Image: http://environmentaloncology.org
Certain studies when lined up together do present some disturbing red flags.
Pioneers silenced
In 1995 bioengineering Professor Henry Lai and his colleague Narendra (N.P.) Singh published their findings documenting the connection between cell phone non-ionized radiation and DNA damage in brain cells. Their funding was subsequently cut.
"When you look at the non-industry sponsored research, it's about three to one-three out of every four papers shows an effect," Lai says. "Then, if you look at the industry-funded research, it's almost opposite-only one out of every four papers shows an effect."
Their research was not presented to the public.
Britain’s groundbreaker
In 2000, the Independent Expert Group on Mobile Phones (IEGMP), chaired by Sir William Stewart, looked at cell phone studies worldwide. The Stewart Report concluded there were enough gaps in information to “to justify a precautionary approach."
Stewart himself recommended children not use cell phones. He issued his warning again in 2002 and again in 2004.
In 2005 when Stewart became the chair for the National Radiological Protection Board, he issued the following statement: "If there are risks -- and we think that maybe there are -- then the people who are going to be most affected are children, and the younger the children, the greater the danger. Parents have a responsibility to their children not simply to throw a mobile phone to a young child, and say 'off you go'," said Stewart.
In 2007, Stewart called for a review of the health risks of wireless technology on children.
More “inconclusive” evidence
In December 2004, the REFLEX study was published. Costing more than 3 million euros, the study involved 12 research groups in seven European countries working from 2000 to 2004. REFLEX found that mobile phone radiation did break DNA human cells causing mutations that carried on in subsequent generations of cells. Basically it confirmed research done by Lai and Singh.
Yet the 259 page final didn’t conclude that mobile phones are health risks.
The toothless watchdog
RF has been on the World Health Organization (WHO) radar since 1986. In 2004, its branch of the International Agency for Research on Cancer began co-ordinating The Interphone study, also known as the IARC study.
The study was to pool the data of 13 countries researching tumours of the head and neck area to see if there was a link between cell phones and cancer. Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, and the UK participated.
The Interphone report is still not been published even though completed two years ago.
"Certain people are embarrassed it's taking so long," said Dr. Louis Slesin, who has been taking the study to task in her scientific newsletter Microwave News. "At some point, it becomes a public health scandal that they're not releasing it."
Read more about other studies on page 2....
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