Saturday, October 13, 2007

FOUR pupils struck down by brain cancer.

Here we go again! Remember RMIT in Melbourne? And who is this so-called expert? Brain tumors are rare in children? Brain tumors are now the leading cause of death in children surpassing leukemia in 2002. And I don't think it is just better diagnostics as the cell-phone-funded American Cancer Society is saying. How many more people will have to get brain tumors here before wake up to the fact that we are being deceived about the dangers of this microwave radiation enveloping the planet? Vodaphone is a criminal organization and the scientists they are paying off to tell us of cell-phone safety are prostitutes in white smocks. The governments that are allowing this need to be fired and prosecuted for mass negligence. Period!!!
Origin: www.next-up.org

School phone mast cancer fear.

By EMMA MORTON Health and Science Editor
October 10, 2007

FOUR pupils from a school surrounded by 15 mobile phone masts have been struck down by brain cancer.

Two current primary kids under 11 and two former students, aged 14 and 21, have been diagnosed with tumours.

And a child from another school nearby has DIED from brain cancer. All are thought to be male.

St Joseph’s Roman Catholic primary in Chalfont St Peter, Bucks, is ringed by the mobile masts. One stands just 750 metres from school grounds.


Parents fear it could be Britain’s first example of a link between multiple cancer victims — a cluster — and mobile masts.

The local Director of Public Health is now investigating

The boy who died, thought to be under 16, attended Thorpe House Independent School in Gerrards Cross.

It shares a playing field with the Catholic school.

Business manager Michael Pidding, 21 — a St Joseph’s old boy — has a grade two tumour.


His mum Angie Richards, of Chalfont St Peter, said: “It is terminal. Miracles can happen and I’m praying for one.

“You hear so much about tumours being linked to masts, I want the truth. Other children might also have tumours.”


Mike Now.-------------------------------------------------------------Mike at six.

Vodafone, responsible for two masts south of St Joseph’s, quoted new findings saying it was “highly unlikely” the weak signals given off could affect health.

However expert Leeds University Prof Patricia McKinney said: “It’s an unusual cluster. “Tumours are very rare in children. But it must be remembered the dose from a mast is lower than what you get from a handset.”

The Government is believed to have earned £22billion from selling mast licences.

Earlier this week a global study showed using a mobile for more than ten years increases the risk of a brain tumour.

Friday, September 28, 2007

The Radiation Poisoning of America

From the September 2007 Idaho Observer:

THE RADIATION POISONING OF AMERICA

Prior to 1996, the wireless age was not coming online fast enough, primarily because communities had the authority to block the siting of cell towers. But the Federal Communications Act (1996) made it virtually impossible for communities to stop construction of cell towers —even if they pose threats to public health and the environment. Since the decision to enter the age of wireless convenience was politically determined for us, we have forgotten well-documented safety and environmental concerns and, with a devil-may-care zeal that is lethally short-sighted, we have incorporated into our lives every wireless toy that comes on the market as quickly as it becomes available. We behave as if we are addicted to radiation. Our addiction to cell phones has led to harder "drugs" like wireless Internet. And now we are bathing in the radiation that our wireless enthusiasm has financed. The addicted, uninformed, corporately biased and politically-influenced may dismiss our scientifically-sound concerns about the apocalyptic hazards of wireless radiation. But we must not. Instead, we must sound the alarm.

By Amy Worthington

Illa Garcia wore jewelry the first day she went back to work as a fire lookout for the state of California in the summer of 2002. The intense radiation from dozens of RF/microwave antennas surrounding the lookout heated the metals on her body enough to burn her skin. "I still have those scars," she says. "I never wore jewelry to work after that."

Likely Mountain Lookout, on U.S. Forest Service land with a spectacular view of Mount Shasta, is one of thousands of RF/microwave "hot spots" across the nation. A newly-erected cellular communications tower was only 30 feet from the lookout. "One antenna on that tower was even with our heads," recalls Garcia. "We could hear high-pitched buzzing. There were also three state communications antennas mounted on the lookout, only 6 feet from where we walked. We climbed past them every day."

Motorola company manuals for management of communications sites confirm that high frequency radiation from these antennas is nasty stuff. Safety regulations mandate warning signs, EMF awareness training, protective gear, even transmitter deactivation for personnel working that close to antennas. Garcia and co-worker Mary Jasso were never warned about the hazards which, they say, demonstrates extreme malfeasance on the part of agencies and commercial companies responsible for their exposure.

By the end of fire season, Garcia and Jasso were so ill they were forced to retire and the lookout was closed to state personnel. Garcia, 52, is now severely disabled with fibromyalgia, auto-immune thyroiditis and acute nerve degeneration. Medical tests confirmed broken DNA strands in her blood and abnormal tissue death in her brain.

Dr. Gunner Heuser, a medical specialist in neurotoxicity, states that Garcia’s disorders are a result of chronic electromagnetic field exposure in the microwave range and that "she has become totally disabled as a result." Dr. Heuser said, "In my experience patients develop multisystem complaints after EMF exposure just as they do after toxic chemical exposure."

Jasso, who worked the lookout for 11 seasons, is now disabled with brain and lung damage, partial left side paralysis, muscle tremors, bone pain and DNA damage. Jasso discovered that all lookouts who worked Likely Mountain since 1989 are disabled. At only 61 years of age, she has lost so much memory that she cannot remember back to when her first three children were born. She fears that communications radiation may be a major factor in the nation’s phenomenal epidemics of dementia and autism.

Both women say they have been unjustly denied worker’s comp and medical benefits. Their pleas for help to state and federal agencies have been fruitless. Between them they have racked up over $150,000 in medical bills, although there is no effective treatment for radiation sickness.

Twenty-two other members of Garcia and Jasso’s two families received Likely Mountain radiation exposure. All suffer serious and expensive illnesses, including tumors, blood abnormalities, stomach problems, lung damage, bone pain, muscle spasms, extreme fatigue, tremors, numbness, impaired motor skills, cataracts, memory loss, spine degeneration, sleep problems, low immunity to infection, hearing and vision problems, hair loss and allergies.

Jasso’s husband, who often stayed at the lookout, has a rare soft tissue sarcoma known to be radiation related. Garcia’s husband, who spent little time at the lookout, has systemic cancer that started with sarcoma of the colon. Garcia’s daughter Teresa was at the lookout for a total of two hours during her first pregnancy. Her daughter was born with slight brain damage and immunity problems. "That baby was always sick," says Garcia. Teresa spent only three days at the lookout during her second pregnancy. Her son was born with autism.

Garcia and Jasso also have a terminal condition known as "toxic encephalopathy," involving brain damage to frontal and temporal lobes. This was confirmed by SPECT brain scans. Twelve others in the two-family group who also had the scans were diagnosed with the affliction. "All of us with this condition have been told that we’re dying," says Garcia. "Our mutated cells will reproduce new mutated cells until the body finally shuts down."

Nuclear bombs on a pole

Painful conditions endured by the families of Garcia and Jasso are identical to those suffered by Japanese victims of gamma wave radiation after nuclear explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Five decades of studies confirm that non-ionizing communications radiation in the RF/microwave spectrum has the same effect on human health as ionizing gamma wave radiation from nuclear reactions. Leading German radiation expert Dr. Heyo Eckel, an official of the German Medical Association, stated, "The injuries that result from radioactive radiation are identical with the effects of electromagnetic radiation. The damages are so similar that they are hard to differentiate."1

Understanding what happened at Likely Mountain is critical to understanding the public health threat posed by radiation in the United States. The families of Garcia and Jasso, plus previous lookout workers and multitudes of tourists who visited Likely Mountain for camping and sightseeing, were beamed by the same kind of high frequency radiation that blasts from tens of thousands of neighborhood cell towers and rooftop antennas erected across America for wireless communications. The city of San Francisco, with an area of only seven square miles, has over 2,500 licensed cell phone antennas positioned at 530 locations throughout the city. In practical terms, this city, like thousands of others, is being wave-nuked 24 hours a day.

The identical damage resulting from both radioactive gamma waves and high frequency microwaves is a pathological condition in which the nuclei of irradiated human cells splinter into fragments called micronuclei. Micronuclei are a definitive pre-cursor of cancer. During the 1986 nuclear reactor disaster at Chernobyl in Russia, the ionizing radiation released was equivalent to 400 atomic bombs, with an estimated ultimate human toll of 10,000 deaths. Exposed Russians quickly developed blood cell micronuclei, leaving them at high risk for cancer.

What they wouldn’t tell us

RF/microwaves from cell phones and cell tower transmitters also cause micronuclei damage in blood cells. This was reported a decade ago by Drs. Henry Lai and Narendrah Singh, biomedical researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle. Dr. Singh is famous for refining comet assay techniques used to identify DNA damage. Lai and Singh demonstrated in numerous animal studies that mobile phone radiation quickly causes DNA single and double strand breaks at levels well below the current federal "safe" exposure standards.2

The telecommunications industry knows this thanks to its own six-year, wireless technology research (WTR) study program mandated by Congress and completed in 1999. Gathering a team of over 200 doctors, scientists and experts in the field, WTR research showed that human blood exposed to cell phone radiation had a 300-percent increase in genetic damage in the form of micronuclei.3 Dr. George Carlo, a public health expert who coordinated the WTR studies, confirms that exposure to communications radiation from wireless technology is "potentially the biggest health insult" this nation has ever seen. Dr. Carlo believes RF/microwave radiation is a greater threat than cigarette smoking and asbestos.

In 2000, European communications giant T-Mobile commissioned the German ECOLOG Institute to review all available scientific evidence in regard to health risks for wireless telecommunications. ECOLOG found over 220 peer-reviewed, published papers documenting the cancer-initiating and cancer-promoting effects of the high frequency radiation employed by wireless technology.4 Many corroborating studies have been published since.

By 2004, 12 research groups from seven European countries cooperating in the REFLEX study project confirmed that microwaves from wireless communications devices cause significant single and double strand DNA breaks in both human and animal cells under laboratory conditions.5 In 2005, a Chinese medical study confirmed statistically significant DNA damage from pulsed microwaves at cell phone levels.6 That same year, University of Chicago researchers described how pulsed communications microwaves alter gene expression in human cells at non-thermal exposure levels.7

Because gamma waves and RF/microwave radiation are identically carcinogenic and genotoxic to the cellular roots of life, the safe dose of either kind of radiation is zero. No study has proven that any level of exposure from cell-damaging radiation is safe for humans. Dr. Carlo confirms that cell damage is not dose dependant because any exposure level can trigger damage response by cell mechanisms.8

Officials at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health closely reviewed the damning results of WTR studies, which also revealed microwave damage to the blood brain barrier, but have chosen to downplay, obfuscate and even deny the irrepressible science of the day. Raking in $billions from selling spectrum licenses, the feds have allowed the telecom industry to unleash demonstrably dangerous technology which induces millions of people to become brain-intimate with improperly tested wireless devices9 and which saturates the nation with carcinogenic waves to service those devices. Dr. Carlo says that even the American Cancer Society is in bed with the communications industry, which infuses the Society with substantial contributions.10

Two ways to die

Medical science illustrates that there are two ways to die from radiation poisoning: Fast burn and slow burn. Nuclear flash-burned Japanese had parts of their flesh melt off before they died in agony within hours or days. People have also quickly died after walking through powerful radar beams, which can microwave-cook internal organs within seconds of exposure.

Slow-burn radiation mechanisms are cumulative, progressive, ongoing and continual. Thousands of Japanese nuke bomb victims died painfully years after exposure. The slow burn process of RF/microwave exposure is manifested by cancer clusters commonly found in communities irradiated by cell tower transmitters. Recent Swedish epidemiological studies confirm that, after 2,000 hours of cellular phone exposure, or a latency period of about 10 years, brain cancer risk rises by 240 percent.11

Communications antennas blast the human habitat with many different electromagnetic frequencies simultaneously. Human DNA hears this energetic cacophony loud and clear, reacting like the human ear would to high volume country music, R&B plus rock and roll screaming from the same speaker simultaneously. Irradiated cells struggle to protect themselves against this destructive dissonance by hardening their membranes. They cease to receive nourishment, stop releasing toxins, die prematurely and spill micronuclei fragments into a sort of "tumor bank account."

Nuking the crew

The constant roaming pain is intense for 32-year-old Kenneth Hurtado of Southern California. He’s been to hell and back, starting with a seven-pound tumor on a kidney, diagnosed in 2002. The cancer spread to his brain. His first brain tumor was removed by craniotomy, the second by the cyber knife. In 2005, cancer nodes were found in his lungs. By 2006, the cancer had metastasized to his legs. This year he is battling three excruciating tumors on his spinal cord. Hurtado hates his seizures. His last one came on while he was driving. "It’s like the devil taking over your body," he says.

Now unable to work, Hurtado says he was relatively healthy in 1998 when he began a career as an installer for a large international corporation manufacturing electronics equipment for wireless providers. At the base of cell towers there is an equipment "hut" where installers assemble the radios, amplifiers and filters which generate man-made microwave frequencies and route them up to transmitter antennas through huge cables. Mounted on sector supports aptly named alpha, beta and gamma, the antennas send and receive these carcinogenic radio waves and their pulsed data packets at the speed of light.

Posted on locked fences around the huts are "danger" warning signs. Hurtado says, "You look around these sites and you find many dead birds on the gravel. They can’t take the radiation and they’ll just die. You don’t have to ponder that too long to figure it’s bad."

Hurtado doesn’t know how much radiation he got on the job. He says there are at least four connection spots inside the hut where radiation can leak. He could not avoid the "heat" when he turned the radios on for testing and he wonders if his cancer is the result. "When I first got hired, we had safety meetings, but they pretty much minimized the hazards," he remembers. He was issued no electromagnetic safety clothing and it was not until 2002 that he got a radiation meter to wear. "The meter is supposed to warn you if you are getting too much radiation," he said, "but I put mine on a stick and placed it next to antennas and the alarm never went off."

A medical report in the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health confirms that workers exposed to high levels of RF/microwave radiation routinely have astronomical cancer rates.12 The report notes that, for these workers, the latency period between high radiation exposure and illness is short compared to less exposed populations.

Hurtado said there are many industry workers who are dangerously over-exposed. "I’ve talked to guys on power crews who have to climb around the antennas and they’ve told me that before a work day is half over, they start feeling really sick." He added, "In my mind they are getting cooked."

Hurtado suspects that, since the early days of the wireless buildout, there has been illegal activity related to public exposure from transmission sites. "I’m pretty sure," he says, "that some of the carriers are exceeding FCC exposure limits. They can turn the radios and amplifiers up to get a bigger footprint and they don’t care if the alarms go on once the installers are gone." Regulatory inspectors could identify violators because channels can be spectrum analyzed. "But," he says, "there is just no one to check and I believe that the public is getting way too much radiation now."

Regulators asleep at the wheel

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the single agency with authority to regulate the communications industry, has neither money, manpower nor motive to properly monitor radiation output from hundreds of thousands of commercial wireless installations spewing carcinogenic waves across the nation. The FCC admits that physical testing to verify compliance with emissions guidelines is relatively rare.

Critics say that FCC appointees, with virtually no medical or public health expertise, represent an old-boy network and a cheering squad for the telecommunications and broadcast industries. The Center for Public Integrity found that FCC officials have been bribed by the industries with such perks as expensive trips to Las Vegas.13

Dr. Carlo confirms that there is no regulatory accountability. He says, "You have to go to those base stations and independently measure what is coming out of them because we have had many instances where you have an antenna that is allowed by law to transmit at 100 watts and we have seen up to 900 to 1000 watts. You can turn things up when nobody is looking."14

Neighborhood groups monitoring the broadcast/communications antenna farm on Lookout Mountain near Denver, Colorado, have consistently found that, despite protests to the FCC over nine years, radiation on the mountain has been measured at up to 125 percent of exposure levels permitted by federal law.15

Lethal exposure guidelines

Even if there were reliable compliance monitoring, experts say that FCC public exposure guidelines for RF/microwave radiation are deadly because they are based on the obsolete and unfounded theory that only power density hot enough to flash-cook tissues is harmful. This puts FCC at odds with current scientific evidence regarding the minimum exposure level at which harm to living cells begins.

Myriad symptoms of radiation poisoning can be induced at exposure levels hundreds, even thousands of times lower than current standards permit. Russia’s public exposure standards are 100 times more stringent than ours because Russian scientists have consistently shown that, at U.S. exposure levels, humans develop pathological changes in heart, kidney, liver and brain tissues, plus cancers of all types.16

Norbert Hankin, chief of the EPA’s Radiation Protection Division, states that the FCC’s exposure guidelines are protective only against effects arising from a thermal (flash burn) mechanism. He concedes that, "the generalization by many, that these guidelines protect human beings from harm by any and all mechanisms, is not justified."17

Thus, public microwave exposure levels tolerated by the FCC and its industry-loaded advisory committees are a national health disaster. Yet, for pragmatic and lucrative reasons, federal exposure limits have been deliberately set so high that no matter how much additional wireless radiation is added to the national burden, it will always be "within standards."

The FCC regulatory mess comes into focus with the Likely Mountain case. Jasso says that when she and Garcia contacted the FCC regarding their radiation injuries, they were met with an appalling lack of expertise and concern. "FCC has no answers," Jasso says. "Their exposure guidelines are convoluted and nonsensical. They refuse to address problems of multiple antennas, field expansion, human body coupling and blood reversal because they want to avoid regulatory problems at telecommunication sites." She adds, "FCC will fine a licensee thousands of dollars for not having a light installed on top of a telecommunications tower, but they have not issued even a warning letter to their licensees for the injuries that occurred on Likely Mountain. They say injury cannot occur because their licensees are regulated."

Catch 22

When Garcia and Jasso filed suit against companies operating microwave transmitters on Likely Mountain, they could find no attorney who would take their case and they were forced to proceed pro se. In August, 2007, a California district court denied their claim, mainly on the grounds that they had not proven that the defendants had exceeded FCC exposure guidelines. Under federal law the shattered health of 24 people, plus medical testimony, is not sufficient proof of negligence and liability.

Since FCC provides no enforcement monitoring at transmitter sites and since the radiation industry is not required to prove with consistent documentation that it is compliant, injured parties have little chance of proving non-compliance because the damage to their health often becomes obvious months or even years after their typically undocumented exposure.

The court worried that the Garcia-Jasso case highlights "the conflict between the FCC’s delegated authority to establish RF radiation guidelines and limits and plaintiffs’ attempt to establish that wireless facilities like the one at Likely Mountain are ultrahazardous."

So, while current science provides ample evidence that FCC’s guidelines are ultrahazardous, the radiation industry hides behind FCC incompetence, simply because FCC retains exclusive authority to set the standards.

The FCC’s disastrous authority is calcified by the Telecommunications Act (TCA) of 1996. The telecom industry is infamous for lavish "donations" which keep legislators on its leash. Anticipating a national radiation health crisis and the public backlash that would follow, the telecom lobby blatantly bought itself a provision in the law that prohibits state and local governments from considering environmental (health) effects when siting personal wireless service facilities so long as "...such facilities comply with the FCC’s regulations concerning such emissions."

Many say the TCA insures that America’s war on cancer will never be won, while protecting gross polluters from liability.

On our own

After passage of the TCA, a group of scientists and engineers, backed by the Communications Workers of America, filed suit in federal court. They hoped the Supreme Court would review both the FCC’s outdated exposure guidelines and the legality of a federal law that severely impedes state and local authority in the siting of hazardous transmitters. In 2001, the Supreme Court refused to hear the case. The group’s subsequent petition to the FCC asking the agency to bring its exposure guidelines current with the latest scientific data was denied.18

This is where we stand today. The public has no vote, no voice, no choice. Chronic exposure to scientifically indefensible levels of DNA-ravaging radiation is now compulsory for everyone in America. This is why Garcia and Jasso are ill today; this why the industry enjoys unchallenged power to place dangerous transmitters in residential and commercial areas with unsafe setbacks and; this is why untold thousands of Americans in buildings with transmitters on the roof are given no safety warnings, though they work and dwell in powerful, carcinogenic electromagnetic fields. In the meantime, the radiation industry rakes in $billions in quarterly profits, none of which is set aside for to pay for the national health catastrophe at hand.

Every citizen is now condemned to protect and defend himself against radiation assault as best he can. There have been a number of lawsuits against the radiation industry since cell towers began going up in backyards across the nation. In 2001, a group action lawsuit was filed in South Bend, Indiana, by families living in close proximity to towers. The complaint describes health effects suffered by the plaintiffs, including heart palpitations, interference with hearing, recurring headaches, short term memory loss, sleep disturbances, multiple tumors, glandular problems, chronic fatigue, allergies, weakened immune system, miscarriage and inability to learn.19

The South Bend suit was settled out of court on the basis of nuisance and decreased property values. Health claims don’t hold water if emissions are within FCC exposure standards. This case is valuable for understanding the lunacy of FCC standards. The sick families enlisted the help of radiation consultant Bill Curry, who honed his expertise as an engineer for Argonne and Livermore labs. Dr. Curry found that one of the towers was irradiating homes at over 65 microwatts per square centimeter.20 This power density is well within federal exposure standards, which allow any neighborhood to be zapped with at least 580 microwatts per square centimeter, or higher, depending on the frequencies. If the families were sick at 65 microwatts/cm22 what would they be at 580? Considering that the Soviets used furtive Cold War microwave bombardment to make US embassy personal radiation-sick at an average exposure level of only .01 microwatts/cm2, America’s clear and present danger is obvious.21

How radiation sick is America?

Since the wireless revolution began wave-nuking the U.S. in the 1990s, there have been no federally funded health studies to assess the cumulative effects of ever-increasing communications radiation on public health. There is no national database enabling citizens to study the location of transmitters in their areas. Local and state governments can offer no information on how much commercial wireless radiation is contaminating their populations. When trying to find out who owns a tower or which companies have transmitters on that tower, citizens usually hit a brick wall.

Dr. Carlo heads the only independent, post-market health surveillance registry in the nation where people can report radiation illness.22 Dr. Carlo said the registry has heard from thousands of people who believe that their illnesses, including brain and eye cancers, are due to telecommunications radiation from both wireless phones and tower transmitters. In the last two years, the registry has seen an upsurge in reports as transmitters become ever more energetically dangerous in order to accommodate increased data flow for new, multi-media technologies.

We can only guess how many Americans are in their graves today from microwave assault. Arthur Firstenberg, who founded the Cellular Phone Task Force, wrote that, on November 14, 1996, New York City’s first digital cellular provider activated thousands of PCS antennae newly erected on the rooftops of apartment buildings. Health authorities reported that a severe and lingering flu hit the city that same week. In response to its classified newspaper ad advising that radiation sickness is similar to flu, the Task Force heard back from hundreds of people who reported sudden onset symptoms synchronous to microwave startup—symptoms similar to stroke, heart attack and nervous breakdown.

Firstenberg gathered statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and analyzed weekly mortality statistics published for 122 U.S. cities. Each of dozens of cities recorded a 10-25 percent increase in mortality, lasting two to three months, beginning in the week during which that city’s first digital cell phone network began commercial service. Sites with no cellular system start up in the same time period showed no abnormal increases in mortality.23

Studies abroad

Recent health surveys in other nations confirm that people living close to wireless transmitters are in big trouble:

• In 2002, French medical specialists found that people living close to cell towers suffered extreme sleep disruption, chronic fatigue, nausea, skin problems, irritability, brain disturbances and cardiovascular problems.24

• German researchers found that people living within 1,200 feet of a transmitter site in the German city of Naila had a high rate of cancer and developed their tumors on average eight years earlier than the national average. Breast cancer topped the list.25

• Spanish researchers found that people living within 1,000 feet of cellular antennas had statistically significant illness at an average power density of 0.11 to 0.19 microwatts /cm2, which is thousands of times less than allowed by international exposure standards.26

• An Egyptian medical study found that people living near mobile phone base stations were at high risk for developing nerve and psychiatric problems, plus debilitating changes in neurobehavioral function. Exposed persons had significantly lower performance on tests for attention, short term auditory memory and problem solving.27

• Researchers in Israel studied people in the town of Netanya who had lived near a cell tower for 3-7 years. They had a cancer rate four times higher than the control population. Breast cancer was most prevalent.28

Europe in an uproar

A new European Union poll of more than 27,000 people across the continent reveals that 76 percent of respondents feel that they are being made ill by wireless transmitters.29 Seventy-one percent in the UK believe they suffer health effects from mast (cell tower) radiation. In April 2007, The London Times reported a startling number of cancer clusters in mast neighborhoods. One study in Warwickshire, found 31 cancers around a single street.30 Some sick Brits send their blood to a lab in Germany, which uses state of the art methodology to confirm wireless radiation damage.

Radiation sickness is now so prevalent in Germany that 175 doctors have signed the Bramberger Appeal, a document calling the situation a "medical disaster." It asks the German government to initiate a national public health investigation. This appeal closely follows the Freiburger Appeal, signed by thousands of German doctors who say they are dealing with an epidemic of severe and chronic diseases among both old and young patients exposed to wireless microwave radiation. The head of the cancer registry in Berlin found that one urban area with cellular antennas had a breast cancer rate seven times the national average.31

Sweden was one of the first nations to go wireless. Swedish neuroscientist, Dr. Olle Johansson, with hundreds of published papers to his credit, said that a national epidemic of illness and disability was unleashed by the wireless revolution. Long periods of sick leave, attempted suicides and industrial accidents all increased simultaneously with introduction of mobile phone radiation. Ninety-nine percent of the Swedish population is now under duress of powerful third generation masts. Johansson reports that people are plagued with sleep disorders, chronic fatigue that does not respond to rest, difficulties with cognitive function and serious blood problems. Recurrent headaches and migraines are a "substantial public health problem," he says.32

Rooftop transmitters, which readily pass microwave radiation into structures, can be a death sentence. Across the world there are reports of cancer clusters and extreme illness in office buildings and multi-tenant dwellings where antennas are placed on rooftops directly over workers and tenants. In 2006, the top floors of a Melbourne University office building were closed after a brain tumor cluster drew media attention to the risks of communications transmitters on top of the building.33 Likewise, ABC’s Brisbane television complex, topped with satellite dishes and radio antennas, was the site of a well-publicized breast cancer cluster among workers.34

Deadlier death rays

In the meantime, the radiation cowboys of America are having a good ‘ol time because they know there’s no sheriff in town. The commercial wireless industry is relentless in its drive to construct thousands of new transmitter sites in neighborhoods and schoolyards everywhere, while adding more powerful antennas at its older sites. Countless WiFi systems, both indoors and out, accommodate wireless laptop computers, personal digital assistants, WiFi-enabled phones, gaming devices, video cameras, even parking and utility meters. Hundreds of cities already have or are planning to fund WiFi networks, each consisting of thousands of small microwave transmitters bolted to buildings, street lamps, park benches and bus stops. Some networks are being buried under sidewalks. These access points or "nodes" blast carcinogenic energy at 2.4 to 5 gigahertz with virtually no warning signs about radiation exposure. WiFi radiation is unregulated by the FCC.

Sprint-Nextel and Clearwire are now rolling out in U.S. cities tower-mounted WiMAX transmitters providing wireless internet access "to die for." WiMAX is WiFi on steroids. Upon startup of WiMAX transmitters near the Swedish village of Gotene, the emergency room at the local hospital was flooded by calls from people overcome with pulmonary and cardiovascular symptoms.35

WiMAX radiation could one day be cranked up to a bone-incinerating 66 gigahertz.36 A single WiMAX tower could provide internet coverage for an area of 3,000 square miles, although coverage for 6-25 square miles is the norm now. Promoters say WiMAX may some day replace all cable and DSL broadband services and irradiate virtually all rural areas.

Not a single environmental or public health study has been required as the industry unleashes infrastructure for this savage new wireless technology from which no living flesh is able to escape.

The commercial ray-peddlers are not alone in their quest to make the U.S. a radiation wasteland. In August, 2007, Congress approved new Homeland Security legislation which funds a program to "promote communications compatibility between local, state and federal officials."

We catch a glimpse of what this portends as the state of New York gears up to erect hundreds of new wireless installations for a "Statewide Wireless Network (SWN)," allowing agencies at various government levels to communicate instantly.37 SWN will blanket 97 percent of the state, adding to the fog of commercial wireless pollution. The New York Office for Technology says that the radiation power densities of the system will be within FCC limits.

Angela’s story

Angela Flynn, a 43-year-old caregiver, lives in Santa Cruz, California. Last spring she took classes at a local church where wireless antennas were concealed in a chimney on the building. She recalls, "Every muscle in my body felt sore. And my joints were feeling creaky. My instructor mentioned how people at the women’s center on church property had similar symptoms. During my sixth day I had a severe reaction. My short term memory was gone and I was disoriented and confused. When the instructor asked a question, I could not recall anything from the lecture."

At night, Angela could not sleep and she would lie awake, feeling her body buzz. She became hypersensitive to other sources of electromagnetic radiation. The symptoms became so bothersome that she canceled the rest of her course. Using a chart for calculating cumulative, non-ionizing, electromagnetic radiation exposure levels, she found that the classes—located only 100 feet from antennas in the building—had suffered the highest possible exposure during peak operation.

"It took a month before I regained my health," she reports.

When Angela wrote letters to the church inquiring whether it was monitoring the health of the people exposed to antenna radiation, church officials were "unresponsive and dismissive." So Angela saw the light. She helped organize a community group to put pressure on county officials for answers. After hearing community testimony, officials directed the zoning department to create a comprehensive map of county transmitter sites and to put together a report on emissions testing.

Angela says, "We recently had a delay of an installation of a tower near a middle school. The superintendent has even come out against the tower and was instrumental in delaying the hearing on the site. He also arranged a school board meeting on the issue." Angela’s efforts to share critical information with her community made a difference.

Conclusion

America must soon face its radiation cataclysm. The EMR Network says that millions of workers occupy worksites on a daily basis where operating antenna arrays are camouflaged and where no RF safety program is carried out. Thanks to shameless predatory advertising techniques, American youth are now literally addicted to "texting," watching TV and accessing the Internet on tiny wireless screens. These are the toys that keep cell towers and WiFi hot spots buzzing. A nation that requires compulsory mass irradiation to fuel its trivial entertainment needs is surely destined to have a sickly and short-lived population.

Right now, 11.7 million Americans have been diagnosed with cancer. Because humans can harbor cancer conditions for years before detection, additional millions of cancer victims are yet undiagnosed. The Journal of Oncology Practice predicts that, by 2020, there will be so many cancer cases in the U.S. that doctors may not be able to cope with their caseloads. The report concludes the nation could soon face a shortage of up to 4,000 cancer specialists.38

A recent CBS news series on the raging American cancer epidemic left viewers with the mindset that trainloads of federal cash must flow if we are to find the cancer answer. But the cancer cause now inundates our cities, roadways, schools, offices and homes. Any environmental stressor that jackhammers human cells at millions to billions of cycles per second is a cancer factor. Any wave-pollution that breaks the DNA and causes pre-cancerous micronuclei in human blood is a cancer factor. Logic tells us that there will be no "answer to cancer" until we eliminate the cancer factors.

Wireless communications radiation is to America today what DDT, thalidomide, dioxin, benzene, Agent Orange and asbestos were yesterday. Historically, the truth about the public health menace of extreme toxins is never told until thousands sicken and die.

Dr. Robert Becker, noted for decades of research on the effects of electromagnetic radiation, has warned: "Even if we survive the chemical and atomic threats to our existence, there is the strong possibility that increasing electropollution could set in motion irreversible changes leading to our extinction before we are even aware of them. All life pulsates in time to the earth and our artificial fields cause abnormal reactions in all organisms…These energies are too dangerous to entrust forever to politicians, military leaders and their lapdog researchers."39

Our mission to save the nation’s health and restore sanity in the wireless age seems daunting. The wireless juggernaut is an aggressive, mean machine. Federal regulators are clearly compromised and incompetent to protect the public health. Uninformed consumers dearly love their magic digital toys and don’t yet understand the connection between those toys and a national raging cancer epidemic that may consume us all.

Powerful economic interests have lied to us long enough. Americans need and deserve the facts. We need dialogue. Wireless radiation is a form of electronic trespass. America must decide whose rights are more important—idlers beaming death rays for gibberish or the elderly with pacemakers who are made ill by cell phone and tower radiation wherever they go. Must we all prematurely perish so that wireless enthusiasts can capture cell phone photos and instantly send them for processing via carcinogen express? Does a human being have the right to NOT be forcibly WiMAXED into a coffin, or do only wireless providers and their devotees have rights?

What can we do?

We can commit to join the growing radiation awareness movement and continue educating ourselves and others. We can employ digital and audio radiation detectors to help safeguard our personal health and to demonstrate the ceaseless brutality of ubiquitous wireless radiation which threatens the genetic integrity of future generations. We can promote emerging technologies that could make communications technologies safer.

We can demand that federal radiation exposure standards be updated and that wireless emissions from transmitters be drastically reduced. We can demand routine compliance testing at all transmitter sites. We can see to it that people living and working near transmitters be given opportunity to report their illnesses in national surveys. Proper epidemiological studies must be conducted and their results published and broadly disseminated. Federal communications law must be rewritten so that local jurisdictions can regain their right to consider health and environment when reviewing wireless siting applications.

Each of us can break the seductive, but oppressive wireless habit ourselves. We can play no game, use no wireless Internet system, make no trivial phone call that necessitates enlarging America’s dense forest of wireless transmitters.

If no one buys WiMAX-enabled devices and related services, the system will fail. Whenever possible, we can go back to the old-fashioned, corded phones and message machines which made yesteryear a far more healthy time. We can encourage others to contact us by land line only.

Can we enjoy a leisurely conversation knowing that an irradiated caller risks disease and disability for mindless chatter? What good is wireless convenience if it means being ultimately tethered to a hospital bed? We can teach our children that health is more important than passing convenience and instant gratification.

According to OSHA, no environment should be deliberately made hazardous. Backed by current scientific knowledge, we can refuse to work or shop in an environment which endangers our health. We can demand that megahertz and gigahertz cordless phones, walkie talkie radios, WLAN and WiFi systems be removed from schools, offices, hospitals and any public place where people are grossly irradiated without their informed consent. Second hand smoke is bad; second hand radiation is worse.

We wish to thank the courageous radiation victims interviewed for this report who have generously revealed the details of their personal suffering in order to warn others. Following their example, we must continue undaunted in the moral quest to protect the national health and restore the world to sanity before it is too late.

Meters and resources

The ElectroSmog Detector allows you to HEAR the RF/microwave pollution in your environment. (See ad on page 14 of the hardcopy edition of The IO).

The Trifield Meter ($130), produced by Alpha Lab, is used mainly to measure the milligauss of electromagnetic fields coming from 60 hertz sources. Use this digital meter to make sure your living and working spaces are under 2 milligauss. Alpha Lab’s Microwave Power Density Meter ($320) is a more sensitive digital microwave meter that will help you assess the kilohertz, megahertz and gigahertz radiation in our wireless environment. This easy-read meter measures microwave radiation in microwatts per cm2, allowing comparison of your readings to the 5 microwatts per cm2 used by the Russians to make our embassy staff sick. Remember, people inside the embassy reportedly received only about .01 microwatts per cm2. For more information, contact Alpha Lab Inc., 1280 South 300 West, Salt Lake City, Utah 84101; (800) 658-7030; www.trifield.com

For a list of more expensive professional meters available, go to: www.microwavenews.com. On the left side of the home page find a link called "Radiation Meters."

Alan Broadband produces radiation detection devices with models ranging in price from $159 to $2,800. The $159 model, while not giving detailed readings, is an extremely sensitive and sturdy instrument that gives an accurate dial read on whether or not radiation is present and its relative intensity. It lets you know when you are being irradiated and serves as an excellent tool to illustrate exposure levels to others. For more information, contact Alan Broadband 93 Arch St., Redwood City, California 94062; (888) 369-9627; www.zapchecker.com

Books

Cell Phones: Invisible Hazards in the Wireless Age, Dr. George Carlo and Martin Schram, Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2001.

Cellular Telephone Russian Roulette, Robert C. Kane, Vantage Press, 2001.

Cell Towers: Wireless Convenience or Environmental Hazard? The Berkshire-Litchfield Environmental Council, Edited by B. Blake Levitt, 2000. Order from Barnes and Noble.

Websites

These websites provide excellent information on all aspects of health and other issues relating to electromagnetic fields and radio frequency/microwave radiation.

www.buergerwelle.com This excellent German (but in English) site features RF/microwave radiation news from all over the world. The science keeps pouring in and this is where to find it, along with lots of human interest.

www.cprnewsbureau.org This is an excellent source of up-to-date news on wireless issues.

www.emrnetwork.org This site has superb resources organized by professionals with expertise in all facets of our RF/microwave radiation problem.

www.safewireless.org This site features Dr. Carlo’s Mobil Telephone Health Concerns Registry where people can report ill health effects from living near microwave transmitters or from the use of wireless devices. It also features great news reports.

www.microwavenews.com This is home to Microwave News, an excellent monthly publication. It offers cutting edge science reports, plus a great archive.

www.sageassociates.net This site provides valuable information on how to make homes and offices safer in the wireless age.

CAUTION: There are many devices on the market claiming to protect wireless users from radiation. These include: air tube headsets, ferrite bead clip-ons and an array of paste-ons advertised to cut down on thermal effects or deflect negative energy. Energy testing, kinesiology and meter readings indicate that these mitigation devices DO NOT adequately protect against the brutal force of near field microwave radiation. You can investigate the effectiveness of these devices by metering radiation levels while using them. If radiation pours from your "safe" headset, don’t bank your life on it. If practiced in the art of kinesiology, you can also "muscle test" the effectiveness of the radiation mitigation device. The human body becomes very weak when irradiated with any man-made frequency, especially microwaves. If a protective device is really working, you will not detect muscle weakness when using a wireless phone or gadget.

Remember When There Were No Cellphones?

By Don Harkins

As her friend and editor for over a decade now, I have gown alongside Amy in her research on chemtrails, depleted uranium and radiation. There is zero doubt in our hearts and minds that Amy’s references are sound, her interpretation of data flawless and her intentions purely honorable and compassionate.

That means use of cell phones, WiFi, WiMax and RFID is not only suicide, but complicity in a "slow burn" form of mass murder. If second-hand cigarette smoke bothers you, how does it compare to second hand radiation? Well, it doesn’t. Using a cell phone in proximity to others only increases the intensity of the ambient levels of radiation that are omnipresent to support wireless personal communication networks. Where nonsmokers can remove themselves or the smoker from the room, noncellphoneusers (one word) cannot escape radiation by going to another room. In other words, everyone is bathing in dangerous levels of cellphone "smoke" whether you are "smoking" or not.

When the wireless age was growing in earnest in the late 90s, people kept telling Ingri and I, "You really need to get cell phones—they are so convenient."

We opted not to for the same reason we have never acquired a laptop computer: If we are away from our desk that means we are (temporarily) FREE!—free of the phone and free of the computer.

The next stage, by the early 00s, people began saying to us, "Don, Ingri, you really need to get cell phones so it will be more convenient for us to get ahold of you."

Now, when the subject of our having resisted carrying cell phones to this point comes up in conversation, people say, "You are so lucky."

It’s not luck—we just didn’t like the idea of being "on call" all the time and our lifestyles just didn’t evolve to include cell phones. We have only known for a couple years how deadly they are.

But, for cellphoneusers (one word), the novelty of cell phones has been replaced with addiction and the convenience has been replaced with enslavement. In that sense, we are lucky.

The three following comments represent the most common justifications people recite for using cell phones:

"But with my job, I have to have one."

"They are handy in an emergency."

"This way, the kids (the wife/husband/friends/business contacts) can always get ahold of me."

But consider these responses from noncellphoneusers:

"Is your job worth irradiating yourself and the world around you?"

"What did you do in an emergency BC (that’s "before cell phones")?"

"Are you sure that you are so darned important that you can’t just have people leave a message on a land line recorder and check messages now and then?"

And one bonus retort: "If an industry is using your addiction to wireless toys as a means to finance the erection of a communications infrustructure that intends to control all life on earth en route to destroying it, should you choose to buy its services?"

The truth is you can do your job without a cell phone—or find another one.

You can prepare in advance for emergencies like we used to.

And, it is true, we aren’t so important that people can’t wait a few minutes or a few hours to talk to us. (DWH)



Notes:

1. Interview with Dr. Eckel published by Schwabischen Post 12-07-06. Find interview at www.hese-project.org. See "The Cell Nucleus is Mutating."

2. " Neurological Effects of Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Radiation," a paper presented by Dr. Lai to the Mobile Phones and Health Symposium, October 25-28, 1998, University of Vienna. Also "DNA Damage and Cell Phone Radiation," www.rfsafe.com, 11-02-05.

3. Cell Phones: Invisible Hazards in the Wireless Age, Dr. George Carlo and Martin Schram, Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2001, p.151.

4. " Mobile Telecommunications and Health—Summary of the ECOLOG study for T-Mobile, 2000," Find this summary at www.hese-project.org.

5. "Cell Phone Radiation Harms DNA, Study Claims," (Reuters) MSNBC, 12-04-04. Also "Mobile Phone Radiation Harms DNA," R. Moss, CPR News Bureau, 10-16-06.

6. "RF-Induced DNA Breaks Reported in China," Microwave News, 09-29-05. This report comes from the Zhejiang University School of Medicine.

7. "2.45 GHz radiofrequency fields alter gene expression in cultured human cells," Lee S et al, Department of Medicine, University of Chicago, PubMed 16107253.

8 "Health Social Services and Housing Sub-Panel Telephone Mast Review," a public discussion by Dr. George Carlo, 2-26-07. Find this excellent dissertation at www. safewireless.org.

9. Few Americans know that cell phones have never been safety tested thanks to the FDA, which exempted cell phones from pre-market testing based on a "low power exclusion" rule.

10. "The American Cancer Society is Misleading the Public," Dr. George Carlo, 8-5-07. Find this statement at www.buergerwelle.com.

11. "Long-Term Mobile Phone Use Raises Brain Tumor Risk: Study," Reuters, 03-31-06. This research was conducted by the Swedish National Institute for Working Life whose scientists studied 905 people with malignant brain tumors to confirm a 240% increased risk of brain tumors after heavy mobile phone use.

12. "Cancer in Radar Technicians Exposed to RF/Microwave Radiation: Sentinel Episodes," Richter E. et al, Int. J. Occup Environ Health 6 (3):187-193, 2000.

13. "FCC Lives Large off Lobbyist Bribes," Capitol Hill Blue, 05-22-03, capitolhillblue.com.

14. "Health Social Services and Housing Sub-Panel Telephone Mast Review," public discussion by Dr. George Carlo, 2-26-07. Find this excellent dissertation at www. safewireless.org.

15. See www.c-a-r-e.org for information about groups affected by Lookout Mountain broadcast antennas.

16. For an excellent chart comparing biological effects at power density levels and a list of international exposure standards, go to: "Radio Wave Packet," Arthur Firstenberg, Cellular Phone Task Force, Sept 2001; also find this power density list at: "Analysis of Health and Environmental Effects of Proposed San Francisco Earthlink WiFi Network, Magda Havas, Ph.D, Trent University, May 2007.

17. Quote from letter by Norbert Hankin, chief environmental scientist with EPA’s Radiation Protection Division. This letter was received by EMR Network 7-16-02 and can be found at www.emrnetwork.org.

18. "Supreme Court Rebuffs Challenge to U.S. Tower Policy," Microwave News, Jan./Feb 2001.

EMR Network Petition For Inquiry To Consider Amendment of Parts 1 and 2 of the FCC’s Rules Concerning the Environmental Effects of Radiofrequency Radiation, September 25, 2001. See also FCC order to deny application for review filed by the EMR Network, adopted July 28, 2003.

19. Hicks, Onnink, Barber, Pennington v. Horvath Communications, Cause No.71C01-0107-CP St. Joseph Circuit Court, St Joseph County, Indiana.

20. "Some Unexpected Health Hazards Associated with Cell Tower Siting," Bill P.Curry, PhD., Cell Towers: Wireless Convenience or Environmental Hazard? The Berkshire-Litchfield Environmental Council, edited by B. Blake Levitt, 2000. See chapter 6.

21. Practical Guidelines to Protect Human Health Against Electromagnetic Radiation Emitted in Mobile Telephony, Summary June 2001, Miguel Muntane Condeminas, industrial engineer for Consulting Comunicacio i Disseny S.L, Barcelona, m.co-di@eic.ictnet.es. See Section 4.3.1 "US Embassy in Moscow Study."

22. See www.health-concerns.org. and www.safewireless.org. These sites provide a pathway to access Dr. Carlo’s Mobil Telephone Health Concerns Registry where people can report ill health effects from living near microwave transmitters or from the use of wireless devices.

23. "Electromagnetic, Fields, (EMF) Killing Fields," Arthur Firstenberg, The Ecologist, v. 34, n. 5, 6-10-2004.

24. "Study of the health of people living in the vicinity of mobile phone base stations: I. influences of distance and sex," R. Santini et al, Institut National des Sciences Appliquées—laboratoire de biochimie-pharmacologie, 2002.

25. "Cancer Risks from Microwaves Confirmed," Dr. Mae-Wan Ho, Institute of Science in Society press release, 5-24-07.

26. "The Microwave Syndrome—a preliminary study in Spain," Navarro E. et al, Biology and Medicine, 22 (2 &3) 161-169, 2003; also " The Microwave Syndrome—Further Aspects of a Spanish Study," Oberfeld G et al 2004, International Conference Proceedings, Kos, Greece 2004.

27. "Neurobehavioral Effects Among Inhabitants Around Mobile Phone Base Stations," Abdel-Rassoul et al, Neurotoxicology, 8-01-2006.

28. "Increase of Cancer Near Cell-Phone Transmitter Station," Wolf D. and Wolf, International Journal of Cancer Prevention 1-2, April 2004.

29. "Two in Three Believe Radiation from Phones Damaged their Health," Geoffrey Lean, 7-8-07 Independent on Sunday, U.K.

30. "Cancer Cluster at Phone Masts, " Times On Line, The Sunday Times, UK 4-22-07.

31. Report by Roland Stabenow, 9-21-06, head of cancer registry in Berlin.

32. "How Shall We Cope With the Increasing Amounts of Airborne Radiation?" Olle Johansson, Journal of the Australasian College of Environmental Medicine, Dec. 2006.

33. "Building Top Floors Closed After Brain Tumor Alert," Lisa Macnamara, The Australian, UK, 05-13-07. Read this report at www.rense.com.

34. "Cancer Strikes 12 Female Staffers," Tony Koch, Omega-News, 4-06-07.

35. Swedes Hit Hard By WiMax, 6-12-06, Reported by Swedish media about Swedish town Gotene. Hospital emergency room flooded with calls regarding headaches, difficulty breathing, blurry vision and heart problems. At least 5 people had to leave their homes.

36. "How WiMAX Works," E. Grabianowski and Marshal Brain, www. computer.howstuffworks.com

37. "250-foot Tower Raises New Bellevue Fears", John Hopkins, Cheektowaga Times, 8-09-2007; See also "Congress Approves Homeland Security Bill," Spencer Hsu, Washington Post 08-07-07.

38. Journal of Oncology Practice, Vol. 3, No. 2, March 2007: 79-86.

39. Robert Becker, The Body Electric, 1986.

Friday, August 10, 2007

The Hidden Dangers of Cell Phone Radiation

LE Magazine August 2007

The Hidden Dangers of Cell Phone Radiation

By Sue Kovach


Every day, we’re swimming in a sea of electromagnetic radiation (EMR) produced by electrical appliances, power lines, wiring in buildings, and a slew of other technologies that are part of modern life. From the dishwasher and microwave oven in the kitchen and the clock radio next to your bed, to the cellular phone you hold to your ear—sometimes for hours each day—exposure to EMR is growing and becoming a serious health threat.

But there’s a huge public health crisis looming from one particular threat: EMR from cellular phones—both the radiation from the handsets and from the tower-based antennas carrying the signals—which studies have linked to development of brain tumors, genetic damage, and other exposure-related conditions.1-9 Yet the government and a well-funded cell phone industry media machine continue to mislead the unwary public about the dangers of a product used by billions of people. Most recently, a Danish epidemiological study announced to great fanfare the inaccurate conclusion that cell phone use is completely safe.10

George Carlo, PhD, JD, is an epidemiologist and medical scientist who, from 1993 to 1999, headed the first telecommunications industry-backed studies into the dangers of cell phone use. That program remains the largest in the history of the issue. But he ran afoul of the very industry that hired him when his work revealed preventable health hazards associated with cell phone use.

In this article, we look at why cell phones are dangerous; Dr. Carlo’s years-long battle to bring the truth about cell phone dangers to the public; the industry’s campaign to discredit him and other scientists in the field; and what you can do to protect yourself now.

Cell Phones Reach the Market without Safety Testing
The cellular phone industry was born in the early 1980s, when communications technology that had been developed for the Department of Defense was put into commerce by companies focusing on profits. This group, with big ideas but limited resources, pressured government regulatory agencies—particularly the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)—to allow cell phones to be sold without pre-market testing. The rationale, known as the “low power exclusion,” distinguished cell phones from dangerous microwave ovens based on the amount of power used to push the microwaves. At that time, the only health effect seen from microwaves involved high power strong enough to heat human tissue. The pressure worked, and cell phones were exempted from any type of regulatory oversight, an exemption that continues today. An eager public grabbed up the cell phones, but according to Dr. George Carlo, “Those phones were slowly prompting a host of health problems.”

Today there are more than two billion cell phone users being exposed every day to the dangers of electromagnetic radiation (EMR)—dangers government regulators and the cell phone industry refuse to admit exist. Included are: genetic damage, brain dysfunction, brain tumors, and other conditions such as sleep disorders and headaches.1-9 The amount of time spent on the phone is irrelevant, according to Dr. Carlo, as the danger mechanism is triggered within seconds. Researchers say if there is a safe level of exposure to EMR, it’s so low that we can’t detect it.

The cell phone industry is fully aware of the dangers. In fact, enough scientific evidence exists that some companies’ service contracts prohibit suing the cell phone manufacturer or service provider, or joining a class action lawsuit. Still, the public is largely ignorant of the dangers, while the media regularly trumpets new studies showing cell phones are completely safe to use. Yet, Dr. Carlo points out, “None of those studies can prove safety, no matter how well they’re conducted or who’s conducting them.” What’s going on here? While the answer in itself is simplistic, how we got to this point is complex.

Flawed Danish Study Reports Cell Phones are Safe
In December, 2006, an epidemiological study on cell phone dangers published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute sent the media into a frenzy.10 Newspaper headlines blared: “Danish Study Shows Cell Phone Use is Safe,” while TV newscasters proclaimed, “Go ahead and talk all you want—it’s safe!” The news seemed to be a holiday gift for cell phone users. But unfortunately, it’s a flawed study, funded by the cell phone industry and designed to bring a positive result. The industry’s public relations machine is working in overdrive to assure that the study get top-billing in the media worldwide.

According to Dr. George Carlo, the study, by its design, could not identify even a very large risk. Therefore, any claim that it proves there’s no risk from cell phones is a blatant misrepresentation of the data that will give consumers a very dangerous false sense of security.

“Epidemiological studies are targets for fixing the outcome because they’re observational in nature instead of experimental,” Dr. Carlo explains. “It’s possible to design studies with pre-determined outcomesthat still fall within the range of acceptable science. Thus, even highly flawed epidemiological studies can be published in peer-reviewed journals because they’re judged against a pragmatic set of standards that assume the highest integrity among the investigators.”

Key problems with the study are:

There are few discernable differences between who was defined as cell phone users and who wasn’t. Thus, people defined as exposed to radiation were pretty much the same as those defined as not exposed to radiation. With few differences, it’s nearly impossible to find a risk.

Users were defined as anyone who made at least one phone call per week for six months between 1982 and 1995. So any person who made 26 calls was a cell phone user and therefore considered exposed to radiation. Those with less than 26 calls were non-users. In reality, the radiation exposure between users and non-users defined in this manner is not discernable.

The “exposed” people used ancient cell phone technology bearing little resemblance to cell phones used today. The results, even if reliable, have no relevance to the 2 billion cell phone users today.

From 1982 to 1995, cell phone minutes cost much more than today and people used their phones much less. Thus there was very little radiation exposure.

During the study’s time frame, people likely to use their cell phones the most were commercial subscribers. Yet this highest exposed group, in whom risk would most easily be identified, was specifically excluded from the study.

There were no biological hypotheses tested in the study. It was therefore only a numbers game. Ignored were mechanisms of disease found in other studies of cell phone radiation effects, including genetic damage, blood-brain barrier leakage, and disrupted intercellular communication. The study did not discuss any research supporting the notion that cell phones could cause problems in users.

The study itself was inconsistent with cancer statistics published worldwide addressing the Danish population. This study showed a low risk of cancer overall, when in fact Denmark has some of the highest cancer rates in the world. This inconsistency suggested that something in the data does not add up.

The cell phone industry constantly guards its financial interests, but unfortunately, an unwitting public can be harmed in the process, says Dr. Carlo. “Industry-funded studies in many cases now produce industry-desired outcomes. By tampering with the integrity of scientists, scientific systems and public information steps over the lines of propriety that are appropriate for protecting business interests—especially when the casualty of the interference is public health and safety.”

To learn more about the dangers of cell phones and to read Dr. George Carlo’s full formal analysis of the Danish cell phone study, visit the Safe Wireless Initiative website at www.safewireless.org.

Lawsuit Prompts Safety Studies
In 1993, the cell phone industry was pressured by Congress to invest $28 million into studying cell phone safety. The cause of this sudden concern was massive publicity about a lawsuit filed by Florida businessman David Reynard against cell phone manufacturer NEC. Reynard’s wife, Susan, died of a brain tumor, and he blamed cell phones for her death. Reynard revealed the suit to the public on the Larry King Live show, complete with dramatic x-rays showing the tumor close to where Susan held her cell phone to her head for hours each day.

The next day, telecommunications stocks took a big hit on Wall Street and the media had a field day. The industry trade association at the time, the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), went into crisis mode, claiming thousands of studies proved cell phones were safe and what Reynard and his attorney said was bunk. TIA reassured the public that the government had approved cell phones, so that meant they were safe. The media demanded to see the studies, but, says Dr. Carlo, “The industry had lied. The only studies in existence then were on microwave ovens. At that time, 15 million people were using cell phones, a product that had never been tested for safety.”

Cell Phone Radiation: What You Need to Know

Originally developed for the Department of Defense, cell phones devices were never tested for safety. They entered the marketplace due to a regulatory loophole.

Questions about cell phone safety arose in the early 1990s, when a businessman filed a lawsuit alleging that cell phones caused his wife’s death due to brain cancer.

To address the questions surrounding cell phone safety, the cell phone industry set up a non-profit organization, Wireless Technology Research (WTR). Dr. George Carlo was appointed to head WTR’s research efforts.

Under Dr. Carlo’s direction, scientists found that cell phone radiation caused DNA damage, impaired DNA repair, and interfered with cardiac pacemakers.

European research confirmed Dr. Carlo’s findings. Studies suggest that cell phone radiation contributes to brain dysfunction, tumors, and potentially to conditions such as autism, attention deficit disorder, neurodegenerative disease, and behavioral and psychological problems.

Dr. Carlo brought safety information about cell phones to the public through his book, Cell Phones: Invisible Hazards in the Wireless Age, and by creating the Safe Wireless Initiative and the Mobile Telephone Health Concerns Registry.

The best protection against cell phone radiation is keeping a safe distance.

Always use a headset to minimize exposure to harmful cell phone radiation.

Dr. Carlo Heads Cell Phone Research
Forced to take action, the cell phone industry set up a non-profit organization, Wireless Technology Research (WTR), to perform the study. Dr. Carlo developed the program outline and was asked to head the research. Oversight of the issue was charged to the FDA, though it could have and probably should have gone to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which fought hard for jurisdiction. But the industry had enough influence in Washington to get whatever overseer it wanted. It simply didn’t want to tangle with EPA because, says Dr. Carlo, “… the EPA is tough.”

“Anything that’s ever made a difference in terms of public health has come from the EPA,” he says. “But safety issues that are covered in corruption and questions seem to always have a connection to the FDA, which has been manipulated by pharmaceutical companies since it was born.”

When called to help with the cell phone issue, Dr. Carlo was working with the FDA on silicone breast implant research. The choice of Dr. Carlo to head WTR seemed unusual to industry observers. An epidemiologist whose expertise was in public health and how epidemic diseases affect the population, he appeared to lack any experience in researching the effects of EMR on human biology. Based on this, a premature conclusion was drawn by many: Dr. Carlo was an “expert” handpicked by the cell phone industry, and therefore his conclusions would only back up the industry’s claim that cell phones are safe.

Dr. Carlo, however, refused to be an easy target. He quickly recruited a group of prominent scientists to work with him, bulletproof experts owning long lists of credentials and reputations that would negate any perception that the research was predestined to be a sham. He also created a Peer Review Board chaired by Harvard University School of Public Health’s Dr. John Graham, something that made FDA officials more comfortable since, at the time, the agency was making negative headlines due to the breast implant controversy. In total, more than 200 doctors and scientists were involved in the project.

Strict Study Guidelines
Once all involved agreed on what was to be done, Dr. Carlo presented the study’s stakeholders in the industry, the government, and the public with a strict list of criteria for moving forward.

“The money had to be independent of the industry—they had to put the money in trust and couldn’t control who got the funds,” he says. “Second, everything had to be peer reviewed before it went public, so if we did find problems after peer review, we could use that information publicly to recommend interventions.”

A third requirement was for the FDA to create a formal interagency working group to oversee the work and provide input. The purpose of this was to alleviate any perception that the industry was paying for a result, not for the research itself. But the fourth and last requirement was considered by Dr. Carlo to be highly critical: “Everything needed to be done in sunlight. The media had to have access to everything we did.”

The Research Begins
The program began, but Dr. Carlo soon discovered that everyone involved had underlying motives.“The industry wanted an insurance policy and to have the government come out and say everything was fine. The FDA, which looked bad because it didn’t require pre-market testing, could be seen as taking steps to remedy that. By ordering the study, law makers appeared to be doing something. Everyone had a chance to wear a white hat.”

Dr. Carlo and his team developed new exposure systems that could mimic head-only exposure to EMR in people, as those were the only systems that could approximate what really happened with cell phone exposure. Those exposure systems were then used for both in vitro (laboratory) and in vivo (animal) studies. The in vitro studies used human blood and lymph tissue in test tubes and petri dishes that were exposed to EMR. These studies identified the micronuclei in human blood, for example, associated with cell phone near-field radiation. The in vivo studies used head only exposure systems and laboratory rats. These studies identified DNA damage and other genetic markers.

Says Dr. Carlo: “We also conducted four different epidemiological studies on groups of people who used cell phones, and we did clinical intervention studies. For example, studies of people with implanted cardiac pacemakers were instrumental in our making recommendations to prevent interference between cell phones and pacemakers. In all, we conducted more than fifty studies that were peer-reviewed and published in a number of medical and scientific journals.”

Industry Seeks to Discredit Findings, Scientists
But manipulation by the industry had begun almost immediately at the start of research. While Dr. Carlo and his team had never defined their research as being done to prove the safety of cell phones, the industry internally defined it as an insurance policy to prove that phones were safe. From the outset, what was being said by the cell phone industry in public was different from what was being said by the scientists behind closed doors.

The pacemaker studies were a harbinger of bad things to come. Results showed that cell phones do indeed interfere with pacemakers, but moving the phone away from the pacemaker would correct the problem. Amazingly, the industry was extremely upset with the report, complaining that the researchers went off target. When Dr. Carlo and his colleagues published their findings in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1997,11 the industry promptly cut off funding for the overall program. It took nine months for the FDA and the industry to agree on a scaled-down version of the program to continue going forward. Dr. Carlo had volunteered to step down, since he was clearly not seeing eye-to-eye with the industry, but his contract was extended instead, as no one wanted to look bad from a public relations standpoint.

The research continued, and what it uncovered would be a dire warning to cell phone users and the industry’s worst nightmare. When the findings were ready for release in 1998, the scientists were suddenly confronted with another challenge: the industry wanted to take over public dissemination of the information, and it tried everything it could to do so. It was faced with disaster and had a lot to lose.

Fearing the industry would selectively release research results at best, or hold them back at worst, Dr. Carlo and his colleagues took the information public on their own, creating a highly visible war between the scientists and the industry. An ABC News expose on the subject increased the wrath of the industry.

According to Dr. Carlo, “The industry played dirty. It actually hired people to put negative things about me and the other scientists who found problems on the internet, while it tried to distance itself from the program. Auditors were brought in to say we misspent money, but none of that ever held up. They tried every angle possible.”

This included discussions with Dr. Carlo’s ex-wife to try to figure out ways to put pressure on him, he says. Threats to his career came from all directions, and Dr. Carlo learned from Congressional insiders that the word around Washington was that he was “unstable.” But all the character assassination paled in comparison to what happened next.

Toward the end of 1998, Dr. Carlo’s house mysteriously burned down. Public records show that authorities determined the cause of the blaze was arson, but the case was never solved. Dr. Carlo refuses to discuss the incident and will only confirm that it happened. By this time, enough was enough. Dr. Carlo soon went “underground,” shunning the public eye and purposely making himself difficult to find.

Why Cell Phones are Dangerous
A cellular phone is basically a radio that sends signals on waves to a base station. The carrier signal generates two types of radiation fields: a near-field plume and a far-field plume. Living organisms, too, generate electromagnetic fields at the cellular, tissue, organ, and organism level; this is called the biofield. Both the near-field and far-field plumes from cell phones and in the environment can wreak havoc with the human biofield, and when the biofield is compromised in any way, says Dr. Carlo, so is metabolism and physiology.

“The near field plume is the one we’re most concerned with. This plume that’s generated within five or six inches of the center of a cell phone’s antenna is determined by the amount of power necessary to carry the signal to the base station,” he explains. “The more power there is, the farther the plume radiates the dangerous information-carrying radio waves.”

A carrier wave oscillates at 1900 megahertz (MHz) in most phones, which is mostly invisible to our biological tissue and doesn’t do damage. The information-carrying secondary wave necessary to interpret voice or data is the problem, says Dr. Carlo. That wave cycles in a hertz (Hz) range familiar to the body. Your heart, for example, beats at two cycles per second, or two Hz. Our bodies recognize the information-carrying wave as an “invader,” setting in place protective biochemical reactions that alter physiology and cause biological problems that include intracellular free-radical buildup, leakage in the blood-brain barrier, genetic damage, disruption of intercellular communication, and an increase in the risk of tumors. The health dangers of recognizing the signal, therefore, aren’t from direct damage, but rather are due to the biochemical responses in the cell.

Here’s what happens:

Cellular energy is now used for protection rather than metabolism. Cell membranes harden, keeping nutrients out and waste products in.

Waste accumulating inside the cells creates a higher concentration of free radicals, leading to both disruption of DNA repair (micronuclei) and cellular dysfunction.

Unwanted cell death occurs, releasing the micronuclei from the disrupted DNA repair into the fluid between cells (interstitial fluid), where they are free to replicate and proliferate. This, says Dr. Carlo, is the most likely mechanism that contributes to cancer.

Damage occurs to proteins on the cell membrane, resulting in disruption of intercellular communication. When cells can’t communicate with each other, the result is impaired tissue, organ, and organism function. In the blood-brain barrier, for example, cells can’t keep dangerous chemicals from reaching the brain tissue, which results in damage.

With the background levels of information-carrying radio waves dramatically increasing because of the widespread use of cell phones,Wi-Fi, and other wireless communication, the effects from the near and far-fields are very similar. Overall, says Dr. Carlo, almost all of the acute and chronic symptoms seen in electrosensitive patients can be explained in some part by disrupted intercellular communication. These symptoms of electrosensitivity include inability to sleep, general malaise, and headaches. Could this explain the increase in recent years of conditions such as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism, and anxiety disorder?

“One thing all these conditions have in common is a disruption, to varying degrees, of intercellular communication. When we were growing up, TV antennas were on top of our houses and such waves were up in the sky. Cell phones and Wi-Fi have brought those things down to the street, integrated them into the environment, and that’s absolutely new. The recognition mechanism, where protein vibration sensors on the cell membrane pick up a signal and interpret it as an invader, only works because the body recognizes something it’s never seen before.”

As to increases in brain tumors tied to cell phone use, it’s too early to tell due to a lack of hard data, says Dr. Carlo. “We’re never going to see that in time to have it matter. Here in the US, we’re six years behind in getting the brain tumor database completed, and currently the best data are from 1999. By the time you see any data showing an increase, the ticking time bomb is set.”

Epidemic curve projections, however, indicate that in 2006, we can expect to see 40,000 to 50,000 cases of brain and eye cancer. This is based on published peer-reviewed studies that allow calculation of risk and construction of epidemic curves. By 2010, says Dr. Carlo, expect that number to be between 400,000 and 500,000 new cases worldwide.

“This means we’re on the beginning curve of an epidemic, with epidemic defined as a change in the occurrence of a disease that is so dramatic in its increase that it portends serious public health consequences,” says Dr. Carlo. “This is what’s not being told to the public. One of the things that I suggest to people who use a cell phone is to use an air tube headset. If you use a wired headset, the current moving through the wire of the headset attracts ambient informational carrying radio waves and thereby increases your exposure.”

Gauss Meters: Detecting Electromagnetic Radiation

Invisible electromagnetic radiation surrounds us each day, emanating from diverse sources such as power lines, home wiring, computers, televisions, microwave ovens, photocopy machines, and cell phones.

While undetectable to the eye, scientists have proposed that electromagnetic radiation may pose serious health effects, ranging from childhood leukemia to brain tumors.

As scientists continue to unravel the precise health dangers of electromagnetic radiation, it makes good sense to avoid these potentially dangerous frequencies as much as possible. A gauss meter is a useful tool you can use to measure electromagnetic radiation in your home and work environments.

Using the gauss meter at varied locations, you can easily detect electromagnetic radiation “hot spots” where exposure to these ominous frequencies is the greatest. Armed with this crucial information, you can then avoid these areas, re-arranging furniture or electronic devices as needed in order to avoid unnecessary exposure to electromagnetic radiation.

Dr. Carlo’s Continuing Work

Following the loss of his home, Dr. Carlo collaborated with Washington columnist Martin Schram—who in the course of the work did his own research to corroborate Dr. Carlo’s view on things—to write Cell Phones: Invisible Hazards in the Wireless Age (Carroll & Graf, 2001). He wrote his book as what he thought would be a last volley at the cell phone industry.

“I needed to tell the whole story in one place. I didn’t have the resources or the manpower to match what the cell phone industry was doing to try to discredit the work,” says Dr. Carlo. “Based on the book, a number of lawsuits were brought against the industry, and insurance carriers began excluding cell phone-related health risks in their coverage. It created a very difficult situation in the industry and for myself. I was worn out fighting that battle. In 2002, after I’d done my book tour, I just decided to take a break for a couple of years.”

Instead of taking a break, however, Dr. Carlo ended up working behind the scenes, setting up an organization and a registry for the benefit of consumers. It was a creative solution as part of the settlement of a lawsuit brought by a Illinois citizen against the cell phone industry, WTR, and Dr. Carlo personally. The lawsuit alleged that the cell phone industry, WTR, and Dr. Carlo were conspiring to hide the dangers of cell phones. Dr. Carlo was offered a way out of the suit because his book had made it clear he wasn’t on the same page as the industry.

“I wanted to make sure the litigation brought at least some value to consumers. We created the Safe Wireless Initiative (www.safewireless.org) for disseminating information on the dangers and on prevention, and the Mobile Telephone Health Concerns Registry (www.health-concerns.org) to track information voluntarily provided by cell phone users, particularly those who believe they’re experiencing health effects. Post-market surveillance hadn’t been done before, and the registry does that. It will help direct future research of potential health effects related to cell phone use. In the end, we did the best we could to get some benefit for consumers.”

PROTECTION IS KEY
To repair damage and build the body’s defenses against the onslaught of EMR, supplements—along with dietary changes, stress reduction, weight control and exercise—make you stronger, more balanced, and better able to face the assaults of EMR. Antioxidant supplements that fight free radicals are especially desirable.

Says Dr. Carlo: “You as a human being are put under siege by the electromagnetic soup we’re swimming in, and this isn’t hyperbole, it’s true. When you answer your cell phone, radio signals are around you. Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there. Our general ability to compensate for those insults is becoming compromised by the ever-increasing background of EMR.”

Taking as many precautions as you can goes a long way to reducing the risks. However, Dr. Carlo cautions that there is no silver bullet solution. “It’s a complicated problem, and while we tend to look for a quick fix, there is none here. Over the next decade, I hope we figure out how to change the way signals are transmitted. A thousand years from now we will have evolved, but that’s not helping us now. This will take time, but consumers have to be empowered to help themselves in the interim.”

European Research Confirms Cell Phone Dangers
The industry took its tricks elsewhere—to Europe, which had picked up the ball and began funding independent research to corroborate or confirm the work of Dr. Carlo and his team. The work was completed in mid-2004 and when it was released,12 it not only provided independent scientific corroboration of the work done by Dr. Carlo’s group, but also took the work a step further and showed how the problems were occurring mechanistically. This information formed a biologically plausible hypothesis for how cell phone radiation could be related to so many diseases.

Dr. Carlo noted, “The industry exerted pressure on the scientists who conducted the work, including renowned German scientist Dr. Franz Adlkofer. It first tried to change the conclusions of the work, then to delay its public release. Then Dr. Adlkofer, the lead scientist, was attacked in the media and threatened privately with no more research money, a ruined reputation—similar to what we experienced in the WTR. But this situation attracted the attention of a German documentary filmmaker, who decided to do a film on the cell phone issue.”

It was enough to bring Dr. Carlo into view again, as he was asked to participate. The film, The Boiling Frog Principle, by Klaus Scheidsteger, builds on information from his first film, The Cell Phone War, and will be released in 2007. Its intent is to integrate the latest political and scientific evidence from around the world, and bring forth to consumers important information on cell phone dangers that was previously withheld.

Economic Implications
Currently in the US, there are seven class action lawsuits moving forward against the cell phone industry, says Dr. Carlo, and nine other cases that are personal injury cases brought by people with brain cancer. In the past two years, two workers compensation awards were given to people with brain tumors based on a link between their tumors and their cell phone use in the workplace. Both of these cases occurred in California.

“What we have now is a major litigation burden, a vulnerability the cell phone industry has never before been under,” Dr. Carlo says. “They’re uninsured for these health risk claims and are already positioning themselves for a congressional bailout, like the Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s. They’ll lose a couple of these lawsuits and once they do, there’ll be an onslaught of new litigation against them.”

The country can’t afford for the cell phone industry to go under, Dr. Carlo says, as it would have a disastrous impact on the entire economy—some estimates say over 30% of investment stocks in retirement funds are tied to telecommunications shares. That’s why Congress will figure out a way to bail out the industry.

“The industry thinks they can afford to continue on with this institutional arrogance, endangering millions of men, women and children because, at the end of the day, they believe they’ll not be held accountable. They think they can continue to manipulate consumers.”

A Looming Health Crisis
It’s been nearly 12 years since the WTR was funded. Despite Dr. Carlo’s revealing research and the corroborating research of other scientists from around the world that continue to follow, a search of media reports today on the subject of cell phone dangers tends to suggest one of only two conclusions: There is no risk, or no one has yet proven the risk. That’s at odds with more than 300 studies in the peer-reviewed scientific literature supporting an increased risk of disease. Clearly, something doesn’t add up.

The industry’s manipulation of the media to consider only one study at a time obfuscates the big picture. Individually, there’s little to see. But the depth and breadth of the science that points to the problem, and the compilation of studies, make the future look frightening. Like the September 11 tragedy, where no one in government talked to each other and did not see it coming for lack of a big picture view, the health crisis from cell phone use looms darkly.

“When you put all the science together, we come to the irrefutable conclusion that there’s a major health crisis coming, probably already underway,” warns Dr. Carlo. “Not just cancer, but also learning disabilities, attention deficit disorder, autism, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and psychological and behavioral problems—all mediated by the same mechanism. That’s why we’re so worried. Time is running out. When you put the pieces of the puzzle together, it’s such a wide ranging problem. It’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen before.”

Protecting Yourself
The most effective technique for protecting yourself against the dangers of cell phone radiation is keeping the phone at a distance from the body. Simply using a hands-free headset is a big step. Headsets keep the cell phone’s antenna at a distance of six to seven inches away from the body, thus eliminating near-field exposure. Wired headsets can act as an antenna to draw some ambient EMR, but not much, so using one is still preferable to holding the phone to your head. Wireless headsets should be avoided, as they draw much more far-field EMR.

The safest headsets have hollow air tubes, similar to those used in stethoscopes, instead of wires.They offer protection against both near-field and far-field exposure. If possible, avoid wearing the phone at your waist, which exposes the hip bones to radiation. Eighty percent of red blood cells are formed in the hip bones. There are also newer cell phones available capable of functioning in speaker phone mode. This enables you to talk on the phone while keeping it at a safe distance from your body. If you are able to conduct most of your conversations using a speaker phone, this could enable you to use a cell phone without encountering the intense radiation exposure that occurs when holding it to your ear.

Nutritional Protection against Cell Phone Radiation

As growing evidence points to the potential adverse health impact of exposure to cell phone radiation, scientists are seeking strategies to prevent or mitigate these effects. Currently, nutritional researchers are exploring whether melatonin, vitamin C, and and vitamin E can ameliorate the detrimental effects caused by radiation emitted by cell phones.

To date, a total of eight studies have pointed to the protective effects of melatonin and vitamins C and E in stemming the damage caused by cell phone emissions. In particular, these agents show promise in averting the increased oxidative stress that is thought to contribute to an increased risk of certain cancers. These studies have unveiled statistically significant protective effects of melatonin and vitamins C and E against the effects of the radiation frequency at which cell phones emit and receive radio frequency radiation.

Six of these eight studies were controlled, short-term studies (ranging from 10-30 days) in rodents. Each study examined 24-30 subjects. Study subjects were divided equally into three groups: one group received radiation exposure; another received active treatment with melatonin only, vitamin C only, or vitamins C and E before radiation exposure; and a control group did not receive radiation or active treatment. After the treatment period, scientists examined skin sections for radiation injury and analyzed blood and urine for markers of oxidative stress. They found significant kidney damage, skin changes, oxidative stress, and fibrosis in the animals who received radiation exposure only. Remarkably, these effects were reversed in the groups that received melatonin13-16 and vitamins C17,18 and E.17

Another two controlled studies in rodents, one of 10 days’19 and another of 60 days’ duration,20 revealed that melatonin significantly protects against retinal (eye)20 and kidney tissue19 damage caused by cell phone radiation, as compared with subjects that did not receive melatonin.

Despite this compelling evidence, other avenues of research still need to be pursued after contradictory findings from seven different studies that have looked into the effect of cell phone radiation on melatonin levels in the body.

In one study, melatonin levels in the blood were measured in 226 male electric utility workers who were categorized according to cell phone use. The study concluded that workers who used cell phones for more than 25 minutes per day had decreased melatonin production and revealed a relationship between increased cell phone use and decreasing melatonin levels in the blood.21

Yet six other studies—two in humans22,23 and four in rodents24-27— found that melatonin levels remained unchanged after radiation exposure. One human study did suggest that cell phone radiation may impact melatonin onset time. These were small studies, however, the majority of which were less than 28 days’ duration.

Melatonin is a vital natural neurohormone (hormone secreted by or acting on a part of the nervous system) that acts as a potent free radical scavenger and antioxidant. Melatonin regulates the daily circadian rhythm and is essential to self-repair and regeneration. Given melatonin’s protective effects, these findings warrant further research into the effect of cell phone radiation on melatonin in larger, longer-term, well-controlled human studies.

—Bina Singh

References
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2. Lonn S, Ahlbom A, Hall P, Feychting M. Mobile phone use and the risk of acoustic neuroma. Epidemiology. 2004 Nov;15(6):653-9.

3. Hardell L, Carlberg M, Hansson Mild K. Pooled analysis of two case-control studies on the use of cellular and cordless telephones and the risk of benign brain tumours diagnosed during 1997-2003. Int J Oncol. 2006 Feb;28(2):509-18.

4. Hardell L, Mild KH, Carlberg M, Hallquist A. Cellular and cordless telephone use and the association with brain tumors in different age groups. Arch Environ Health. 2004 Mar;59(3):132-7.

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11. Hayes DL, Wang PJ, Reynolds DW, et al. Interference with cardiac pacemakers by cellular telephones. N Engl J Med. 1997 May 22;336(21):1473-9.

12. Diem E, Schwarz C, Adlkofer F, Jahn O, Rudiger H. Non-thermal DNA breakage by mobile-phone radiation (1800 MHz) in human fibroblasts and in transformed GFSH-R17 rat granulosa cells in vitro. Mutat Res. 2005 Jun 6;583(2):178-83.

13. Oktem F, Ozguner F, Mollaoglu H, Koyu A, Uz E. Oxidative damage in the kidney induced by 900-MHz-emitted mobile phone: protection by melatonin. Arch Med Res. 2005 Jul-Aug;36(4):350-5.

14. Ozguner F, Aydin G, Mollaoglu H, Gokalp O, Koyu A, Cesur G. Prevention of mobile phone induced skin tissue changes by melatonin in rat: an experimental study. Toxicol Ind Health. 2004 Sep;20(6-10):133-9.

15. Ayata A, Mollaoglu H, Yilmaz HR, Akturk O, Ozguner F, Altuntas I. Oxidative stress-mediated skin damage in an experimental mobile phone model can be prevented by melatonin. J Dermatol. 2004 Nov;31(11):878-83.

16. Yariktas M, Doner F, Ozguner F, Gokalp O, Dogrutt H, Delibas N. Nitric oxide level in the nasal and sinus mucosa after exposure to electromagnetic field. Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 2005 May;132(5):713-6.

17. Balci M, Devrim E, Durak I. Effects of mobile phones on oxidant/antioxidant balance in cornea and lens of rats. Curr Eye Res. 2007 Jan;32(1):21-5.

18. Oral B, Guney M, Ozguner F, et al. Endometrial apoptosis induced by a 900-MHz mobile phone: preventive effects of vitamins E and C. Adv Ther. 2006 Nov-Dec;23(6):957-73.

19. Ozguner F, Oktem F, Armagan A, et al. Comparative analysis of the protective effects of melatonin and caffeic acid phenethyl ester (CAPE) on mobile phone-induced renal impairment in rat. Mol Cell Biochem. 2005 Aug;276(1-2):31-7.

20. Ozguner F, Bardak Y, Comlekci S. Protective effects of melatonin and caffeic acid phenethyl ester against retinal oxidative stress in long-term use of mobile phone: a comparative study. Mol Cell Biochem. 2006 Jan;282(1-2):83-8.

21. Burch JB, Reif JS, Noonan CW et al. Melatonin metabolite excretion among cellular telephone users. Int J Radiat Biol. 2002 Nov;78(11):1029-36.

22. Wood AW, Loughran SP, Stough C. Does evening exposure to mobile phone radiation affect subsequent melatonin production? Int J Radiat Biol. 2006 Feb;82(2):69-76.

23. De Seze R, Ayoub J, Peray P, Miro L, Touitou Y. Evaluation in humans of the effects of radiocellular telephones on the circadian patterns of melatonin secretion, a chronobiological rhythm marker. J Pineal Res 1999 Nov;27(4):237-42.

24. Koyu A, Ozguner F, Cesur F, et al. No effects of 900 MHz and 1800 MHz electromagnetic field emitted from cellular phone on nocturnal serum melatonin levels in rats. Toxicol Ind Health. 2005 Mar;21(1-2):27-31.

25. Hata K, Yamaguchi H, Tsurita G, et al. Short term exposure to 1439 MHz pulsed TDMA field does not alter melatonin synthesis in rats. Bioelectromagnetics. 2005 Jan;26(1):49-53.

26. Bakos J, Kubinyi G, Sinay H, Thuroczy G. GSM modulated radiofrequency radiation does not affect 6-sulfatoxymelatonin excretion of rats. Bioelectromagnetics. 2003 Dec;24(8):531-4.

27. Heikkinen P, Kosma VM, Alhonen L, et al. Effects of mobile phone radiation on UV-induced skin tumourigenesis in ornithine decarboxylase transgenic and non-transgenic mice. Int J Radiat Biol. 2003 Apr;79(4):221-33.

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