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Are Your Cell Phone and Laptop Bad for Your Health? •
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Germany Warns Citizens to Avoid Using Wi-Fi
By Geoffrey Lean
The Independent UK
Sunday 09 September 2007
People should avoid using Wi-Fi wherever possible because of the risks it may
pose to health, the German government has said.
Its surprise ruling - the most damning made by any government on the fast-growing
technology - will shake the industry and British ministers, and vindicates the
questions that The Independent on Sunday has been raising over the past four
months.
And Germany's official radiation protection body also advises its citizens
to use landlines instead of mobile phones, and warns of "electrosmog"
from a wide range of other everyday products, from baby monitors to electric
blankets.
The German government's ruling - which contrasts sharply with the unquestioning
promotion of the technology by British officials - was made in response to a
series of questions by Green members of the Bundestag, Germany's parliament.
The Environment Ministry recommended that people should keep their exposure
to radiation from Wi-Fi "as low as possible" by choosing "conventional
wired connections". It added that it is "actively informing people
about possibilities for reducing personal exposure".
Its actions will provide vital support for Sir William Stewart, Britain's official
health protection watchdog, who has produced two reports calling for caution
in using mobile phones and who has also called for a review of the use of Wi-Fi
in schools. His warnings have so far been ignored by ministers and even played
down by the Health Protection Agency, which he chairs.
By contrast the agency's German equivalent - the Federal Office for Radiation
Protection - is leading the calls for caution.
Florian Emrich, for the office, says Wi-Fi should be avoided "because
people receive exposures from many sources and because it is a new technology
and all the research into its health effects has not yet been carried out".
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Are Your Cell Phone and Laptop Bad for Your Health?
By Stan Cox
AlterNet
Tuesday 31 July 2007
In the wee hours of July 14, a 45-year-old Australian named John Patterson
climbed into a tank and drove it through the streets of Sydney, knocking down
six cell-phone towers and an electrical substation along the way. Patterson,
a former telecommunications worker, reportedly had mapped out the locations
of the towers, which he claimed were harming his health.
In recent years, protesters in England and Northern Ireland have brought down
cell towers by sawing, removing bolts, and pulling with tow trucks and ropes.
In one such case, locals bought the structure and sold off pieces of it as souvenirs
to help with funding of future protests. In attempts to fend off objections
to towers in Germany, some churches have taken to disguising them as giant crucifixes.
Opposition to towers usually finds more socially acceptable outlets, and protests
are being heard more often than ever in meetings of city councils, planning
commissions, and other government bodies. This summer alone, citizen efforts
to block cell towers have sprouted in, among a host of other places, including
California, New Jersey, Maryland, Illinois, North Dakota and north of the border
in Ontario and British Columbia. Transmitters are already banned from the roofs
of schools in many districts.
For years, towers have been even less welcome in the United Kingdom, where
this summer has seen disputes across the country.
Most opponents cite not only aesthetics but also concerns over potential health
effects of electromagnetic (EM) fields generated by the towers. Once ridiculed
as crackpots and Luddites, they're starting to get backup from the scientific
community.
It's not just cell phones they're worried about. The Tottenham area of London
is considering the suspension of all wireless technology in its schools. Last
year, Fred Gilbert, a respected scientist and president of Lakehead University
in Ontario, banned wireless internet on his campus. And resident groups in San
Francisco are currently battling Earthlink and Google over a proposed city-wide
Wi-Fi system.
Picking Up Some Interference?
For decades, concerns have been raised about the health effects of "extremely
low frequency" fields that are produced by electrical equipment or power
lines. People living close to large power lines or working next to heavy electrical
equipment are spending a lot of time in electromagnetic fields generated by
those sources. Others of us can be exposed briefly to very strong fields each
day.
But in the past decade, suspicion has spread to cell phones and other wireless
technologies, which operate at frequencies that are millions to tens of millions
higher but at low power and "pulsed."
Then there's your cell phone, laptop, or other wireless device, which not only
receives but also sends pulsed signals at high frequencies. Because it's usually
very close to your head (or lap) when in use, the fields experienced by your
body are stronger than those from a cell tower down the street.
A growing number of scientists, along with a diverse collection of technology
critics, are pointing out that our bodies constantly generate electrical pulses
as part of their normal functioning. They maintain that incoming radiation from
modern technology may be fouling those signals.
But with hundreds of billions in sales at stake, the communications industry
(and more than a few scientists) insist that radio-frequency radiation can't
have biological effects unless it's intense enough to heat your flesh or organs,
in the way a microwave oven cooks meat.
It's also turning out that when scientific studies are funded by industry,
the results a lot less likely to show that EM fields are a health hazard.
Low Frequency, More Frequent Disease?
Before the digital revolution, a long line of epidemiological studies compared
people who were exposed to strong low-frequency fields - people living in the
shadow of power lines, for example, or long-time military radar operators -
to similar but unexposed groups.
One solid outcome of that research was to show that rates of childhood leukemia
are associated with low-frequency EM exposure; as a result, the International
Agency for Research on Cancer has labeled that type of energy as a possible
carcinogen, just as they might label a chemical compound.
Other studies have found increased incidence of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
(commonly called ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease), higher rates of breast cancer
among both men and women, and immune-system dysfunction in occupations with
high exposure.
Five years ago, the California Public Utilities Commission asked three epidemiologists
in the state Department of Health Services to review and evaluate the scientific
literature on health effects of low-frequency EM fields.
The epidemiologists, who had expertise in physics, medicine, and genetics,
agreed in their report that they were "inclined to believe that EMFs can
cause some degree of increased risk of childhood leukemia, adult brain cancer,
Lou Gehrig's disease, and miscarriage" and were open to the possibility
that they raise the risks of adult leukemia and suicide. They did not see associations
with other cancer types, heart disease, or Alzheimer's disease.
Epidemiological and animal studies have not been unanimous in finding negative
health effects from low-frequency EM fields, so the electric-utility industry
continues to emphasize that no cause-and-effect link has been proven.
High Resistance
Now the most intense debate is focused on radio-frequency fields. As soon as
cell phones came into common usage, there was widespread concern that holding
an electronic device against the side of your head many hours a month for the
rest of your life might be harmful, and researchers went to work looking for
links to health problems, often zeroing in on the possibility of brain tumors.
Until recently, cell phones had not been widely used over enough years to evaluate
effects on cancers that take a long time to develop. A number of researchers
failed to find an effect during those years, but now that the phones have been
widely available for more than a decade, some studies are relating brain-tumor
rates to long-term phone use.
Some lab studies have found short-term harm as well. Treatment with cell-phone
frequencies has disrupted thyroid-gland functioning in lab rats, for example.
And at Lund University in Sweden, rats were exposed to cell-phone EM fields
of varying strengths for two hours; 50 days later, exposed rats showed significant
brain damage relative to non-exposed controls.
The authors were blunt in their assessment: "We chose 12-26-week-old rats
because they are comparable with human teenagers - notably frequent users of
mobile phones - with respect to age. The situation of the growing brain might
deserve special concern from society because biologic and maturational processes
are particularly vulnerable during the growth process."
Even more recently, health concerns have been raised about the antenna masts
that serve cell phones and other wireless devices. EM fields at, say, a couple
of blocks from a tower are not as strong as those from a wireless device held
close to the body; nevertheless many city-dwellers are now continuously bathed
in emissions that will only grow in their coverage and intensity.
Last year, the RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia closed off the top two
floors of its 17-story business school for a time because five employees working
on its upper floors had been diagnosed with brain tumors in a single month,
and seven since 1999. Cell phone towers had been placed on the building's roof
a decade earlier and, although there was no proven link between them and the
tumors, university officials were taking no chances.
Data on the health effects of cell or W-Fi towers are still sparse and inconsistent.
Their opponents point to statistically rigorous studies like one in Austria
finding that headaches and difficulty with concentration were more common among
people exposed to stronger fields from cell towers. All sides seem to agree
on the need for more research with solid data and robust statistical design.
San Francisco, one of the world's most technology-happy cities, is home to
more than 2400 cell-phone antennas, and many of those transmitters are due to
be replaced with more powerful models that can better handle text messaging
and photographs, and possibly a new generation of even higher-frequency phones.
Now there's hot-and-heavy debate over plans to add 2200 more towers for a city-wide
Earthlink/Google Wi-Fi network. On July 31, the city's Board of Supervisors
considered an appeal by the San Francisco Neighborhood Antenna-Free Union (SNAFU)
that the network proposal be put through an environmental review - a step that
up to now has not been required for such telecommunications projects.
In support of the appeal, Magda Havas, professor of environmental and resource
studies at Trent University in Ontario submitted an analysis of radio-frequency
effects found in more than 50 human, animal, and cellular-level studies published
in scientific journals.
Havas has specialized in investigating the effects of both low- and high-frequency
EM radiation. She says most of the research in the field is properly done, but
that alone won't guarantee that all studies will give similar results. "Natural
variability in biological populations is the norm," she said.
And, she says, informative research takes time and focus: "For example,
studies that consider all kinds of brain tumors in people who've only used cell
phones for, say, five years don't show an association. But those studies that
consider only tumors on the same side of the head where the phone is held and
include only people who've used a phone for ten years or more give the same
answer very consistently: there's an increased risk of tumors." In other
research, wireless frequencies have been associated with higher rates of miscarriage,
testicular cancer, and low sperm counts.
Direct current from a battery can be used to encourage healing of broken bones.
EM fields of various frequencies have also been shown to reduce tissue damage
from heart attacks, help heal wounds, reduce pain, improve sleep, and relieve
depression and anxiety. If they are biologically active enough to promote health,
are they also active enough to degrade it?
At the 2006 meeting of the International Commission for Electromagnetic Safety
in Benevento, Italy, 42 scientists from 16 countries signed a resolution arguing
for much stricter regulation of EM fields from wireless communication.
Four years earlier, in Freiburger, Germany, a group of physicians had signed
a statement also calling for tighter regulation of wireless communication and
a prohibition on use of wireless devices by children. In the years since, more
than 3000 doctors have signed the so-called "Freiburger Appeal" and
documents modeled on it.
But in this country, industry has pushed for and gotten exemption from strict
regulation, most notably through the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Libby Kelley,
director of the Council on Wireless Technology Impacts in Novato, California
says, "The technology always comes first, the scientific and environmental
questions later. EM trails chemicals by about 10 years, but I hope we'll catch
up."
Kelley says a major problem is that the Telecommunications Act does not permit
state or local governments to block the siting of towers based on health concerns:
"We'll go to hearings and try to bring up health issues, and officials
will tell us, 'We can't talk about that. We could get sued in federal court!'"
High-Voltage Influence?
Industry officials are correct when they say the scientific literature contains
many studies that did not find power lines or telecommunication devices to have
significant health effects. But when, as often happens, a range of studies give
some positive and some negative results, industry people usually make statements
like, "Technology A has not been proven to cause disease B."
Michael Kundi, professor at the Medical University of Vienna, Austria and an
EM researcher, has issued a warning about distortions of the concept of cause-and-effect,
particularly when a scientific study concludes that "there is no evidence
for a causal relationship" between environmental factors and human health.
Noting that science is rarely able to prove that A did or did not "cause"
B, he wrote that such statements can be "readily misused by interested
parties to claim that exposure is not associated with adverse health effects."
Scientists and groups concerned about current standards for EM fields have
criticized the World Health Organization (WHO) and other for downplaying the
risks. And some emphasize the risk of financial influence when such intense
interest is being shown by huge utilities and a global communications industry
that's expected to sell $250 billion worth of wireless handsets per year by
2011 (that's just for the instruments, not counting monthly bills). Microwave
News cited Belgian reports in late 2006 that two industry groups - the GSM
Association and Mobile Manufacturers Forum - accounted for more than 40 percent
of the budget for WHO's EM fields project in 2005-06.
When a US National Academy of Sciences committee was formed earlier this year
to look into health effects of wireless communication devices, the Center for
Science in the Public Interest and Sage Associates wrote a letter to the Academy
charging that the appointment of two of the committee's six members was improper
under federal conflict-of-interest laws.
One of the committee members, Leeka Kheifets, a professor of epidemiology in
UCLA's School of Public Health, has, says the letter, "spent the majority
of the past 20 years working in various capacities with the Electric Power Research
Institute, the research arm of the electric power industry."
The other, Bernard Veyret, senior scientist at the University of Bordeaux in
France, "is on the consulting board of Bouygues Telecom (one of 3 French
mobile phone providers), has contracts with Alcatel and other providers, and
has received research funding from Electricite de France, the operator of the
French electricity grid." The NAS committee will be holding a workshop
this month and will issue a report sometime after that.
A paper published in January in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives
found that when studies of cell phone use and health problems were funded by
industry, they were much less likely to find a statistically significant relationship
than were publicly funded studies.
The authors categorized the titles of the papers they surveyed as either negative
(as in "Cellular phones have no effect on sleep patterns"), or neutral
(e.g., "Sleep patterns of adolescents using cellular phones"), or
positive, (e.g., "Cellular phones disrupt sleep"). Fully 42 percent
of the privately funded studies had negative titles and none had positive ones.
In public or nonprofit studies, titles were 18 percent negative and 46 percent
positive.
Alluding to previous studies in the pharmaceutical and tobacco industries,
the authors concluded, "Our findings add to the existing evidence that
single-source sponsorship is associated with outcomes that favor the sponsors'
products."
By email, I asked Dr. John Moulder, a senior editor of the journal Radiation
Research, for his reaction to the study. Moulder, who is Professor and Director
of Radiation Biology in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University
of Wisconsin, did not think the analysis was adequate to conclusively demonstrate
industry influence and told me that in his capacity as an editor, "I have
not noted such an effect, but I have not systematically looked for one either.
I am certainly aware that an industry bias exists in other areas of medicine,
such as reporting of clinical trails."
Moulder was lead author on a 2005 paper concluding that the scientific literature
to that point showed "a lack of convincing evidence for a causal association
between cancer and exposure to the RF [radio-frequency] energy used for mobile
telecommunications."
The Center for Science in the Public Interest has questioned Moulder's objectivity
because he has served as a consultant to electric-power and telecommunications
firms and groups. Moulder told me, "I have not done any consulting for
the electric power and telecommunications industry in years, and when I was
doing consulting for these industries, the journals for which I served as an
editor or reviewer were made aware of it."
A year ago, Microwave News also reported that approximately one-half of all
studies looking into possible damage to DNA by communication-frequency EM fields
found no effect. But three-fourths of those negative studies were industry-
or military-funded; indeed, only 3 of 35 industry or military papers found an
effect, whereas 32 of 37 publicly funded studies found effects.
Magda Havas sees a shortage of public money in the US for research on EM health
effects as one of the chief factors leading to lack of a rigorous public policy,
telling me, "Much of the research here ends up being funded directly or
indirectly by industry. That affects both the design and the interpretation
of studies." As for research done directly by company scientists, "It's
the same as in any industry. They can decide what information to make public.
They are free to downplay harmful effects and release information that's beneficial
to their product."
Meanwhile, at Trent University where Havas works, students using laptops are
exposed to radio-frequency levels that exceed international guidelines. Of that,
she says, "For people who've been fully informed and decide to take the
risk, that's their choice. But what about those who have no choice, who have
a cell-phone tower outside their bedroom window?
"It's the equivalent of secondhand smoke. We took a long time to get the
political will to establish smoke-free environments, and we now know we should
have done it sooner. How long will it take to react to secondhand radiation?"
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For more information, visit Environmnental Health Perspectives;
Microwave News; the National Center for Biotechnology Information.
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