I was browsing through "Home Office Computing" magazine, when I ran across this article written by June Langhoff on cell phones. It is very interesting and should be considered since most people today have a cell phone and use it quite regularly.
Are Handhelds Hazardous?
An expert update on the question of cell phone health risks
Benno Groeneveld, a freelance journalist and translator based in St. Paul, carries a cellular phone whenever he’s out of his home office. His Ericsson flip phone is his business lifeline. "In the freelance world, if I can get the call, I make money," he explains. "If I have to call back, even just an hour later, I’ve lost the job to someone else."
Home-based businesspeople such as Groeneveld are among the over 86 million mobile phone subscribers in the United States who conduct business wherever a call catches them. Mobile phone usage is growing worldwide at a rate of 65 percent annually, and is expected to hit 410 million users by the end of 2000, according to Gartner Group’s Dataquest, a Stamford, Conn.-based business consultancy.
While mobile phones are here to stay, rumors persist about health concerns caused by the radio frequency (RF) energy emitted by these phones. Recent studies have shown possible links with analog cell phone use and serious medical conditions such as memory loss, heart and kidney damage, and cancer.
Dial D for Danger? The cellular industry awoke to safety fears in 1993 when David Reynard, appearing on CNN’s Larry King Live, alleged that his wife’s cell phone use caused her terminal brain cancer. As proof, he showed X-rays of her tumor, eerily matching the shadow of a cell phone antenna.
As a result of the ensuing controversy, the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA) funded an independent Wireless Technology Research (WTR) agency to conduct studies. After five years of study (and the WTR’s disbanding last year), no hard facts or smoking guns were found—but the research turned up some disquieting findings, notably that death rates due to brain cancer were higher among handheld phone users than non-handheld phone users.
Former WTR chairman George Carlo, chairman of the Health Risk Management Group in Washington, D.C., says cell phone users may be endangering their health just by holding their phones to their ears: The proximity of the antenna to the head determines the amount of radiation penetration, and a cellular antenna’s RF radiation plume penetrates 2 to 3 inches into the brain.
Additional studies have raised concerns about memory loss, genetic mutations, heart damage, and kidney problems. "We have [scattered] reports of headaches, changes in blood pressure, and changes in sleeping patterns, as well as cancer. We really can’t sound the all-clear," cautions Louis Slesin, editor of Microwave News, a trade newsletter that tracks radiation health issues.
Experts Disagree For every worry about the risks of cell phones, however, there’s a study that concludes they pose no risk whatsoever. A number of scientists and public agencies have gone on record that there is little or no scientific evidence that cell phones are hazardous to your health; the World Health Organization’s study on the subject concludes: "Exposure to low levels of RF fields, including those emitted by mobile phones and their base stations, is unlikely to induce or promote cancers."
"After a substantial amount of research, scientists and governments around the world continue to reaffirm that there is no public health threat from the use of [mobile] phones," adds CTIA president and CEO Tom Wheeler.
Why the wide range of opinions? No reputable study has been able to make a direct scientific link between cell phones and health problems—only to point to possible connections. In an October 1999 "Consumer Update on Mobile Phones," the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) found: "Much of the existing scientific evidence is conflicting and many of the studies that have been done to date have suffered from flaws in research methods."
Your Options In the absence of conclusive information about possible health risks, what can home office workers do? For one, people who spend long periods of time on their handheld phones should consider holding lengthy conversations on conventional corded phones, reserving their Nokias and StarTacs for shorter conversations or situations where landline phones are unavailable.
Commuters who use cell phones while driving are at far more risk from traffic accidents than from brain cancer, but even they could switch to a type of phone that places more distance between their bodies and the antenna—by using a phone with an antenna in the trunk, for example.
Finally, many experts suggest using a headset and keeping your cell phone clipped to your belt. However, a recent Consumers’ Association study, published by London-based Which? Magazine, found the two headsets tested increased the level of radiation entering users’ heads. Given the limited scope of this study, and that other comprehensive studies draw the opposite conclusion, we still think headsets are a good safety option.
Even the strongest safety critics say there’s no need to stop using your cell phone—indeed, most of the critics we interviewed use cell phones themselves. Until more data is collected, safety concerns don’t outweigh the affordability, mobility, and range of cellular communications.
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Langhoff, June. (June 2000). "Are Handhelds Hazardous?" Home Office Computing. Pp. 38-39.
Fred J. Becker, Architect
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