Why haven't cell phones killed us all?
October 18th 2008 06:38
Figures from early 2008 show that more than one billion people worldwide use cell/mobile phones. Between 60,000 and 70,000 mobile phones are sold each day in the United States. In Hong Kong and Singapore, total mobile phones in use exceeds total number of citizens.
Do you use a mobile phone? According to persistent news reports, you are probably going to die because of it. Or your brain is going to turn into scrambled eggs. Or you will start hearing messages from Martians. Or your television signal will experience interference every time you blink.
This week we had a new revelation with news that the British Association of Dermatologists has said that doctors who may be baffled by an unexplained rash on people's ears or cheeks should be on alert for a skin allergy caused by too much mobile phone use. Citing published studies, the group said a red or itchy rash, known as "mobile phone dermatitis", affects people who develop an allergic reaction to the nickel surface on mobile phones after spending long periods of time on the devices.
You, and your doctor, have been warned.
I do not wish to belittle the efforts of people who believe that there are legitimate questions to be raised about mobile phone use. It's just that so many concerns have been raised for so long, with no apparent follow-up proof from points medical or concern from points political. Let alone rioting in the streets or evidence of broccoli sprouting from my ear lobes.
Who do you believe?
Dr Ben Kim has a web page which states that regular exposure to radio frequency radiation may interfere with the electrical fields of our cells. Common health challenges that have been linked to regular exposure to radio frequency radiation include abnormal cell growth and damage to cellular DNA, difficulty sleeping, depression, anxiety and irritability, childhood and adult leukemia, eye cancer, immune system suppression, attention span deficit and memory loss and infertility.
These are serious claims, but please note that, despite wording which obscures it, this is all speculation. Dr Kim then goes on to offer two pieces of anecdotal support for the possibility that mobile phones are the cause of "common health challenges".
The first is this: "From the early 1950s to the mid 1970s, the US embassy in Moscow was purposefully bombarded by radio frequency radiation 24 hours a day. The US embassy workers experienced what the perpetrators identified as 'radio frequency sickness syndrome'. After some time of concentrated radio frequency radiation exposure, the American ambassador developed leukemia. The next American ambassador also developed leukemia. Blood tests performed on embassy staff members showed irreversible DNA damage."
The second is this: "Dr Jerry Phillips, a biochemist researcher, began studying cell phone safety for Motorola more than a decade ago. When he started generating data that indicated that cell phones have negative effects on human health, Motorola took a number of steps to delay publication of Dr Phillips' work."
Surely it is fair to ask if Dr Kim would consider his first argument equally persuasive if two consecutive Moscow embassy junior filing clerks had contracted leukemia. And if Dr Jerry Phillips' story is true and Motorola so seriously intervened in the dissemination of information crucial to human safety, why hasn't it been turned into a film starring Russell Crowe? Is Dr Kim a serious campaigner for what he believes to be insidious dangers inherent in mobile phones, or is he practicing a little self-promotion with tabloid values?
I do not wish to dispute the possibility that mobile phones are dangerous. If they are please find out soon so our children at least can be spared the consequences. Meanwhile, however, I don't see any choice but to ask, over and over, for proof of such claims.
If - when - someone does deliver proof, then I will ask why regulatory authorities didn't do something about this earlier. But I suspect regulatory authorities are, like most of us, a little desensitized to nutters and those given to promotion through scaremongery.
reuters.com, drbenkim.com
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