I'm going off topic a bit today to talk about something near and dear to my - head. Actually, it's no longer near my head after listening to an informative and provocative program by the Commonwealth Club of California originally aired last November and which I listened to in a podcast. I strongly recommend your listening to the program - go to www.commonwealthclub.org/broadcast/podcast.php and sign up for their podcasts. It's not currently in their archives (they only go back to August 2010) but it should be there eventually. The speaker is Devra Davis, PhD, MPH, a scientist and author of Disconnect, The Truth about Cell Phone Radiation, What The Industry Has Done to Hide It, and How to Protect Your Family. I want to be clear that much of what I've written below comes from the Environmental Health Trust website and I give all credit to that site and Dr. Davis book's site for the information and words used.
Dr. Davis is taking the cell phone industry to task over how they are handling scientific concerns about cell phone usage - she feels they have followed the playbook of the tobacco industry in dealing with suggestions of problems and that they have caused scientists to lose funding and credibility for questioning cell phone safety. There seems to be (and this is me talking) as much evidence of cell phone cancers as there were of tobacco and asbestos cancers before the connection to those agents was commonly accepted. Cell phones are basically mini microwave ovens and here we are putting them to our heads!
There are connections with low sperm count and male cell phone use, memory loss, cheek and brain cancer and the cell phones themselves come with printed material (finely printed) telling users to keep phones at a distance from their bodies. Other nations are taking steps to warn against the use of cell phones by children - and France is even banning the sale of cell phones to children.
Dr. Davis is still a cell phone user and believes they have a place in our world but she advocates taking certain precautions to protect yourself and your family. She lists five steps to take to make cell phone use safer:
1. Use a head set (and it seems wired headsets are the safest).
2. Don't carry a cell phone on your body.
3. Beware of weak signals - it appears that there is more radiation released at those times.
4. Keep the phone away from children - the younger they are the more at risk they are.
5. Don't keep a cell phone on your nightstand.
I do not normally take a strong stand on controversial issues but after listening to this program and hearing the evidence I feel compelled to share the information and concern. Please take the time to listen to the program or check out www.environmentalhealthtrust.org and make your own mind up about this issue.