Cell phone use is so common that most of us don’t consider it risky unless it’s a distraction while driving. Yet, recent studies suggest otherwise, especially for the most vulnerable among us. Prenatal exposure to cell phone radiation has been shown to produce blood-brain barrier leakage, and brain, liver and eye damage, and it may be linked to increasingly prevalent neurobehavioral disorders like ADHD. Cell phone radiation also imposes impairments on sperm, in their morphology, motility, viability, and count. Even for subjects who are not particularly vulnerable, chronic exposure proves risky. Studies have shown that for cell phone users of more than ten years at a heavy daily rate, risk is multiplied for certain types of cancer, including leukemia. The studies have gone so far as to show the development of brain and salivary gland tumors to occur significantly more often on the side of the head to which the cell phone is dominantly held.
Conversely, a variety of studies, largely industry-funded, suggesting these links are inconclusive, yet many of these studies don’t hold up under closer observation — showing serious flaws in risk calculation. Still, they are the basis of the claim that cell phones are safe, which safeguards the industry from closer scrutiny and product redesign costs. More public concern should drive industry innovation to produce safer and better products.
What to do? The most effective ways to minimize risk include: (1) maintain some distance between the cell phone and your head by using a headset, speaker phone or text message, (2) store the phone in some place other than the pockets of our clothes, like in a backpack or purse, to protect organ function and reproductive health, and (3) limit your use in times of a low signal, as radiation increases when signal strength is weak or blocked.
Title: “Cell Phone Radiation: Is It Dangerous?”
Author: Devra Davis
Publication: Huffington Post
Date: March 1, 2011
URL: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/devra-davis-phd/cell-phone-radiation-_b_828330.html
Title: “Fetal Radiofrequency Radiation Exposure From 800-1900 Mhz-Rated Cellular Telephones Affects
Neurodevelopment and Behavior in Mice”
Authors: Tamir S. Aldad, Geliang Gan, Xiao-Bing Gao, and Hugh S. Taylor
Publication: Scientific Reports
Date of Publication: March 15, 2012
URL: http://www.nature.com/srep/2012/120315/srep00312/full/srep00312.html
Title: Cell Phones Might Cause ADHD”
Author: Carole Bass
Publication: News Blog, Yale Alumni Magazine
Date of Publication: March 15, 2012
URL: http://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/blog/?p=13736
Title: “Cell Phones Could Hurt Your Sperm”
Author: Markham Heid
Publication: Men’s Health News
Date of Publication: August 16, 2011
URL: http://news.menshealth.com/breaking-cell-phones-could-hurt-your-sperm/2011/08/16
Title: “How Risky is Cell-Phone Radiation?”
Publication: Consumer Reports Magazine
Date of Publication: January 2011
URL: http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine-archive/2011/january/electronics/best-cell-phones/cell-phone-radiation/index.htm
Title: “The Worst Place to Keep Your Cell Phone”
Author: Markham Heid
Publication: Men’s Health News
Date of Publication: August 4, 2011
URL: http://news.menshealth.com/cell-phone-safeguards/2011/08/04
Title: “Beyond Brain Cancer: Other Possible Dangers Of Cell Phones”
Author: Devra Davis
Publication: Huffington Post
Date of Publication: June 15, 2011
URL: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/devra-davis-phd/cell-phones-cancer_b_874361.html
Student Researcher: Aaron Peacock, San Francisco State University
Faculty Evaluator: Kenn Burrows, San Francisco State University