Tuesday, June 10, 2008

mobile phones and brain tumours –a public health concern

08 June 2008

mobile phones and brain tumours –a public health concern

dr. vini gautam khurana

Dr Vini Gautam Khurana is a Mayo Clinic-trained neurosurgeon with an advanced neurosurgery Fellowship in cerebral vascular and tumour microsurgery from the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona. He holds active medical registration with the Medical Boards of the Australian Capital Territory and the State of New South Wales, Australia. He is the only Australian medical graduate to have completed an entire neurosurgical training programme, PhD and Fellowship in the United States of America, where he trained and worked for 10 years. ~ read more and also brain-surgery.net.au - Dr. Vini G. Khurana MBBS, BSc(Med), PhD, FRACS

dr. khurana has written a research paper the aim of which is to:
"[S]cientifically and objectively review data suggesting or refuting a relationship between mobile phone usage and the occurrence of malignant brain tumours. Following fourteen months of research involving a comprehensive review of over 100 sources in the recent medical and scientific literature in addition to the Press and Internet, the author concludes that there is a growing body of statistically significant evidence for a relationship between the overall length of use of a mobile phone and the delayed occurrence of a brain tumour on the same side of the head as the "preferred side" for mobile phone usage. The elevated risk (increased odds) appears to be in the order of 2 - 4 fold."
KEY MESSAGES OF THIS WORK:
• Mobile phones are convenient and frequently invaluable, yet exposure to their electromagnetic radiation is invisible. Therefore, any danger this exposure poses may be easily dismissed.

• Exposure is long-term and its effects on the body, particularly its electrical organ, the brain, are compounded by numerous other simultaneous long-term exposures including continuous waves from radio and TV transmitter towers, cordless phone base stations, power lines, and wireless/WiFi computing devices.

• A malignant brain tumour represents a life-ending diagnosis in the vast majority of those diagnosed. There is a significant and increasing body of evidence, to date at least 8 comprehensive clinical studies internationally and one long-term meta-analysis, for a link between mobile phone usage and certain brain tumours.

• Taken together, the data presented below compellingly suggest that the link between mobile phones and brain tumours should no longer be regarded as a myth. Individual and class action lawsuits have been filed in the USA, and at least one has already been successfully prosecuted, regarding the cell phone-brain tumour link.

• The "incubation time" or "latency" (i.e., the time from commencement of regular mobile phone usage to the diagnosis of a malignant solid brain tumour in a susceptible individual) may be in the order of 10-20 years. In the years 2008-2012, we will have reached the appropriate length of follow-up time to begin to definitively observe the impact of this global technology on brain tumour incidence rates.

• There is currently enough evidence and technology available to warrant Industry and Governments alike in taking immediate steps to reduce exposure of consumers to mobile phone-related electromagnetic radiation and to make consumers clearly aware of potential dangers and how to use this technology sensibly and safely.

• It is anticipated that this danger has far broader public health ramifications than asbestos and smoking, and directly concerns all of us, particularly the younger generation, including very young children.
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A child's brain is structurally developing well into adolescence, has a greater relative water content and lower volume compared with an adult's brain, and subject to more "plasticity" (structural and functional reprogramming) at a microscopic level. It is logical to expect that exposing a child's brain to cell phone radiation is likely to cause cellular damage that, in due course, may lead to brain cancer. Children should NOT use mobile or cellular phones unless in an emergency.
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From
May 16, 2008

Shops secretly track customers via mobile phone

Signals given off by phones allow shopping centres to monitor how long people stay and which stores they visit

The Path Intelligence box, which tracks mobile phone signals