Cell Phone Radiations

Introduction

Cell phones and cancer are in the news all the time now it seems. But almost everyone uses cell phones. All over the world, tens of millions of people are pressing them against their heads for hours every day. In the U.S. it is estimated that there were at least 100 million cell phone users, as of early 2002, and that number has continued to climb.

So what's the fuss? Is cancer caused by cell phones a serious concern, or the media's panic-du-jour?

A cell phone, and a household cordless phone, use a low level form of microwave radiation to send and receive their signals. (see "How do cell phones work" here.) Microwaves, as you know, are used to cook food. As the radiation penetrates tissue it causes it to heat.

Is this a problem for us with cell phones? That is the current debate. Let's examine the positions and the known evidence, without hype or prejudice. As always, EHSO will provide citations and links to the sources of any evidence provided, so you can verify it for yourself.

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Positions, pro and con:

Cell phones are dangerous:

• They emit microwaves.
• You hold the source of the emission against your brain
• There are claims that people have had brain tumors in the exact size, shape and position as the antenna on their cell phone.

Cell phones are safe:

• Cell phones use a very, very low level of radio frequency (rf) energy - too low to cause damage.
• The type of energy emitted is non-ionizing - meaning it doesn't cause damage to chemical bonds or dna.
• Hundreds of millions of people have been using cell phones and cordless phones for years. If there were a problem, we would have seen it by now.

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Latest News:

• February 2008: Tokyo Women's Medical University compared phone use in 322 brain cancer patients with 683 healthy people and found that regularly using a mobile did not significantly affect the likelihood of getting brain cancer. "Using our newly developed and more accurate techniques, we found no association between mobile phone use and cancer, providing more evidence to suggest they don't cause brain cancer," Naohito Yamaguchi, who led the research, said. His team's findings were published in the British Journal of Cancer.
• December 5, 2006 - Scientists in Denmark tracked over 420,000 cell phone users over the course of 21 years in an attempt to determine if if cell phone use causes cancer. As reported in ABC News, they found the RF energy produced by the phones did not correlate to an increased incidence of the disease. From the article: 'This so-called Danish cohort "is probably the strongest study out there because of the outstanding registries they keep,' said Joshua Muscat of Pennsylvania State University, who also has studied cell phones and cancer. 'As the body of evidence accumulates, people can become more reassured that these devices are safe, but the final word is not there yet,' Muscat added."
• April 2006 - the Swedish National Institute for Working Life issued a report this week, published in the International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health, disputing two earlier studies that claimed cell phone use has no correlation to increased brain tumor risk. The researchers examined the cell phone usage of 905 adults who developed malignant brain tumors. They found that people with more than 2,000 hours of total talk time had 3.7 times the risk of developing brain cancer when compared with nonusers. 2,000 hours is about an hour of talk time every Monday through Friday for 10 years. The study, also found a 2 times increase for tumors specifically on the side of the head where the cell phone was generally used. But it should be noted that the study relied on the memory of the subjects for how long they used their phones, for as much as a decade ago, according to a Daily News interview with Dr. Lydia Zablotska, an epidemiologist at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. "You're interviewing subjects in an era when everyone has a suspicion that cell phones may be harmful," Zablotska said of the study's shortcomings.
• January 2006 - A four-year long British study performed by the London-based Institute of Cancer Research and three British universities found that talking on a cell phone had no effect on tumor rates. The researchers included 966 people with glioma brain tumors and 1,716 healthy respondents. Individuals were questioned on first use, lifetime years of use, cumulative hours of use, and number of calls they made.
• March 21, 2005 - Fox news and CNN News both report that on March 16, 2005, a federal appeals court in Maryland reinstated five class-action lawsuits that allege that the cell phone industry has failed to protect consumers from unsafe levels of radiation. Fox quotes a Dr. Henry Lai, a bioengineering professor at the University of Washington, as saying that electromagnetic radiation emitted from cell phones may damage DNA and cause benign brain tumors. Dr. Lai also agrees with EHSO's recommendation to use a headset to minimize potential exposure.

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Studies, Facts and Evidence

What is the radiation produced by a cell phone?

Like televisions, alarm systems, computers, and all other electrical devices, Cell phones (also called mobile phones) are radio devices that use Radiofrequency (Rf) energy emit electromagnetic radiation. They operate at low power (less than 1 watt) by transmitting and receiving electromagnetic radiation in the radiofrequency (RF) end of the spectrum. Radiation which is called "ionizing" can be absorbed by tissue and break molecules apart, such as gamma rays and x-rays, are known to cause cancer. The concern is that the cell phone and it's antenna (the source of the radiation) are held close against the head)

The damage to the dna molecules is thought to be the cause. The radiation that a cell phone uses is also part of the same electromagnetic spectrum, but is not ionizing. For this reason, the US FDA can regulate these devices to ensure that the radiation doesn't pose a health hazard to users, but only once the existence of a public health hazard has been established. (See "It's Not a Food or Medical Product, So Why FDA?") , RF energy was mistakenly thought to similarly cause cancer.

Power

Newer phones are digital. The older analog phones are expected to be phased out by 2006. The major difference is that analog phones use much more power than digital. Analog use about 1.3 Watts, while a digital mobile phone is designed to operate at a maximum power level of 0.6 watts (see http://www.telecom.globalsources.com/MAGAZINE/TS/0209/PANALOG.HTM By comparison, a household microwave oven uses between 600 and 1,100 watts.

Frequency

In the United States, mobile phones operate in a frequency ranging from about 850 to 1900 megahertz (MHz). In that range, the radiation produced is in the form of non-ionizing radiofrequency (RF) energy. This RF energy is different than the ionizing radiation like that from a medical x-ray, which can present a health risk at certain doses.

Ionizing gamma rays and x-rays can cause cancer when their energy is absorbed by the tissue and chemical bonds are broken, damaging DNA. RF energy, on the other hand, produces heating of tissue. Although there is a small amount of experimental evidence that suggests RF energy can impact DNA in rats, this data has been contradicted by several other animal studies and is not well substantiated. Even if true, the doses administered in these animal studies were much larger than the exposure in humans and may have no relevance to cell phone use at all. So although the RF energy emitted by cell phones is in the electromagnetic spectrum, and other forms of electromagnetic radiation can cause cancer, RF energy is very different and has not been shown to cause cancer.

At high enough levels, RF energy, too, can be harmful, because of its ability to heat living tissue to the point of causing biological damage. In a microwave oven, it's RF energy that cooks the food, but the heat generated by cell phones is small in comparison.

A mobile phone's main source of RF energy is its antenna, so the closer the antenna is to a phone user's head, the greater the person's expected exposure to RF energy.

Because RF energy from a cell phone falls off quickly as distance increases between a person and the radiation source (actually, by the distance squared), the safety of mobile phones with an antenna mounted away from the user, like on the outside of a car, has been presumed to be safe. The distance and the effect of the car acting as a Gaussian cage would virtually eliminate the radiation inside the car. Also not presently in doubt is the safety of those so-called cordless phones that have a base unit attached to a home's telephone wiring and operate at much lower power levels than cell phones.

Many experts say that no matter how near the cell phone's antenna--even if it's right up against the skull--the six-tenths of a watt (typically) of power emitted couldn't possibly affect human health.

Scientific Studies to Date

Some mobile phone users have been diagnosed with brain cancer, and many others who have not used mobile phones have gotten the disease, too. Each year in the United States, brain cancer occurs at a rate of about six new cases per 100,000 people. Among the 100 million Americans who own mobile phones, then, about 6,000 cases of brain cancer would be expected among them in a year, even if they had not used mobile phones.

Scientific studies have focused on the question of whether the statistical risk of getting brain cancer is increased in those who use mobile phones compared to non-users, leaving to the courts the judgment of whether Chris Newman or other individuals would have gotten the disease had they not used a cell phone.

Two types of studies are generally used to investigate suspected cancer causes: epidemiological studies, which look at the incidence of a disease in certain groups of people, and animal studies.

Epidemiological studies are sometimes difficult to carry out in a way that can determine whether a cause-and-effect relationship exists between a single variable in a person's life (in this case, cell phone use) and the person's disease (brain cancer). Some factors that complicate research into the asserted link between cell phones and brain cancer: Brain cancer can take years or even decades to develop, making possible long-term effects of mobile phone use difficult to study; mobile phone technology is ever-evolving; and so many lifestyle factors--even down to the precise position in which a person holds the phone, as well as his or her own anatomy--can affect the extent of radiation exposure.

Studies in animals are easier to control, but entail complications of their own. For example, how should results obtained in rats and mice be interpreted in terms of human health risks? And how can scientists account for the fact that these studies sometimes expose animals to RF almost continuously--up to 22 hours a day--and to whole-body radiation, unlike people's head-only exposure?

While studies generally have shown no link between cell phones and brain cancer, there is some conflicting scientific evidence that may be worth additional study, according to FDA. (See "Studies"). The FDA says on their website that they are closely following ongoing research into whether there might be any association between cell phones and cancer.

A long-term study begun in 1994 by the government's National Cancer Institute is already under way to examine possible risk factors for brain cancer. It compares past usage of mobile phones (as well as other environmental, lifestyle, and genetic factors) by 800 people with brain tumors compared with 800 others who don't have tumors.

The study, the first part of which is expected to be published early next year, will provide a "snapshot" of what the risks from cell phones could be, says Peter Inskip, Sc.D., one of the study's principal investigators. But this research, he cautions, has its own limitations. For one thing, the study was started in 1994 and it considers radiation exposures from cell phones that occurred between the mid-1980s and 1998. That time frame in large part predates the explosion in the popularity of cell phones, as well as the introduction of digital phones that work on a fraction of the energy compared with older analog varieties.

Recently, FDA announced that it will collaborate with the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA) on additional laboratory and human studies of mobile phone safety. A "Cooperative Research and Development Agreement" signed in June provides for research to be conducted by third parties, with industry funding and FDA oversight to help ensure the studies' quality.

Specifically, FDA will identify the scientific questions that merit attention, propose research to address those questions, review study proposals from those interested in doing the research, make recommendations on the selection of researchers, and oversee the development of study design. Once research is begun, FDA will review the progress of ongoing studies, review the results of completed studies, and issue a report to the CTIA.

Beyond this planned research, according to the industry association, there are hundreds of scientific studies completed or in progress around the world to investigate RF's possible health effects, with half of them specifically addressing the frequencies used by wireless phones. FDA is a leading participant in the World Health Organization's International EMF (electric and magnetic fields) project to coordinate research and the harmonization of international radiation standards.

Ziff-Davis reports that researchers in Australia have reported their hypothesis that normal mobile phone use can lead to cancer. The research group, lead by radiation expert Dr Peter French, principal scientific officer at the Centre for Immunology Research at St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney, said that mobile phone frequencies well below current safety levels could stress cells in a way that has been shown to increased susceptibility to cancer.

The paper, published in the June 2001 issue of the science journal, "Differentiation", says that repeated exposure to mobile phone radiation acts as a repetitive stress, leading to continuous manufacture of heat shock proteins within cells.

Their theory is that these proteins, which are sensitive to heat, are always present in cells at a low level, but are manufactured in larger amounts when the cell is stressed by heat or other environmental factors. These proteins repair other proteins that are adversely affected by the conditions, and are part of the cell's normal reaction to stress. However, if they are produced too often or for too long, they are known to initiate cancer and increase resistance to anti-cancer drugs.

However, this group has reported absolutely evidence nor studies to substantiate this - it is only a theory.

More recently, a Finnish survey of some of the world's most popular mobile phones found the amount of radiation they emit is well below agreed limits and largely in line with data published by manufacturers. The survey conducted by Finland's Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK) covered 16 new models made by top handset makers including Finland's own Nokia, Motorola of the United States and South Korea's Samsung Electronics. At this level, the study found that head tissue does not warm significantly and no other harmful effects have been proved scientifically. STUK said the SAR levels in all the 28 models tested so far ranged from 0.45 to 1.12 watts per kilogram.

"It is important that also in the future the limits set for radiation from mobile phones and base stations are based on current and confirmed scientific proof of the effects of radiation on health," Kari Jokela, a researcher at STUK, said in a statement. STUK also said that some of its studies have indicated that microwave radiation from mobile phones may cause small changes in how cells operate, but the findings were insufficient for concluding what effects of this radiation had on health. STUK will start testing third-generation UMTS-standard mobile phones during 2005, focusing on the most popular models. Other phones in the current study were made by Sony Ericsson and Siemens.

Finally, as the non-ionizing radiation does have a small heating effect, it is postulated that the effect would be greatest on the eyes and testes, due to the lower amount of blood vessels to help cool these areas.

Perceptions and Concerns

The latest studies may support the generally held position that cell phone radiation is not a substantial hazard, but they will never be able to prove cell phones to be absolutely safe. It is logically impossible to prove a negative, that cell phones can not cause cancer.

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Conclusions

EHSO has seen no credible evidence to date that cell phones cause cancer or brain tumors. It is illogical to believe that evidence of unusual brain tumors is covered up when there are hundred's of millions of people using cell phones worldwide. There is a TREMENDOUS amount of junk science and thoroughly ignorant (as in untrained, uneducated) people running around naming themselves as experts and publishing their opinions on the internet. This hype and fear-mongering has only one goal: to puff up the egos and wallets of those propagating nonsense.

However, cell phones are still relatively new, and while science does not support that the radiation may not be likely to cause cancer, time may prove differently! And in any case, it may cause some other type of damage (certainly accidents in cars from being distracted while fumbling with the phone!)

So common sense suggests that we each take some prudent precautions.

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Precautionary Steps To Take

There are some simple steps that cell phone users can take to reduce any remaining risk:

• First, use a headset or speakerphone mode. That moves the phone (and it's antenna) away from your head.
• Second, consider reserving the use of mobile phones for shorter conversations or when a conventional phone is not available.
• Third, the effects of cellular damage are greatest on growing, developing organisms (i.e., the young), so limit children's use of cell phones!
• Finally, in a car, use an external antenna mounted outside the vehicle to move the source of the radiation farther from you!

And don't believe the claims of conmen preying on people's fear of radiation, selling fraudulent devices that they say protect against radiation. These useless items are mostly sold as "shields" on the Internet. Experts says none of these devices work.

To reduce the risk of an accident while driving, here's a simple tip: enter the several numbers you call the most often in a way that brings them to the top of the list, so you can use fewer keystrokes to dial them. For example, the Motorola V60 starts with an alphabetized list when you press the multi-function button; so start your most commonly called number with "AAA", Like "aaaParents" and the next number with "AAB", like "aabHusband", then they will always appear at the top of the list, which should take fewer keystrokes and less time to dial!

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Studies

Epidemiological and animal studies undertaken by the U.S. cell phone industry and others have yielded mixed results.

• "No Link Between Cell Phone Use and Brain Tumors" - 12 Apr 2005. A new study has found no link between use of cell phones and the risk of developing a brain tumor. The study is published in the April 12 issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology.. The Danish study questioned 427 people with brain tumors and 822 people without brain tumors about their cell phone use. The study found no increased risk for brain tumors related to cell phone use, frequency of use, or number of years of use.
• Finnish Study: February 2005: The amount of radiation most popular cell phones emit is well below agreed limits and largely in line with data published by manufacturers. The survey conducted by Finland's Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK) covered 16 new models made by top handset makers including Finland's own Nokia, Motorola of the United States and South Korea's Samsung Electronics. At this level, the study found that head tissue does not warm significantly and no other harmful effects have been proved scientifically.
• Video interviews with American Cancer Society, and other researchers.
• Orebro, Sweden, 1999: No connection: In a study published in 1999, investigators at the Orebro Medical Centre in Sweden compared the past mobile phone use of 209 Swedish brain tumor patients and 425 healthy people. Conclusion: The study found no mobile phone/brain cancer link "in virtually all respects," cancer researcher John E. Moulder, Ph.D., says in the August 2000 issue of IEEE Spectrum, the official magazine of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Investigators did find that mobile phone users who got certain types of brain tumors tended to report using the phone on the side of the head where they developed the tumor. The study's limitations, according to Moulder, include a weak association between cell phone use and tumor development, as well as a possibility that the cancer patients' recollections were biased by already knowing on which side of their head the brain cancer developed.
• Joshua Muscat, 1999: Glioma: In a yet-unpublished study presented at a 1999 scientific meeting, researcher Joshua Muscat looked for an association between mobile phone use and a type of brain cancer called glioma. Muscat did not find evidence that cell phone use increased people's risk of this type of brain cancer generally. He did, however, observe an increase in one rare kind of glioma, which FDA scientists say might have occurred by chance. Interestingly, with increased hours of mobile phone use, the risk tended to decrease rather than increase as might be expected.
• A few animal studies have suggested that low levels of RF exposure could speed up development of cancer in laboratory animals. In one recent Australian study, for example, mice genetically altered to be predisposed to developing lymphoma got more than twice as many of these cancers when exposed to RF energy compared to mice not exposed to the radiation.
• A large number of laboratory tests have been conducted to assess RF's effects on genetic material, looking for mutations, chromosomal changes, DNA strand breaks, and structural changes in blood cells' genetic material. One kind of test, called a micronucleus assay, showed structural changes in genetic material after exposure to simulated cell phone radiation. The changes occurred only after 24 hours of continuous exposure, which experts say raises questions about this test's sensitivity to heating effects and whether that sensitivity could be solely responsible for the results.