Health Effects of Mobile Phone Usage

Uncertainty about the association between health risks and exposure to radiofrequency radiation emitted by cellular and cordless mobile phones can be addressed by a critical analysis of the methodology used in studies assessing this relationship. Studies funded by cellphone companies give reassuring conclusions but are affected by biases and flaws, whereas public-funded studies are without these errors and show acute and chronic effects, including head tumors, findings supported by biological evidence. ____________________ *A.P.P.L.E., Associazione Per la Protezione e la Lotta all’Elettrosmog [association for action and awareness-raising on non-ionizing electromagnetic fields (EMF) health risks], www.applelettrosmog.it, Italy **AIE, Associazione Italiana Elettrosensibili (association for electromagnetic hypersensitivity), www.elettrosensibili.it, Italy HEALTH EFFECTS OF MOBILE PHONE USAGE 2 INTRODUCTION We provide an overview of the relationship between exposure to cellular and cordless phone radiofrequencies and possible health effects. One key concern is the large disparity between the results from publicand from private-funded research. Drawing on Tomatis (2005), founder and long-serving (1969-1993) head of International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the method used in many private-funded studies is such as to raise background noise, increasing confusion, thereby making assessment of risk more difficult. It is thus important to critically assess the scientific validity of these studies: a crucial point we raise is the conflicts of interest often affecting the parties involved, whether individual scientists, international journals, or safety agencies. The implications are far reaching, going beyond the lack of awareness in mobile phone (MP) users regarding health risks, and limited insight on potential improvements due to failures in scientific research. The prime consequence is that collective decisions concerning how these devices should be produced and made available are precluded by the fallacious scientific knowledge that vested interests explicitly pursue. A pioneer study exposing carcinogenic risk arising from MP use was published by Hardell (Hardell et al., 2002) of the Dept Oncology, University Hospital, Orebro, Sweden. This seminal work has now been extended by a number of notable authors: Davis (Davis, 2010) of the Environmental Health Trust, Tetom Village, WY USA; Gee (Gee, 2009) at the European Environment Agency, Copenhagen, Denmark; Lloyd Morgan (Lloyd Morgan, 2009) in Albany, CA USA; Kundi (Kundi, 2009) at the Environmental Health Institute, University of Vienna, Austria. In addition, one of the present authors, Levis (Levis et al., 2011), has worked in this field for more than 10 years, and has frequently been called as an expert witness to give evidence in the context of MP court cases. Investigators in newer areas of research, tackling the increasing challenges of acute and chronic effects of electrohypersensitivity, include Johansson (Johansson, 2006) at the Karolinska Institute and Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden; Khurana (Khurana, 2010) at the Australian National University Medical School, Garran, Australia; HEALTH EFFECTS OF MOBILE PHONE USAGE 3 and Grigoriev (Grigoriev 2011) at the Federal Medical Biophysical Center, Moscow, Russia.