Are Cell Phones Safe?

Dr Ross Adey is professor of biochemistry at the University of California at Riverside.

"For the first time in history we are holding a high-powered transmitter against the head," he says, "And that transmitter is about an inch from your brain!"

Dr Adey’s team worked on research funded by the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Associate (CTIA) in 1991. Team member Dr Jerry Phillips said the relationship with the company was pleasant until the team began to get some data.

Radio frequency radiation (RFR) was linked to changes in the incidence of brain tumors in rats. The company was then adamant that Dr Adey never mention DNA damage and radio frequency radiation in the same breath.

"Eventually they cut us off because we were too inquisitive," said Dr Phillips.

The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Associates (CTIA) formed a research company to study possible health risks of mobile phone use: Wireless Technology Research. The company was granted $24 million US and after six years, WTR reported, "We have found evidence of genetic damage in human blood."

"We have suggestions of excessive mortality from brain cancers among wireless phone users and we have very clear evidence of a statistically significant higher risk of neuroepithelial tumors," said George Carl, WTR’s chairman. "We now have more data suggesting problems with wireless phones than the FDA [Food and Drug Administration] had when it banned silicon breast implants."

However, the telecommunications industry has failed to act on this evidence. Why? Because CTIA is bankrolled by the companies that produce mobile phones and communications infrastructure! These industry giants have funded extensive research programs of their own; research that has provided reams of study results that indicate an unequivocal absence of health risks.

When you talk on your mobile phone your voice is transmitted from the antenna as radio frequency radiation (RFR) between 800 MHz and 1,990 MHz, a range that’s right in the middle of microwave territory. Dr Adey et al say they would like the industry to accept their findings, allow them to be made public and then let consumers decide whether or not to risk using mobile phones.

It remains to be discovered just how many daily minutes of cell phone use are safe, or when the risk of brain cancer, DNA damage or as yet unknown damage to health kicks in.
Excerpted from Acres USA, February, 2000