. It’s like having a standard for poisons that doesn’t include arsenic. These standards have served the telecommunications industry much better than they’ve served the public.

What we need to understand is that science still has a long way to go before it has a handle on the real health effects of mobile phone use.

Take brain tumours, for example. For the last decade or so an alarming number of people have reported that they’ve developed brain tumours in the part of the head against which they hold their mobile phones. Some have spoken publicly on TV and some have taken legal action against the mobile phone companies they say caused their tumours. However, a few brain tumours located suggestively don’t prove that mobile phone radiation is to blame. You need to have a great many tumours for that.

So scientists set up a major, 13-country research project known as the Interphone study. After ten years and many delays, the results of the study were finally released last year. It found that people who were most exposed to mobile phone radiation had increased risks of a type of brain tumour called gliomas. However, there’s evidence that the Interphone study may have actually underestimated the brain tumour risk of users. For example, its subjects were comparatively low mobile phone users, and it didn’t involve children. In fact, the head of the Interphone study, Dr Elizabeth Cardis, later wrote a paper criticising it.

Apart from the limitations of the Interphone study, the reality is that it’s just too early to see the real contribution that mobile phone use might make to brain tumours. This is because it takes decades for these tumours to develop and mobile phones haven’t been in heavy and widespread use for very long in the scheme of things – so the tumours we are already seeing may just be the tip of the iceberg.

However, brain tumours aren’t the only problem that’s associated with mobile phone radiation. Scientists have found that users have other unpleasant side effects as well – such as headaches, heat, feelings of pressure in the head, memory problems and fatigue .

I often speak to people who report sensations of ‘burning’ on the side of the head where they use their phone. One man told me he developed redness and burning on the side of the face where he held his phone and eventually developed Bell’s Palsy. One woman told me she had headaches every time she used her mobile phone. They completely disappeared after she started using a hands-free kit. Another man told me that after he used a new mobile phone he felt nauseous and developed nose bleeds. Other people have told me that when they wear their mobile phone on their belts they feel pain in their hips.

Just like mobile phones, cordless phones emit radiofrequency radiation – and some models of them transmit continuously, even when no call is being made. When you hold a cordless phone to your ear, your head is absorbing radiation, too. One woman told me that she developed headaches that her doctors weren’t able to explain. They’d started soon after she bought a cordless phone – and disappeared when she replaced it with a wired phone.

It’s important to realise that radiofrequency radiation comes not just from mobile and cordless phones, but from other cordless technologies as well. It’s emitted by many baby monitors, by wireless computer networks, base stations, smart meters and other transmitters. So if mobile phone radiation is a problem, these technologies are likely to be as well.

If radiofrequency radiation is harmful, as this evidence suggests, then why has the public been led a merry dance about its safety?

The truth is that the telecommunications industry has strongly influenced the debate about mobile phone safety. In Australia, till recently, Motorola was on the committee for setting the country’s radiofrequency standard and the committee that allocated funding for mobile phone research and Telstra was a partner in Australia’s mobile phone research program. On the world stage, the World Health Organisation has received funding from the mobile phone industry and telecommunications experts have been involved in standards and international decision-making. For example, Dr Anders Ahlbom is a chief figure in international committees, Sweden’s Karolinska research Institute and has written a number of influential research papers. Recently it was revealed that he had interests in a company that works for the telecommunications industry.

I realise that the message that the radiation from our favourite toy might be harmful is not a popular one. Many people espousing it, myself included, have come under strong personal attack. Scientists who have been brave enough to speak out have lost funding or their research facilities. There’s no doubt in my mind that neither the telecommunications industries nor the governments that profit from them want to curtail this highly profitably golden calf.

The same was true at various times of smoking, lead and asbestos. In fact, brain tumour surgeon, Dr Vini Khurana, has described mobile phones as the tobacco of the 21st century.

Yet, however inconvenient the truth about mobile phone radiation might be, it’s important that people know about it. We all have a right to the truth and it’s only by being fully informed that we can make appropriate choices as individuals and as a society – and limit our exposure if we choose.

How can you do that?

Firstly, you can limit your use of mobile phones as much as possible. Use them for essential calls only and make calls on a landline where ever you can.

Secondly, avoid holding the mobile phone against your head or body while it’s turned on. Use the phone on speaker mode or with a hands-free kit – as long as it doesn’t use Bluetooth.

Thirdly, avoid using a mobile phone in low signal areas where it has to operate at higher power, which exposes you to more radiation. Don’t use it in a lift, for example.

Fourth, use wired technologies rather than wireless technologies wherever you can. Use a corded phone, use corded internet connections, particularly if children will be using the technology.

Next, keep radiation-emitting devices out of the bedroom at night. Don’t use your mobile phone as an alarm clock or charge it next to the bed. Don’t have a DECT baby monitor near your child’s cot and keep cordless phones out of the bedroom.

If you’re an employer, make sure your staff know about the risks of mobile phone radiation and take precautions to limit their exposure.

Finally, beware of the countless devices on the market that claim to protect users against the harmful effects of radiation. Remember there are no standards covering these devices, no independent testing of them and often no way that they can be proven to work.

We need to act now. As the Council of Europe report said, ‘Waiting for high levels of scientific and clinical proof before taking action to prevent well-known risks can lead to very high health and economic costs, as was the case with asbestos, leaded petrol and tobacco.’

Robyn Williams: Lyn McLean, who’s been campaigning on EMR pollution, as she calls it for 15 years. Her book on that, with more advice, is called The Force – living safely in a world of electromagnetic pollution. Engineers, of course, tell me (and we’ve had them on this program) that the output of phones is so tiny, it would be unlikely to be damaging to our cells, but Lyn McLean disagrees. Feel free to add your comment to the Ockham’s Razor website.

Next week, for a change, no health hazards, only trains. I’m Robyn Williams.

References:
IARC, ‘IARC classifies radiofrequency electromagnetic fields as possibly carcinogenic to humans,’ media release 31.05.11, http://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/pr/2011/pdfs/pr208_E.pdf
Council of Europe, ‘The potential dangers of electromagnetic fields and their effect on the environment’, Resolution 1815, 2011, http://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/pr/2011/pdfs/pr208_E.pdf
Russian National Committee on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection, ‘Electromagnetic Fields from Mobile Phones: Health Effect on Children and Teenagers’, April 2011, Moscow, http://www.magdahavas.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Russia_20110514-rncnirp_resolution.pdf
IARC ibid
BioInitiative Working Group, ‘The BioInitiative Report’, 2007, www.bioinitiative.org
INTERPHONE Study Group, ‘Brain tumour risk in relation to mobile telephone use: results of the INTERPHONE international case-control study’, Int J Epidemiol. 2010 Jun;39(3):675-94. Epub 2010 May 17.
Cardis E and Sadetzki S, ‘Indications of possible brain-tumour risk in mobile-phone studies: should we be concerned?’ Occup Environ Med. 2011 Mar;68(3):169-71. Epub 2011 Jan 24.
Hocking B, ‘Preliminary report: symptoms associated with mobile phone use’, Occup Med (Lond). 1998 Sep;48(6):357-60
Sandstr M et al, ‘Mobile phone use and subjective symptoms. Comparison of symptoms experienced by users of analogue and digital mobile phones’, Occup Med (Lond). 2001 Feb;51(1):25-35.

http://www.microwavenews.com/Ahlbom.html

Today Tonight, ‘Best/Worst Mobiles’ by Laura Sparkes, http://www.7perth.com.au/view/today-tonight-articles/bestworst-mobiles/

Europe issues alert over “more or less potentially harmful” cell phone radiation

Mike — Thu, 26 May 2011 02:02:05 +0000

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/05/council-of-europe-to-consider-ban-on-wifi-and-mobiles-in-classrooms.ars

The global movement for governments to err on the side of electro-magnetic caution got a huge boost this month. The Council of Europe has issued a new draft resolution and report on device radiation safety that urges its 47 member nations to adopt a “precautionary principle” when it comes to cell phone safety. Such a principle would apparently include banning all mobile phones, DECT phones, WiFi and WLAN systems from classrooms as a measure to protect children.

Novocure Treatment for Brain Cancer Aims to Replace Chemo and Go Home with Patients

Mike — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 20:49:19 +0000

I think this is interesting:

http://www.novocuretrial.com/science.html

Tumor Treating Fields (TTFields)
The NovoTTF-100A device used in this trial delivers very low intensity, alternating electric fields to the tumor site through the scalp. These fields are known as Tumor Treating Fields or TTFields. Due to the unique shape of cancer cells when they are multiplying, TTFields cause the building blocks of these cells to pile up in such a way that the cells physically break apart. In addition, cancer cells also contain miniature building blocks that move essential parts of the cells from place to place during division. TTFields cause these building blocks to fall apart since they have a special type of electric charge. As a result of these two effects, preliminary study data indicate that cancer tumor growth is slowed and may even reverse after continuous exposure to TTFields. Preliminary data also indicate that the TTFields affect the healthy brain cells much less than cancer cells since healthy brain cells multiply at a much slower rate, if at all.

http://www.medicalelectronicsdesign.com/blog/medblog/novocure-treatment-brain-cancer-aims-replace-chemo-and-go-home-patients

Follow Up on DECT phones

Mike — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 20:43:52 +0000

I tested the Seimens ECO friendly phone and found that while it may reduce emf somewhat, it is not sufficient to justify the overall poor performance of the phone.

I will continue to look for cordless phones that may come available which significantly reduce user exposure to EMF but for now I continue to recommend just to eliminate their use.

You can buy an old fashioned corded type “Princess” phone at Best Buy for around $12 and then walk to the phone when you need to use it. There is no radiation emitted from the phone and the exercise a person gets walking to the phone may even be beneficial

Mike

Cordless Home Phones – pulsed EMF

Mike — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 12:54:52 +0000

In my studies of pulsed magnetic field therapy I am constantly amazed at how sensitive the body is to pulsed electromagnetic fields (PEMF), sound and light. Syneurgy transmits signals at power levels less than 1/20 th those found in common cell phones for example.

With the knowledge that this very low level of pulsed magnetic energy can favorably affect the nervous system and reduce pain I am becoming more skeptical that RF emissions from cell phones, satellite communications, and wireless devices in widespread use have in fact been tested adequately. Safety ratings for these devices have been established based on concern for thermal effects to the body, or how much can be absorbed in the body without heating. There is very little testing done, and even less over long periods of time which study the biological effects of these emissions on the body. There have been studies to determine the risk for cancer for example but few to determine all the other possible biological effects (for example on the nervous system) over time.

The power levels and frequencies of these RF emitting devices varies greatly. For example the electric field from cell phone service could vary from 0.1 V/m to 1000 V/m depending on service type and where you are located with respect to the base station. Cell phones may not be the biggest concern.

I have been studying PEMF from cordless phones that many of us have in our homes. Most cordless phones are DECT (Digitally Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications) format. These have a base station that is plugged into a land line and handsets that are located throughout the house. http://www.bag.admin.ch/themen/strahlung/00053/00673/00674/index.html?lang=en

The base stations continuously emit pulsed magnetic fields and electric fields which are up to several thousand times that emitted by Syneurgy therapy. They do this continuously (which is the problem) even when the phone is not in use, at frequencies up to 5.8 Gigahertz. Syneurgy uses frequencies up to 1000 Hz for comparison ( millions of times lower in frequency). Its only the base station that emits constantly, the handsets are not emitting anything unless in use (on a call). The power from the base station drops off exponentially as you move further away from it. http://www.tetrawatch.net/science/dect.php

Without having proof (yet) that these base stations may be harmful to the nervous system, just based on my work with Syneurgy, I am sending out this caution with some recommendations based on what I have found:

A. I recommend to locate the base station for cordless phone systems as far away as possible from living areas. For example not next to the bed or in the main living rooms.

B. Wireless routers for personal computers should also be located as remotely as possible from working area.

C. I have ordered the one cordless phone I have found that does not continuously emit pulsed EMF that is available in the U.S. Siemens has a cordless phone with “ECO Friendly” mode which turns off the base station when not in use. ( This seems so simple I’m not sure why all mfrs. don’t do this )

I should have it within a week and if you are interested I can let you know how it works after testing, let me know. http://sie.onlinephonestore.com/cat/409/Siemens-Dect-6.0-Cordless-Phones.html

D. The old corded phones do not emit any radiation, even when in use. This has to be the safest way to communicate on a phone in my opinion even though its not convenient, immobile.

I made some power measurements this week of cordless devices in my office and home (and have since relocated them) and thus the reason I am passing this information along. I could be wrong and possibly constant exposure to high levels of high frequency EMF such as that emitted by cordless phone base stations is not a reason for concern. Who knows, maybe its even healthy! (doubtful) I think it is best though to treat cordless base stations and wireless routers as unknowns though and minimize exposure.

Best regards,

Mike