JEDDAH, 15 February — Cell phones are ubiquitous. Almost everyone uses them and most people are at a loss without them. Mobiles are like radio-telephones except with low-power frequency, so signals do not interfere with each other. Calls go through radio transmitters — located in small units called cells — but what disturbs many researchers is the recent report published by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) — part of the World Health Organization (WHO) The report states: “Electromagnetic fields (are) a probable or possible cause of cancer.”
This may be true for low frequencies of 50 or 60 Hz. Mobile phones, however, emit radio frequencies (RF) of 10 million Hz or more.
This means that radio frequencies for mobile phones require further studies. “It will take 3-4 years for the required RF research to be completed, evaluated and to publish the final results of any health risks,” the report says.
Insofar as is known, “None of the recent reviews have concluded that exposure to the radio frequency fields from mobile phones or their base stations causes any adverse health consequences,” according to article 193 of the WHO sheet.
Limiting human exposure to the electromagnetic frequency depends primarily on (“tissue heating for high frequency fields of 10 million Hz and above) and on induced electrical currents in the body for the extremely low frequency fields (50 or 60 Hz).”
The good news is that none-ionizing radio frequencies pose a higher threat than ionizing radio frequencies — since the latter contain higher doses of energy levels. Mobile phones contain the none-ionizing radio frequencies stored in the phone’s antenna. At some point, these none-ionizing radio frequencies may overheat, or even damage living human cell tissues.
This is another reason why researchers encourage users to keep a safe distance between themselves and radiation, by using headsets or placing an antenna outside one’s vehicle.
A number of incidents have alarmed many researchers into the relation between cellular phones and cancer. A number of young cancer patients in Spain are alleged to have been exposed to electromagnetic fields from mobile phones. In a related case, a neurologist filed an $800 million lawsuit in the US. He alleged that using a cell phone for nine years caused him to develop cancer.
Still, as John E. Moulder, a Ph.D. cancer researcher and professor of radiation oncology at the Medical College of Wisconsin concluded, “(mobile phones are) somewhere between impossible and implausible. There is still much more to be done. 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.”
So why exactly is it legitimate to study the effects of mobile phones? One major issue is its relationship to brain cancer and how, over the course of time, the cause-effect relationship may prove that cell phones are dangerous to use.
Brain cancer is widespread across the world — in the United States alone, about six new cancer cases out of 100,000 are brain cancer. The problem however, is that brain cancer develops over a long period of time, leaving unanswered questions over the connection between the disease and the use of mobile phones.
As research improves, understanding the possible health risks of using mobile phones will be a first step. The US government’s National Cancer Institute, for example, is already comparing 800 people with brain tumors — who have owned mobile phones — with another 800 people without brain tumors.
Researchers will also consider the little details that allow for an accurate, case by case study of people’s lifestyles and their genetic composition.
Which leads us to the same old question: are mobile phones safe to use? “The closest thing to proving that something is safe — that it doesn’t cause cancer,” says Moulder, “is to try to prove that it does and fail, and fail, and fail enough times and in enough different ways.”