Mobile Phones May Pose Cancer Risk Afterall

Reports last month in the media suggest that the possible health hazards from long-term use of mobile phones are finally being taken seriously by agencies in the UK and USA after years of denials that there was any risk.

In the USA, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued last September recommendations that people use an earpiece or headset with a cell (mobile) phone following reports that “wireless device use can be linked to cancer and other illnesses”, while the UK is starting a major study of health problems from long-term use.

The FCC’s September 2009 set of guidelines represents a huge shift, and for the first time acknowledges that there could be a health danger in using a cell phone. Apart from using an earpiece or headset, it recommends that users should keep phones away from the body, and should not attach them to a belt or leave them in a pocket that’s next to the body; users should use the speaker option so that the phone is kept further away from the head; and, wherever, possible, text rather than speak. The FCC also recommends people purchase a phone with a lower SAR (specific absorption rate).

The FCC says it has issued the new guidelines following “recent reports by some health and safety interest groups (that) have suggested that wireless device use can be linked to cancer and other illnesses. These questions have become more pressing as more and younger people are using the devices, and for longer periods of time.”

In the UK, researchers from Imperial College London have been commissioned to carry out a major study into the health hazards of long-term mobile phone use. The study is looking to recruit 250,000 participants aged from 18 to 69 years – although this leaves out the most vulnerable group of young teenagers and adolescents. The Cosmos (Cohort Study on Mobile Communications) research accepts there is no reliable data on long-term use of mobile phones. One researcher said: “We cannot rule out the possibility that mobile phone use causes cancer.”

This website's E-Library contains numerous documents with regard to the health risks involved in electromagnetic radiation exposure and explanations on how it affects the human body, and in particular the risk to those using mobile phones on a regular and daily basis.

As far back as 2000, the Stuart Report advised caution when it comes to children under the age of 16 using mobile phones, and since then numerous international studies have shown various levels of risk from high after over ten years mobile phone usage, to there being no substantial scientific evidence.

Unfortunately there also is a serious attempt at secrecy and compromising any studies which lean towards proof that their is a definite health risk. Given the multi-billion pound world market in mobile communications, this is to surprising some may say, but there are also those who liken the attitude of the mobile phone companies to that of the tobacco industry which hid from the world evidence that smoking caused cancer.

The long awaited Interphone Study, the biggest of it's kind since concerns first surfaced over the safety of mobile phone usage is due to be published later this month, but even that has been steeped in secrecy and controversy as the results which have been available for some years now have been delayed as a result of interested parties arguing over the conclusions of the research. In many cases, attempts have been made to compromise the studies and invalidate it's conclusions.

Given all that, it seems that the consumer must still take a very cautious approach to mobile phone usage and use whatever safeguards they can to minimise exposure to radiation levels form their phones. Add to this of course the mix of Wi-Fi in many homes and in pubic places, and it is clear that exposure from many forms of technology to electromagnetic radiation is difficult to avoid.

Source: FCC website / Cosmos website

US FCC recommendations can be read here

For further info on mobile phones and health risks see the E-Library Database using the category Electromagnetic Radiation

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