Maine (USA) legislators continue their determination of
a bill requiring mobile phones to carry health warnings about the dangers of brain cancer. Supporters of the bill claim that Ignoring the health risks of heavy cell phone use invites a cancer epidemic, despite the fact that there is little scientific evidence supporting the claim.
"We can do nothing and wait for the body count. That's what happened with smoking before warnings on cigarette packs were mandated”, David Carpenter, director of the Institute for Health and Environment at the University of Albany, told Maine lawmakers.
Carpenter, a Harvard Medical School graduate and researcher with expertise in electromagnetic fields, said the strongest evidence of cell phone dangers comes from Europe, where the devices have been in use longer than in the United States. He told lawmakers that the U.S. "may face an epidemic of brain cancer" if nothing is done to warn consumers of risks. Opponents dismissed research pointing to the risks and said the bill is more about politics than science
Despite considerable research of my own I have failed to find any medical or scientific reports that Europe is suffering from such an epidemic. But how can you argue with supporters of the Maine legislation that included brain cancer patients and relatives of victims who said the disease was triggered by cell phone use. After all, they should know.
One contributor sensibly pointed out that if the state was to require warnings on everything with undefined risks, everything "from apples to xylophones" would have to be labeled. (Presumably the noise emanating from xylophones is a danger to some people).
Half a world away, Australia's foremost cancer expert in mobile phone research said evidence "is not at all strong" that using a mobile phone increases the risk of developing brain tumors.
"There's been quite a lot of research done," Sydney University professor of public health Bruce Armstrong told
ninemsn. "Certainly (the link) is not proven at this time."
Professor Armstrong, a cancer epidemiologist who has been studying the possibility of a link between mobile phone use and cancer since the late 1990s, said that studies suggesting that brain tumors were more likely to develop on the side of the brain favored by a mobile phone user were inconsistent.
But Professor Armstrong, who uses a mobile phone, admitted that he couldn't be absolutely confident there was no risk. He was also unwilling to rule out the possibility that a yet-to-be-proven link exists, or that a stronger link could be proved further down the track. That’s because mobile phone use is a relatively new trend and some tumors may take many years to develop.
Some experts have advised that children and young people are at greater risk of damage because their nervous systems are still developing. Professor Armstrong suggested that if individuals were concerned, they could choose to limit their own or their children's exposure by limiting length of calls or by using speakerphone devices to keep mobile phones away from the head and body. They could also forego mobile use altogether in favor of a landline. (That should go down well with fixed-line operators worldwide suffering from dwindling subscriber numbers)!
Even if phone makers and retailers were forced to apply health warnings to mobile phones the question is whether anyone would actually take notice. Despite notices and photos of cancer patients plastered all over cigarette packs they still sell. And if the ‘CrackBerry’ analogy applies then it may be too late for those poor souls, about 5 billion of them worldwide, already addicted to their mobile device. That will be some epidemic!
Posted
03-12-2010 3:33 PM
by
The Insider