An Orange County woman walked into a breast cancer clinic with a tumor roughly the shape of her cell phone. She routinely carried the phone in her bra to improve her Bluetooth connection. The tumor was unusual, but her surgeon didn't think much of it.
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The amount of radiation a person absorbs from a cell phone depends on how far it's held from the body.
PAUL SANCYA, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
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Then another woman came in with the same story.
"Wouldn't you know it, a month later we have another lady come in," said Dr. John West, surgeon at the Breast Care and Imaging Center in Orange. "She has the same history. The cancer was located just directly under where she put her cell phone."
More than half the world's population has a cell phone. As people spend more hours talking, texting and carrying cell phones against their skin, some scientists and public officials are beginning to worry about the long-term effects of cell phone microwave radiation.
San Francisco passed controversial legislation in June requiring cell phone companies to disclose the amount of radiation their phones emit. The cell-phone industry trade group, CTIA-The Wireless Association, sued.
State Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, also introduced a bill in February requiring manufacturers to disclose their cell phone radiation levels online. His bill is pending.
But most scientists and government organizations — including the Federal Communications Commission, which sets the limits for cell phone emissions — say there is little or no risk.
Current science says that unlike X-rays or ultraviolet rays, microwaves do not have enough energy to knock electrons off atoms and directly damage DNA. The only known way scientists say microwaves can harm humans is by overheating a person's tissue.
The upper limit that a person's whole body is allowed to receive from a cell phone is .08 watts per kilogram — around 50 times less then the amount scientists say has damaging effects on animals. However, for localized spots on the body, people can be exposed to 20 times more than the whole body limit, 1.6 watts per kilogram.
The amount of radiation a person absorbs depends on how far they hold a cell phone from their body. Holding a cell phone one-fourth of an inch farther away from the head will reduce absorbed radiation by about 16 times.
Ron Petersen is the executive secretary of the technical professionals committee that developed cell-phone measurement and safety standards, which were adopted in part by the FCC. Petersen said he has witnessed the long history of public concern over emerging electronic technologies.
People once thought desktop monitors could cause spontaneous abortion in long distance telephone operators who used them, he said.
Then the National Institute of Occupational Science and Health did a study showing the increase in spontaneous abortion among operators was because of stress, not computers, Petersen said.
"When people talk about microwave radiation and radiation, it's scary to a lot of people," Petersen said. "And it should be, because they have heard nothing but bad news about it. But after 30 years of following all of this and knowing most of the researchers who are respected and doing the work in the field, I am certainly convinced that there is no issue there."
The standards do not consider the possible long-term consequences from cell phone radiation. The rationale is that no matter what the length of exposure, if cell phone radiation can't cook flesh, it can't cause harm.
Most studies on long-term effects also have found no increased risk of brain tumors with extended cell phone use. But a few studies have found connections, and some scientists are skeptical of the prevailing view.
"Most of the studies to date have been at least partially industry funded," said UC Berkeley public health professor Joel Moskowitz. "They tend to find very different things than the independent studies. This is rather disconcerting because it makes it hard to know who to trust or what to trust."
If low-intensity microwaves can cause cancer, it would take more than a few years to become apparent, he said.
"The effects seem to be greater in those studies that looked at cell phone use for 10 years or longer, which is reasonable to expect because the induction period for tumors typically is on the order of decades rather than the order of years," Moskowitz said.
The latest study that tried to determine whether cell phones can cause brain tumors, called INTERPHONE, found an increased risk for cancer in people using their cell phones for more than 30 minutes a day over 10 years. For everyone else it showed a surprising result: using cell phones reduced a person's chances of getting brain cancer.
The study's authors concluded that both results might have been skewed because volunteers with tumors were more likely to exaggerate the connection to cell phones, and because the study did not include enough infrequent cell-phone users.
The INTERPHONE study, sponsored by the World Health Organization and done in 13 countries, was volunteer-based.
"The worry is that maybe only particular kinds of people are more likely to participate," said Jonathan Samet, the Director of the Institute for Global Health at USC.
Overall the study results, released May 17, are inconclusive. But they could suggest an increased risk of malignant brain tumors for regular cell phone users.
"In my personal opinion, I think we have a number of elements that suggest a possible increased risk among the heaviest users," said Elisabeth Cardis, who directed the INTERPHONE study, during an interview on Living on Earth, a Public Radio International program.
"And because the heaviest users in our study are considered low users today, I think that's something of concern."
The FCC and Food and Drug Administration have left the precautionary decision up to the public while they wait to see if any studies emerge with conclusive evidence associating cell phone use with cancer.
At the moment, cell phone users have to dig through the FCC website to see the level of their cell phone's radiation.
Sen. Leno hopes to make public access to these radiation values easier.
"I think consumers have a right to know what they are purchasing," Leno said. "We know that this is a health issue because the government has set a limit on how much radiofrequency a cell phone can emit."
In the meantime, Dr. West is recommending his patients keep their cell phones off their bodies – in part because most cell phone manuals advise users to keep their cell phone at least 2.5 centimeters from their body while carrying them.
"I don't think it is causing undue anxiety or harm to point out the fact it's an unanswered question," West said.
"Scientists tend to be very conservative about these sorts of things," he said. "They need to dot a lot of Is and cross a lot of Ts before they are going to say there is a link. But from a practical point of view, you could say, 'Well, this is an area being studied we don't have absolute evidence of safety, so why not be cautious?'"
Contact the writer: ldiperna@ocregister.com
Courtesy of http://www.ocregister.com/articles/cell-262380-phone-radiation.html
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