On cell phones, it’s a matter of life and death!
By Syed Neaz Ahmad
A $30-million landmark 10-year study by the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer, released in 2009, claims there is a possibility that using a cell phone for 30 minutes a day could increase the chances of brain tumors, though some researchers insist the report's claims are overblown.
Being of timid nature I haven't had the courage to read the booklet, but I am pretty confused. I had thought my new toy would bring me hours of joy, but perhaps technology and delight do not go hand in hand.
What did you do before you didn’t have a cell phone, I asked a friend of mine.
"Nothing," he said. "I just hoped that my cheap fake would fool my friends." replied my friend.
I persisted: "And what did you do when there were no cell phones at all?"
"Well," he replied, "you don’t miss what you don’t know."
Exactly, I thought. If there was life before cell phones, why can’t there be life without them?
Most of us are reluctant to get involved in this kind of self-searching. We get used to modern conveniences, or inconveniences, very quickly.
According to www.sciencedaily.com, mobile phone use has increased dramatically since its introduction.
"The expanding use of this technology has been accompanied by concerns about health," reads the website.
In the late 1990s, several groups of experts critically reviewed the evidence regarding the health effects of low-level exposure to the types of electromagnetic fields generated by that gadget pressed to the side of people's heads. Though there has been no conclusive evidence linking mobile-phone use and tumors, further research continues to be recommended by the experts.
One study by the Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority in Finland found that exposing human cells to one hour of mobile phones radiation triggered a response which normally only occurs when cells are being damaged. The scientists called for more research to discover the significance of this effect.
Dr. Siegal Sadetzki, a physician, epidemiologist and lecturer at Tel Aviv University, published the results of a study in 2008 in the American Journal of Epidemiology in which she and her colleagues found that heavy cell phone users were subject to a higher risk of benign and malignant tumors of the salivary gland.
The research emphasized that those who used a cell phone heavily on the side of the head where the tumor developed were found to have an increased risk of about 50 percent for developing a tumor of salivary gland.
That the study was done on an Israeli pool of test subjects is significant. "Unlike people in other countries, Israelis were quick to adopt cell-phone technology and have continued to be exceptionally heavy users," Sadetzki said in her report.
Cell phones are here to stay in one form or another. They cannot be swept under the carpet. We must learn to live — and suffer — with them. It’s like a skin disease, as a dermatologist friend says, it’ll irritate you, bother you, keep you awake, but it won’t kill you.
For a lot of people a cell phone represents a lifestyle. It's a branded object. So how dare you — without a BlackBerry — be left behind in the rat race?
However, there are those who challenge the WHO report and say that the majority of studies in people have found no link between mobile phones and cancer, national brain cancer rates have not increased in proportion to skyrocketing phone use and there are still no good explanations for how mobile phones could cause cancer. Cancer Research UK figures show that some eight persons per 100,000 develop brain cancers every year.
Evidence so far has been anecdotal, but Coghill Research Laboratories in Wales compiled a formidable amount of scientific data on whether mobile handsets may be a cause of serious ill health. Coghill's view is that there is evidence to support the theory that cell membranes can become damaged when subjected to 20 minutes of uninterrupted use.
It might be a relief to those who have cell hones but don't talk on them for long stretches of time to know that many researchers see no risk in "normal" use of a mobile phone.
Wednesday 19 January 2011
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