Could mobile phones be giving us brain cancer? And has the mobile phone industry spent years trying to bury the scientific evidence that it does in order to protect its $3 trillion, 4.6billion-customer, global business?According to Devra Davis, an eminent American scientist and one of the country’s leading epidemiologists, the answer to both these questions is a resounding ‘yes’.
With mobile phone use soaring, especially among the young, Dr Davis says we could face a ‘global public health catastrophe’ in as little as three years if the problem is ignored.Mobile phones are low-powered radio frequency transmitters which produce microwave radiation.
With mobile phone use soaring, especially among the young, Dr Davis says we could face a ‘global public health catastrophe’ in as little as three years if the problem is ignored.Mobile phones are low-powered radio frequency transmitters which produce microwave radiation.
The debate over the cancer risks from this radiation has been going on for years. Yet the lack of any conclusive evidence has allowed the industry to claim phones are safe and led to sceptics being dismissed as scaremongers.
But now the alarm has been raised by an award-winning academic and toxicologist who was in the group that won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. So should we think twice before clamping a mobile phone to our ears?
In a new book provocatively titled Disconnect: The Truth About Cell Phone Radiation, What The Industry Has Done To Hide It And How To Protect Your Family, Dr Davis says we have underplayed the threat from mobile phone radiation for too long. She says: ‘Is it possible that the pervasive use of mobile phones is causing a host of subtle, chronic health problems, damaging our ability to have healthy children and creating long-term risks to our brains and bodies? The fact we do not have clear answers to this question at this point in the history of electronic technology is not an accident.’
Dr Davis says crucial scientific evidence, some of which has existed for decades, has been ignored - particularly that involving experimental research on animals and human cells. Her work includes supporting research from studies in the U.S., Sweden, Greece, France and Russia. For example, a team at the University Of Washington found that just two hours of mobile phone-level radiation splintered the DNA of brain cells in rats, making them similar to cells found in malignant tumours.
In humans, the evidence is less dramatic, but equally worrying. In Moscow, a study has found that while the brains of children who regularly use mobile phones look the same as the brains of those who do not, users have poorer memories and other learning problems.
Dr Davis, who is a grandmother, is worried about the effect on children, arguing that their thin, pliant skulls make them more vulnerable. Last year, the Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority warned that regular use of mobiles could damage children’s brains, confirming previous warnings in the UK, France and Israel.
Dr Davis believes children are ‘growing up in an unprecedented flood of radio frequency signals’. She says they should only use mobile phones in emergencies. ‘The dangers for children are not definitively proven but do we really want to risk it?’ The most troubling research, she says, threatens male fertility. Research in seven countries, including the U.S., China and Australia, suggests that keeping a switched-on mobile in a trouser pocket can have a drastic effect on sperm count. ‘All the research shows the same thing - if you take young men who are trying to become fathers, those who use mobile phones at least four hours a day have about half the sperm count of others,’ says Dr Davis. ‘Sperm exposed to mobile phone radiation in the lab is sicker, thinner and less capable of swimming.’ (Read More...)
