Recently there was some discussion about cell 'phone cancer.
Below is a long article about some newspapers' reaction to studies that implicate a connection. ZNet is a biased socialist organization, but there are sufficient references in their report for one to
form their own opinion on cell 'phone cancer. Regarding their point about a corporate and advertiser unholy alliance -- so what else is new?
bc
Subject:
ZNet Commentaries / June 26 / Dave Edwards / Mobile Phones...
Date:
Sun, 25 Jun 2000 21:24:46 +0100
From:
"Michael Albert" <sysop@zmag.org>
To:
<znetcommentary@tao.ca>
------------------ cut
Sustainers also please check out the new bio page for
commentators, which also lists each writers commentaries and
Z articles, too: http://zmag.org/bios
If you pass this comment along to others, please include an
explanation that Commentaries are a premium sent to
Sustainer Donors of Z/ZNet and that to learn more about the
project folks can consult ZNet (http://www.zmag.org) and
specifically the ZNet Sustainer Pages
(http://www.zmag.org/Commentaries/donorform.htm.
And here is today's ZNet Commentary Delivery.
-----
Mobile Phones, Health Effects and the Problem with
Advertisers
By David Edwards
Jim Mochnacz worked for British Telecom's Cellnet for eight
years, initially siting and installing mobile phone
transmission masts, before managing installations throughout
a third of Britain. At the end of this period, Mochnacz fell
seriously ill with problems of memory loss, chronic
tiredness, personality changes, a permanent ringing in his
head, and a feeling of constriction around his skull like a
metal band tightening. "When I was working on transmission
masts I had such huge electrical currents going through my
head that my teeth would clamp together," Mochnacz says. "I
couldn't wear a digital watch, the LCD display just faded
away on my wrist. To stop my jaws clamping, I had to have
all my metal fillings removed." Ten years on, the problems
remain: "I'm convinced I've got 'microwave poisoning' , for
want of a better phrase."
Steve Corney, a colleague of Mochnacz, was tasked to drive
around mobile phone base stations checking signal strengths.
"Unfortunately, he had two mobile phones," Mochnacz says,
"one to each ear. He'd be speaking to different headquarters
checking signal strengths at different sites and so on. He
lost his memory totally. He forgot, not only where he'd left
his car, but even the fact that, a few years before, the
company colours had been changed from yellow to grey. His
speech and hearing are permanently damaged." Corney stammers
when he speaks but also when he listens: sounds break up
like a faulty radio transmission, making it hard to
understand what is being said to him.
A "definitive" British government-backed report released by
the Stewart Committee in May recommended that children be
discouraged from using mobile phones because they are more
at risk from radiation. The media made light of the report
declaring that these recommendations had been made on the
basis of literally no evidence. The BBC and ITN news both
reported that there was "no evidence" of a risk to human
health. The Guardian focused on the fact that the Stewart
Committee had found, not a risk exactly, but "a risk of a
risk".
Even the esteemed journal New Scientist joined in: "There is
currently no evidence that mobile phones harm users or
people living near transmitter masts."
A remarkable statement - even anecdotal evidence is
evidence - given that the government report had recommended
that children be discouraged from using mobile phones.
The Stewart Committee found conclusive evidence that mobile
phones have biological effects on humans even where the
radio frequency or microwave radiation is emitted at very
low levels. Children are most susceptible because their
skulls are thinner, allowing their brains to absorb more
radiation, and their cell growth and brain wave activity are
still developing. It is expected that, following the report,
mobile phones will have to carry health warnings.
Sources close to the committee said: "The effects of
exposure to radio frequency radiation at levels way below
the current guidelines are a cause for concern. This is very
new technology. We may not be seeing cancers now but in 10
years, who knows? That is why we need to take precautions
and plan to prevent future problems."
Indeed the very real evidence that led the committee to make
its recommendations regarding children included British and
Finnish studies, which showed that, microwave radiation from
mobile phones does affect the brain.
Alan Preece, of Bristol University, who conducted the
British study, said he was confident that mobile radiation
affected the human system but stressed it was still too
early to say whether it was harmful. Dr Preece said: "There
is undoubtedly an effect but we just don't know what the
mechanism is which is causing it."
Research carried out by Dr Henry Lai at the University of
Washington, in Seattle, also submitted to the Stewart
committee, discovered that radiation from mobile phones
could split DNA molecules in rat brains - the kind of damage
that in humans is associated with Alzheimer's and
Parkinson's. In Norway and Sweden, researchers found that
workers who used cell phones for over 15 minutes a day were
more likely to complain of fatigue, and more likely to
suffer headaches, than those who used the phone for less
than two minutes. When phone use exceeded an hour, the
fatigue level went up 4 times and headaches 6 times.
One reason that the press were able to talk in terms of "no
evidence" and trivial risk, was that vital evidence of
harmful effects on children from transmitter masts had been
kept from the Stewart Committee by a government agency, the
National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB).
The independent panel had asked the NRPB, acting as its
secretariat, for copies of a study on schoolchildren living
near a radio mast in Latvia. They were told that the
research was unpublished and unobtainable. Sarah Ryle of the
Observer has since reported that the research, published in
an international scientific journal in 1996, +was+ peer
reviewed by other scientists and has been easily obtained by
ordinary members of the public.
The study by the Latvian Academy of Sciences examined the
impact of a military radio transmitter on local
schoolchildren, comparing them with a control group. The
research, which studied nearly 1,000 children aged 9 to 18,
found that "memory and attention were significantly impaired
in all children living in front of the Skrunda station".
Dr Hilary Kennedy, a biologist and chairperson of Northern
Ireland Families against Telecommunications Transmitter
Towers (NIFATT), said, "I believe that the NRPB has misled
Sir William Stewart's committee". NIFATT's secretary,
Margaret Dean, has said, "By withholding the findings of
this important study I also believe the NRPB is guilty of a
gross disservice to the general public."
Also unreported in the press, was evidence provided by the
Wireless Technology Research (WTR), a leading surveillance
and research organization funded by the US telecoms
industry. The role of WTR is to identify and solve any
problems concerning consumers' health that could arise from
the use of mobile phones. In February of last year, after
six years of research, the WTR presented findings that its
Chairman, George L. Carlo, described as "surprising".
The WTR found that the rate of death from brain cancer among
handheld phone users was higher than the rate of brain
cancer death among those who used non-handheld phones that
were kept away from their head. The risk of a benign tumour
of the auditory nerve was also fifty percent higher in
people who reported using cell phones for six years or more.
The risk of rare tumours on the outside of the brain was
more than doubled in cell phone users as compared to people
who did not use cell phones. There also appeared to be some
correlation between brain tumours occurring on the right
side of the head and the use of the phone on the right side
of the head. Laboratory studies looking at the ability of
radiation from a phone's antenna to cause functional genetic
damage were "definitively positive".
Carlo reported that while none of these findings alone were
evidence of a definitive health hazard from mobile phones,
the pattern of potential health effects "raised serious
questions". The response of the telecoms industry to the
WTR's findings has been shocking. George Carlo says, "Today,
I sit here extremely frustrated and concerned that
appropriate steps have not been taken by the wireless
industry to protect consumers during this time of
uncertainty about safety. Alarmingly, indications are that
some segments of the industry have ignored the scientific
findings suggesting potential health effects, have
repeatedly and falsely claimed that wireless phones are safe
for all consumers including children, and have created an
illusion of responsible follow up by calling for and
supporting more research."
In an attempt to utilize the best sites for providing strong
signals, mobile phone Network Operators are increasingly
approaching schools and owners of blocks of high-rise flats
for permission to erect transmission masts a few feet high
on their roofs. Dr. David Carpenter, the former Executive
Secretary of the New York Power Lines Project, now employed
as the Dean of the State of New York School of Public
Health, is outraged by this practice:
"In my view it is totally irresponsible to position a
cellular antenna near a site where children spend
significant periods of time. While I am not saying that the
association between these exposures and childhood cancer is
proven beyond any shadow of a doubt, I do see evidence to be
suggestive."
A major problem, as ever, is the clear clash of interest
between the corporate media and the reporting of
business-unfriendly news. In a rare departure from the
mendacious norm, Richard Ingrams of the Observer noted last
December that, "Looking at the advertisements in the
Christmas pages of the newspapers, you get the impression
that the only things that will be given as presents this
year are mobile phones - different varieties of which are
displayed on almost every page."
The conflict of interest, Ingrams noted, is not difficult to
discern:
"When the newspapers are obviously doing so well out of all
this advertising, it is not so surprising that they tend not
to give much coverage to the growing evidence that mobile
phones are not only anti-social but extremely dangerous."