Do Cell Phones Harm Unborn Babies?

Do Cell Phones Harm Unborn Babies?


Researcher Says Media Misinterpreted Study on Cell Phones, Behavior Problems
By DAN CHILDS
ABC News Medical Unit
May 20, 2008

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Medical experts say media reports of a study that suggests a pregnant woman's cell phone use could cause later behavioral problems in her baby raise unnecessary alarm.
A new study finds that heavy cell phone use may accelerate hearing loss.

In the study, slated for publication in the July issue of the journal Epidemiology, researchers at the Universities of California, Los Angeles, and Aarhus, Denmark, issued a survey to mothers of 13,159 children in Denmark. The survey asked the mothers questions about their use of cell phones during their pregnancy as well as their child's behavior and their current cell phone use.

The researchers found that the mothers who said they used cell phones during their pregnancy also reported a higher level of behavioral problems in their children.

But while the results suggested an increased risk of hyperactivity, impulsivity and difficulty concentrating in children whose mothers used cell phones during pregnancy, epidemiological experts -- including one of the paper's authors -- said it would be a mistake to assume that the findings were conclusive.
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In fact, Dr. Jorn Olsen, professor and chair of epidemiology at UCLA and a co-author of the paper, said media coverage of the research thus far has been off target.

Olsen specifically referred to a report in the British press with the headline "Warning: Using a Mobile Phone While Pregnant Can Seriously Damage Your Baby."

"That's clearly not what we wanted to suggest, and we think that there is no reason that pregnant women should be very alarmed at the findings we have," Olsen said.

He added that he and his colleagues had not expected the paper to be released until next month.

"I think that a number of journalists broke the story on this and that they did not take all of the assumptions into consideration [when reporting it]," he said.

Confounding Factors

Charles Poole, associate professor of epidemiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said that a number of factors could have been at play in this preliminary study that would have thrown the results off one way or the other.

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Beware, exorbitant cell phone use may cause brain tumor

Beware, exorbitant cell phone use may cause brain tumor

Though the cell phone phobia is taking over the youth and over 91.4 million Pakistanis use cell phones today, experts are of the opinion that the cell phones emit Radiofrequency (RF) energy which may increase the risk of cancer for cell phone users.



To date, many of the studies have focused on whether RF energy can cause malignant or benign brain tumors. The experts opine that the cell phone users are exposed to the radiofrequency (RF) energy, a non-ionizing form of radiation, emitted by the cell phones and due to the widespread use of this technology, there is understandable concern about the health implications of cell phone use.

“The animal experiments investigating the effects of Radiofrequency energy (RF) exposures characteristic of wireless/cell phones have suggested that low levels of RF could accelerate the development of cancer in laboratory animals. However, many of the studies that showed increased tumor development used animals that had been genetically engineered or treated with cancer-causing chemicals so as to be pre-disposed to develop cancer in the presence of RF exposure,” said Dr. Masood Ahmad, an expert, while talking.

He said the studies investigated any possible association between the use of wireless phones and primary brain cancer, glioma, meningioma, or acoustic neuroma, tumors of the brain or salivary gland, leukemia, or other cancers.

“Though some studies demonstrated the existence of harmful health effects from wireless phone RF exposures. However, none of the studies can answer questions about long-term exposures, since the average period of phone use in these studies was around three years,” he added.

A “Cell Phone Facts” document for consumers developed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reviews the research on cell phones that has been completed to date.

The document recommend additional research and noted the challenges of completing the laboratory and epidemiological studies that might offer conclusive data on risks of cell phones.

The agencies note that animal studies investigating cell phone use would need to be very large to offer meaningful data, and epidemiological studies might require ten or more years of follow-up.

Finally, the agencies note difficulties in measuring actual RF exposure, including which model of phone is used and the angle of the cell phone during the use.

The North American Brain Tumor Coalition (NABTC) has for a number of years carefully monitored the research related to the potential adverse effects associated with cell phone use.

The NABTC urges these precautions in absence of definitive studies regarding the risks of cell phones. The coalition urges the most expeditious possible completion of research studies, including one sponsored by the World Health Organization (WHO), to provide consumers better information about the risks created by their use of cell phones.

In the absence of conclusive studies, it is recommended that individuals take simple precautions to limit their cell phone use and that they impose restrictions on the use of cell phones by children.

The WHO published a fact sheet on cell phones in the Year 2000, which stated, “Given the immense numbers of mobile phones, even small adverse effects on health could have major public health implications.”

A recently published meta-analysis by an Australian neurosurgeon has also intensified concerns about the risks of cell phone use and created great interest in the completion of ongoing studies.

Although public health authorities are not in agreement regarding the issuance of public health advisories about cell phones in light of the inconclusive data regarding their risks, most governments have issued precautionary warnings regarding cell phone use.

The United Kingdom in 2000 urged that cell phone use among children be limited and undertook a leafleting campaign to distribute information about limiting use by children.

In 2006, the Canadian government urged adults to moderate their cell phone use and the cell phone use of their children until the science regarding the risks of cell phones is clear.

“If you must conduct extended conversations by wireless phone every day, you could place more distance between your body and the source of the RF, since the exposure level drops off dramatically with distance. For example, you could use a headset and carry the wireless phone away from your body or use a wireless phone connected to a remote antenna,” advised Dr. Masood.

In a July 2008 memo to the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute faculty and staff, institute director Ronald Herberman, M.D. offered “Practical Advice to Limit Exposure to Electromagnetic Radiation Emitted from Cell Phones.”

Dr. Herberman said that release of the ten “prudent and simple precautions” to reduce exposure was based on the recommendations of an international panel of experts convened by the University of Pittsburgh.

Those experts stated that, “electromagnetic fields emitted by cell phones should be considered a potential human health risk.”

Cell Phone Anti-Radiation Belt Clip- they've arrived!

I'm pretty happy to get these anti radiation belt clips I ordered. I'm repacking and sending them out early for my Christmas gifts. It's never fun to lose packages in the Christmas rush.

Mobile phone use 'raises children's risk of brain cancer fivefold'

Mobile phone use 'raises children's risk of brain cancer fivefold'

Alarming new research from Sweden on the effects of radiation raises fears that today's youngsters face an epidemic of the disease in later life

By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
Sunday, 21 September 2008
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The Swedish research was reported this month at the first international conference on mobile phones and health

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Children and teenagers are five times more likely to get brain cancer if they use mobile phones, startling new research indicates.

The study, experts say, raises fears that today's young people may suffer an "epidemic" of the disease in later life. At least nine out of 10 British 16-year-olds have their own handset, as do more than 40 per cent of primary schoolchildren.

Yet investigating dangers to the young has been omitted from a massive £3.1m British investigation of the risks of cancer from using mobile phones, launched this year, even though the official Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research (MTHR) Programme – which is conducting it – admits that the issue is of the "highest priority".

Despite recommendations of an official report that the use of mobiles by children should be "minimised", the Government has done almost nothing to discourage it.

Last week the European Parliament voted by 522 to 16 to urge ministers across Europe to bring in stricter limits for exposure to radiation from mobile and cordless phones, Wi-fi and other devices, partly because children are especially vulnerable to them. They are more at risk because their brains and nervous systems are still developing and because – since their heads are smaller and their skulls are thinner – the radiation penetrates deeper into their brains.

The Swedish research was reported this month at the first international conference on mobile phones and health.

It sprung from a further analysis of data from one of the biggest studies carried out into the risk that the radiation causes cancer, headed by Professor Lennart Hardell of the University Hospital in Orebro, Sweden. Professor Hardell told the conference – held at the Royal Society by the Radiation Research Trust – that "people who started mobile phone use before the age of 20" had more than five-fold increase in glioma", a cancer of the glial cells that support the central nervous system. The extra risk to young people of contracting the disease from using the cordless phone found in many homes was almost as great, at more than four times higher.

Those who started using mobiles young, he added, were also five times more likely to get acoustic neuromas, benign but often disabling tumours of the auditory nerve, which usually cause deafness.

By contrast, people who were in their twenties before using handsets were only 50 per cent more likely to contract gliomas and just twice as likely to get acoustic neuromas.

Professor Hardell told the IoS: "This is a warning sign. It is very worrying. We should be taking precautions." He believes that children under 12 should not use mobiles except in emergencies and that teenagers should use hands-free devices or headsets and concentrate on texting. At 20 the danger diminishes because then the brain is fully developed. Indeed, he admits, the hazard to children and teenagers may be greater even than his results suggest, because the results of his study do not show the effects of their using the phones for many years. Most cancers take decades to develop, longer than mobile phones have been on the market.

The research has shown that adults who have used the handsets for more than 10 years are much more likely to get gliomas and acoustic neuromas, but he said that there was not enough data to show how such relatively long-term use would increase the risk for those who had started young.

He wants more research to be done, but the risks to children will not be studied in the MTHR study, which will follow 90,000 people in Britain. Professor David Coggon, the chairman of the programmes management committee, said they had not been included because other research was being done on young people by a study at Sweden's Kariolinska Institute.

He said: "It looks frightening to see a five-fold increase in cancer among people who started use in childhood," but he said he "would be extremely surprised" if the risk was shown to be so high once all the evidence was in.

But David Carpenter, dean of the School of Public Health at the State University of NewYork – who also attended the conference – said: "Children are spending significant time on mobile phones. We may be facing a public health crisis in an epidemic of brain cancers as a result of mobile phone use."

In 2000 and 2005, two official inquiries under Sir William Stewart, a former government chief scientist, recommended the use of mobile phones by children should be "discouraged" and "minimised".

But almost nothing has been done, and their use by the young has more than doubled since the turn of the millennium.

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