Mobile Phones – What the latest published science says

A US government agency recently published some of their results from a research study on rats which shows that after exposing the rats to the same radiation you would find coming off your mobile/cell phone over 2 years the rats developed brain cancer tumours and heart cancer. This is a big deal. WHY? Well because for years and years scientists keep saying that heavy use of your mobile phone could cause cancer. Heavy users have started developing brain tumours on the side of the head where they often use their phones. But because there are other scientists coming out and saying that it is perfectly safe, who do you believe? The trouble is that the scientists that say that it is perfectly safe are normally funded by telecoms companies – and the scientists that are saying that it isn’t safe are mostly independent researchers. The trouble is to you and me the science sounds very convincing on both sides. So who do we believe?

Mobile Phones – Which science is to be believed?

So here is where is gets a bit tricky. Because it really boils down to the type of science they talk about. Scientists that say that microwave radiation is safe for you to use because they use the effects of heat as a basis for the level of safety. So without making it too complicated, if it heats up and cooks your tissue, then it is not safe. So you can have this radiation coming off your phone all day and if you talk on your phone for a long call and your ear starts to get hot then that is no longer safe for you to use the phone. Yes that is true, but the trouble is that if your dig a little deeper, you will find that the dangers of microwave radiation is not only in the heat. And most scientists are also very clever in how they word their conclusions as well. They will tell you that heavy use of a mobile phone over a 10 year period can increase your chances of getting brain cancer by up to 40%. That sounds bad enough? Ah but what is classified as a heavy user? A heavy user is someone that uses a mobile phone for more than 30 minutes a day. So now we are getting a little closer to home. Nowadays, because our phones download data and connect with WiFi, they are constantly trying to search for a signal. Also, if you add up the time you have your WIFI on at home, how long you talk on a cordless phone and how long you speak on your mobile phone, then 30 minutes is actually not a long time and there are probably a lot of you that would be classified as heavy users and possibly even your children. Children, well that is a different story because children’s skull bones are thinner than an adult and really they can absorb up to four times more radiation. Here’s the clincher, a lot of this data talks about over a 10 year period so how you and your family use your technology right now could affect you in the future.

So if this is such a big deal, why are we not hearing more about it?

A reason why is because a private club, the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) produced a set of guidelines for non-ionising radiation protection. The trouble is, this was produced by a group of physicists and engineers and not medical doctors and they basically didn’t take any biological effects into consideration so they set the standards so high that everything would always be safe. Now the interesting thing is that many countries realised this and are actually no longer using the ICNIRP guidelines anymore. Sadly the UK still uses this and as such you won’t necessarily see a lot of changes being made from a governmental level.

So what do we do?

Is this about scaremongering? No. And no this is not like most research where one week it is okay and then the next week they have research saying that it is not okay because many countries have been publishing papers for years saying the same thing. But the reality is the technology is useful and we need it. People are not going to give it up so easily. So this is about making it safer to use. It about educating yourself and knowing enough to manage your wireless technology. If you want to find out everything you need to know and then you can make informed choices for you and your family. You can take one of our courses at www.wirelesseducation.org