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The decision in June by the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association to provide information on the amount of radio frequency radiation exposure from new models of cell phones is certain to rekindle interest about the phones' safety. Do the phones cause cancer or don't they?
Research done so far in both animals and humans has not supported a link to brain cancer, according to the cover story of the August issue of IEEE Spectrum. The article's authors, bioengineer Kenneth R. Foster and radiation biologist John E. Moulder, write that epidemiological results do not show statistically significant increases in the risk of brain cancer--a disease that strikes six in every 100 000 people in the United States each year. But the studies that have been done so far lack the sensitivity to detect small increases in risk. The body of research literature also contains controversial findings, including breaks in animal DNA caused by radiation at cell phone frequencies and a weak association between brain tumor location and the side of the head to which people hold phones. But the reliability of these findings may be questioned on technical grounds, according to the authors.
Even if scientists find no persuasive evidence that cell phones are not hazardous, this may not by itself be enough to convince the public, according to Paul Slovic, a University of Oregon psychology professor and author of an accompanying article. Slovic writes that ordinary people, led by their instincts, may draw greatly different conclusions from toxicological research than do scientists. He draws a parallel with the ongoing debate over the safety of electromagnetic fields emanating from power lines. He points out that people tend to be less concerned with the safety of a useful appliance, such as a cell phone, and more concerned about something they do not find directly useful, such as a power line.
In their article, Foster and Moulder also analyze the problems with the warning issued in June by a British government panel. That panel concluded that "the balance of evidence" is against a link between radio frequency radiation from cell phones and health effects in the general population. But at the same time it recommended that cell phone companies discourage the use of cell phones by children and that consumers should be given comparative data on radiation. "Just advising against the marketing of cellular phones to children gives a strong impression that a real health problem exists--contrary to the conclusions of [the British government committee]," the authors write. They also note that it is unclear whether radiation data will be of any practical use to consumers because many of the technical details in the standard set for limiting exposure to cell phone radiation have no demonstrated relation to risk.
The Federal Communications Commission has set a limit on peak exposure to cell phone radiation at 1.6 milliwatts per gram of body tissue averaged over any one gram of tissue. European limits are less restrictive. In the United States, exposure from some phones (particularly analog models) is close to regulatory limits, and in 1998 one company had to recall 60 000 cell phones from the U.S. market due to excessive radiation.
Foster and Moulder write that the limits are based on a potentially harmful effect of radio-frequency radiation, behavioral changes in animals caused by excessive whole-body heating--not on biological data from the kind of localized exposure produced by cell phones and not on cancer. If the important hazard from cell phones is from heating, Foster and Moulder write, cell phone users need not be concerned because a cell phone's low power output is not likely to cause that. If some other hazard exists, then the whole basis for the limits would have to be considered.
Kenneth R. Foster is a professor of bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. John E. Moulder is a professor of radiation biology at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee.
Contact: Samuel K. Moore, 212-419-7921, [email protected]
For a faxed copy of the complete article ["Are mobile phones safe?," Kenneth R. Foster and John E. Moulder, IEEE Spectrum, August 2000, pp. 23-28], or to arrange an interview, contact: Nancy T. Hantman, 212-419-7561, [email protected]
URL: http://www.spectrum.ieee.org
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