"If Mobile Phones Were a Type of Food, They Simply Would Not be Licensed"
Cellular phone causes symptoms: including headaches, earaches, blurring of vision, short-term memory loss, numbing, tingling, and burning sensations, bad sleep,fatigue, Anxiety.
We talked with teachers and education consultants about incorporating handhelds into instruction. They offered a host of useful suggestions on overcoming the five major challenges of bringing mobile devices into the classroom.
Also, technical support is a must. In many schools, one teacher drives technology forward and supports the devices on the strength of pure knowledge and enthusiasm. That can work, but if you don’t have a technology driver at your school, make sure to get the IT folks you do have on board to commit to providing support.
Initially, the Bridging project specified direct, inclass technical support. Eventually, Tomasino says, teachers will become comfortable enough with the handhelds to take over tech support themselves.
2) Staying Focused on the Purpose. Wireless is often misused, says Kellie Doubek, an instructional technology and literacy consultant who has worked with schools and districts in Illinois and Michigan. Too many schools, she contends, reach for hot new technologies like mobile and wireless without strategies in place on how they plan to use them.
“If you are looking at using technology,” Doubek says, “use the same sound instructional strategies that you would with any new initiative. Administrators and teachers forget that, because they’re overwhelmed by the tool.”
That said, Doubek sees handhelds as especially effective for some educational uses. Along with their mobility and lower price, they promote interaction among students, she says, far more than laptop computers do.
Doubek, who works with Tomasino, encourages client schools to focus on the purpose of the new technology, which should be driving the project in the first place. “If [devices] are being implemented with a purpose, think through staff development,” she says. “First, what is that purpose? Second, what’s your goal instructionally? Third, where’s the technology support coming from?” Doubek advises answering those sorts of questions up front, all the while making sure not to stray from the project’s instructional objective.
The study indicates that during laboratory exposure to 884 MHz wireless signals, components of sleep, believed to be important for recovery from daily wear and tear, are adversely affected.The sample size of the study is very small - 35 men and 36 women. Still, you may want to check again the most radiation-intensive mobile phones in the market so you can minimize future headaches.
Moreover, participants that otherwise have no self-reported symptoms related to mobile phone use appear to have more headaches during actual radio frequency exposure.
Short exposure to Mobile phone radiation - two hours - has been reported in 2003 to destroy cells in parts of the brain important for memory, movement and learning, and could possibly conceivably premature onset of illnesses such as Alzheimers - although we have no evidence of a similar effect in humans. Lund University Hospital Professor Leif Salford says mobile radiation allows harmful proteins and toxins through the brain barrier in rats. He also has found significant degree of damage to brain neurons in adolescent rats.
He said: "If this effect was to transfer to young mobile users, the effects could be terrifying. We can see reduced brain reserve capacity, meaning those who might normally have got Alzheimer's or dementia in old age could get it much earlier." He used rats aged 12-26 weeks because their brain cells were still developing in a similar way to teenagers and younger children. They were exposed for just 120 minutes to radiation equivalent to typical intensive mobile phone use. Sections of rat brains were examined 50 days after exposure. Animals exposed to medium and high level radiation had many dead neurons in their brains - totally different from rats which were not exposed to radiation. (published Feb 2003).
The trouble is that similar studies cannot be carried out in humans because mobile phone radiation exposure would have to be followed by brain biopsy which can cause epilepsy later, permanent brain damage, stroke or even death. We can only get the answer in humans by doing studies on brain tissue of teenagers killed in accidents, and comparing brain tissue of heavy, medium, light and non-users of mobile phones. In addition, we have yet to see other centres replicate his work.
Dr Kjell Hansson Mild in Sweden studied radiation risk in 11,000 mobile telephone users. Symptoms such as fatigue, headaches, burning sensations on the skin were more common among those who made longer mobile phone calls. At the same time there are a growing number of unconfirmed reports of individuals whose health has been affected after chronic, frequent use of mobile phones, presumably from radiation effects on cells. See below for SAR data on mobile phone radiation levels. Once again, for every study with a positive finding of effect on cells, there is another that has found nothing.
As I say, from a physician's point of view this is all rather difficult to interpret. The truth is that no one knows for sure, but it looks as though the health risks for an individual person with normal patterns of use are extremely low, almost non-existent. I still use a mobile phone, as do our teenage children, and my home has a wireless network as well as hands-free local handsets for landlines. The only steps we have taken are to mount the wireless LAN connection a few feet from where anyone sits, and to encourage our younger children not to spend their entire lives chatting away on mobiles - there are other reasons for that too such as homework and of course cost.
New reports continue to be published several times a year, suggesting that there might be health risks from mobile phones electromagnetic radiation. Yet other studies show little or no health impact.
There can be no doubt any longer that mobile phone radiation affects living cells. For example research shows that nematode worms exposed to mobile phone radiation produce more eggs, release stress hormones and grow larger.
But what is the effect of mobile phone radiation on people? Could we see a mass court action in twenty years time against telecom companies by people claiming compensation for health damage caused by radiation? It's a possibility, even though at present the clear evidence suggests that if there is any effect on human health at all from use of a mobile phone, the electromagnetic radiation risk is very, very low for the individual user.
However some studies have caused concern in the media. For example, in October 2004, scientists at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm gave a new warning about mobile phone radiation and brain tumours - accoustic neuromas (published in the journal Epidemiology). They found that long term users of mobile phones were four times as likely to develop growths on the side they held the phone, and twice as likely as non-users to develop these benign non-cancerous growths. They saw no increased risk from mobile phone radiation in those who had used mobile phones for less than 10 years. The study was of 150 mobile phone users, compared to 60 in a control group.
The cancer-causing chemical found in dust blowing from the TXI Riverside Cement plant in Rubidoux isn't just a concern for people living in northwest Riverside County.
Prevailing winds carried hexavalent chromium-laden dust into south Colton and south Rialto, testing by the South Coast Air Quality Management District found earlier this year.
Higher than average levels of the toxic chemical were found in dust near La Cadena Drive and Rancho Avenue, Pepper Avenue and Interstate 10, and Riverside Avenue and I-10.
Hexavalent chromium is the chemical made famous by Erin Brockovich after it contaminated water in Hinkley. Residents there won more than $300 million from Pacific Gas & Electric for heart, respiratory and reproductive problems they blamed on the chemical.
Now, alarmingly, it has been found along the Riverside-San Bernardino border during cancer-risk studies throughout the LA Basin from 2004 to 2006.
It took additional months of studies, sampling and chemical fingerprinting to pinpoint Riverside Cement as the source.
Already, a class-action lawsuit has been filed, alleging the plant is responsible for illnesses including cancer, respiratory problems and skin irritation.
Residents of Bloomington and south Colton have been concerned for years about the dust that coats their cars, their landscaping and the inside of their homes.
Many thought it came from California Portland Cement in Colton. But AQMD officials don't believe Cal Portland is responsible for the spread of hexavalent chromium.
Executive Officer Barry Wallerstein told me the Colton plant does a much better job of controlling airborne dust than Riverside Cement has done.
AQMD inspectors found Cal Portland Cement has better equipment and better practices for controlling dust:
The plant covers its piles of clinker, made from raw material fired at high temperatures into bricks that are ground up later to make cement. In addition, some of its conveyors are enclosed, AQMD officials said.
Officials believe hexavalent chromium became airborne in dust that was blown off the Riverside Cement site when workers moved clinker. Its clinker piles were left completely open, the AQMD told me.
Riverside Cement spokesman Frank Sheets told me Monday his company has begun spraying the clinker with water and a dust suppressant when it's being moved, since AQMD cited it recently for dust problems.
It also reduced the number of clinker deliveries and stepped up maintenance of vacuums that remove clinker dust along its conveyor belts, Sheets said.
The company is evaluating the way clinker is delivered to the plant, and may eliminate outdoor storage, he said.
The AQMD and Supervisor Josie Gonzales, whose district includes the affected neighborhoods, will hold a community meeting to discuss the results of testing at the Cal Portland site at 6:30 p.m. May 29 at Colton High School.
Residents should also be able to get their questions answered about the hexavalent chromium in the dust from the Riverside Cement plant at that meeting.
Gonzales said through a spokesman that she wants residents to get "complete and accurate information."
That's important, because it will help them take necessary precautions for their health.
Researcher Alisdair Phillips made the claim during a legal hearing brought by scientist Roger Coghill, who is trying to force retailers to put health warnings on mobile phones.
Mr Phillips told the court: "I have received frequent reports from regular phone users telling of headaches, loss of concentration, skin tingling or burning and twitching.
"The complaints can involve eye tics, short-term memory, buzzing in the head at night and other effects such as tiredness.
"This is the first time in human existence that people have wandered around with radiating devices held close to their bodies.
"We have got numbers of people that are now unable to work who have been using mobile phones up to seven or eight hours a day.
"A lot of people coming to me have been heavy users. All have been City traders and British Telecom employees who are expected to use their phones every day.
"It is too early to say, but we are starting to see lymphomas of the neck in heavy phone users."
Mr Philips told the court: "If someone is completely healthy and has a strong immune system then mobile-phone use may well not give them long-term health problems.
"Some people can smoke for forty or fifty years and not develop cancer and yet the dangers of smoking are now generally accepted.
"It has been repeatedly shown that a few minutes exposure to cell phone type radiation can transform a 5% active cancer into a 95% active cancer for the duration of the exposure and for a short time afterwards."
Mr Phillips, a consultant advisor on electromagnetic fields, led a team of investigators examining possible health dangers in the Kuwait telephone system.
He said: "I believe there is now adequate evidence to insist that all mobile phone handsets should be required to have a suitable warning label."
He said the warning label would meet the requirements of the Consumer Protection Act.
Private prosecution
Mr Coghill, who runs an independent laboratory in Pontpool, Gwent, is bringing a private prosecution against a telephone shop where he bought two phones. ![[ image: Mr Coghill wants a warning like that on cigarette packs]](http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/210000/images/_210771_smoker_and_cigarette_packs_montage_150_%28050598%29_grab.jpg)
Mr Coghill wants a warning like that on cigarette packs
Mr Coghill is convinced that mobile phones pose a major health hazard when used for more than 20 minutes at a time.
He says the mobile phone is the biggest domestic appliance source of radiation ever invented.
Mr Coghill has produced evidence that suggests that radiation from mobile phones can cause headaches, memory loss and severe damage to the immune system.
He is on record as saying: "Anyone who uses a mobile phone for more than 20 minutes at a time needs their head examined."
The court later heard from Dr Christopher Busby, the UK representative on the European Committee on Radiation Risk.
Dr Busby compared the energy generated in the brain when using a mobile phone to "a light bulb being switched on".
He said: "I am not surprised when people say they are getting headaches when they use mobile phones if we are talking about these levels of density."
Dr Busby was concerned that the risk of using mobile phones was not recognised by authorities such as the National Radiological Protection Board.
Echoes of the BSE crisis
He compared the delay in recognising the risk to the early days of the BSE crisis when scientists said the disease could not cross the species barrier.
"There is quite a considerable time lag involved before these conservative bodies like the National Radiological Protection Board say `okay we can see there is a risk now'," Dr Busby told the hearing.
"But because there is a lag between exposure to cancer causing agents and the manifestation of cancer this time lag results in the death of a lot of people."
Barrister Hugo Charlton, who has been hired by Mr Coghill to fight his case, said: "Legislation says that goods should carry instructions or warnings.
"But at the moment the shop is doing nothing to warn the public about any risks.
"We say that a warning against excessive use would be reasonable in making the product safer."
Experts from the government's National Radiological Protection Board are due to give evidence supporting the shop.
A spokesman said: "There is no firm evidence of any serious health effects from using mobile phones."
Magistrates at Abergavenny are due to spend two days hearing the case.SEVEN clusters of cancer and other serious illnesses have been discovered around mobile phone masts, raising concerns over the technology’s potential impact on health.
Studies of the sites show high incidences of cancer, brain haemorrhages and high blood pressure within a radius of 400 yards of mobile phone masts.
One of the studies, in Warwickshire, showed a cluster of 31 cancers around a single street. A quarter of the 30 staff at a special school within sight of the 90ft high mast have developed tumours since 2000, while another quarter have suffered significant health problems.
The mast is being pulled down by the mobile phone after the presentation of the evidenceoperator O2 by local protesters. While rejecting any links to ill-health, O2 admitted the decision was “clearly rare and unusual”.
Phone masts have provoked protests throughout Britain with thousands of people objecting each week to planning applications. There are about 47,000 masts in the UK.
Dr John Walker, a scientist who compiled the cluster studies with the help of local campaigners in Devon, Lincolnshire, Staffordshire and the West Midlands, said he was convinced they showed a potential link between the angle of the beam of radiation emitted from the masts’ antennae and illnesses discovered in local populations.
“Masts should be moved away from conurbations and schools and the power turned down,” he said.
Some scientists already believe such a link exists and studies in other European countries suggest a rise in cancers close to masts. In 2005 Sir William Stewart, chairman of the Health Protection Agency, said he found four such studies to be of concern but that the health risk remained unproven.
Of the 100 million American cellular phone subscribers, some use their wireless phone only in a crisis--to call a friend or 911. They put their rap sessions on hold until arriving home, where phoning a friend costs no cents per minute.
For other wireless phone owners, it could be the fear of brain cancer, not an unwieldy wireless bill, that keeps them from using their cell phones for leisure chats.
Convinced that a nine-year cell phone habit led to his brain cancer, neurologist Chris Newman, M.D., has filed an $800 million lawsuit in
In Newman's case, his lawyer has said, "it's really not a question at all" whether the cancer is cell phone-related. The evidence, she says: Newman's own doctors made the connection between his long-time cell phone use and his tumor, which is positioned in "the exact anatomical location where the radiation from the cell phone emitted into his skull."
Newman has been front and center in a renewed public focus over the last few months on whether the fear of brain cancer from wireless phones is well-founded or folly. For his part, epidemiologist Sam Milham, M.D., recently expressed a breakaway scientific viewpoint when he told the television audience of CNN's Larry King Live show that there is "plenty of reason for concern" about cell phones causing brain cancer.
Hold the phone. Is there really cause for concern? Do steps need to be taken, as Milham told Larry King, to avoid a brain cancer epidemic among the millions of cell phone users in this country and around the world?
No, current scientific evidence does not show any negative health effects from the low levels of electromagnetic energy emitted by mobile phones, says the Food and Drug Administration. But some recent studies suggest a possible link between mobile phones and cancer and warrant follow-up, the agency says, to determine with more certainty whether cell phones are safe.
"We don't see a risk looking at currently available data," says David Feigal, M.D., director of FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health. "But we need more definite answers about the biological effects of cell phone radiation, and about the more complicated question of whether mobile phones might cause even a small increase in the risk of developing cancer."
Radiation Without Risk?
Like televisions, alarm systems, computers, and all other electrical devices, mobile phones emit electromagnetic radiation. 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?")
In the
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, the safety of mobile phones with an antenna mounted away from the user--like on the outside of a car--has not been called into question. Also not 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 of power emitted couldn't possibly affect human health. They're probably right, says John E. Moulder, Ph.D., a cancer researcher and professor of radiation oncology at the Medical College of Wisconsin. It's true, he says, that from the physics standpoint, biological effects from mobile phones are "somewhere between impossible and implausible."
At the same time, Moulder supports further studies into the science of cell phone radiation. "Some people think the power emitted by the phones is so low, it's a silly thing to research. But I think it remains a legitimate area of study."
Studies in Perspective
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
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 So Far.")
Based on the evidence so far and possible limitations in some studies' research methods, FDA is closely following ongoing research into whether there might be any association between cell phones and cancer, according to the agency's Feigal.
A long-term study 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.
Fear Factor
The new studies may bolster current scientific knowledge, but they will never be able to prove cell phones to be absolutely safe. Proving that cell phones don't cause cancer presents the insurmountable scientific obstacle of trying to prove a negative, Moulder explains. "The closest thing to proving that something is safe--that it doesn't cause cancer--is to try to prove that it does, and fail, and fail enough times and in enough different ways."
Even when scientists are convinced of the safety of a technology--be it the technology of cell phones or of televisions, radios, computers, or microwave ovens--it doesn't necessarily follow that public fears will be put to rest. Lay people interpret scientific evidence differently from scientists, according to risk experts, and the general public may be more likely to be frightened when preliminary research shows a mere possibility of harm.
