W.E.E.P. News
Wireless Electrical and Electromagnetic Pollution News
3 May 2011
Up to 30 Times the Cancer Risk - From This 'Indispensable' Daily Tool...
http://emf.mercola.com/sites/emf/archive/2011/05/04/do-cell-phones-cause-brain-cancer.aspx
Posted by: Dr. Mercola |
In 1993, talk-show host Larry King had an unexpected guest on his program -- David Reynard, who argued that radiation from a cell phone caused or accelerated the growth of a brain tumor in his wife. Susan Reynard died in 1992, just short of her 34th birthday.
The Florida Circuit Court that heard Reynard's case rejected it on the grounds that too little was known about a potential link between cell phones and cancer. What was needed, the court said, was much deeper and more comprehensive knowledge about the subject. The New York Times article linked below examines the following question: Now, nineteen years later, if Reynard were to reappear in court, what is known about a possible cell phone/cancer link?
According to the New York Times:
"It is possible, of course, that even ... sophisticated experiments will be unable to determine the risk. The lag time of cancer development with phone use may be 50 or 70 years -- and cellphones have been around for only three decades or so."
Sources:
Karl Maret, MD on Biological Effects of Cell Phones and Wireless Technologies
Dr. Mercola's Comments:
No one wants to hear that a largely "indispensable" item they rely on daily might cause serious harm to your health, but that's exactly what we're faced with when it comes to cell phones and the potential for them to cause all manner of health problems, from headaches and brittle bones to brain tumors.
One of the reasons I started this newsletter was to decrease the time it took for important public health information to become widely accepted in the conventional media. My intention is to give you a huge head start with this information, frequently years or decades prior to this knowledge becoming known, so you can prevent serious damage to your health that would otherwise occur from behaviors you didn't realize were harmful until it was too late.
There's no doubt in my mind that we will eventually see an explosion of brain tumors, attributable to excessive cell phone use.
But why wait until it's self-evident and undeniable? By then you or your child might be part of the collateral damage of this ongoing live experiment…
And although Raynard's case, discussed in the featured New York Times article, could be easily dismissed as a grieving man grasping for straws as he tried to figure out WHAT caused his wife's lethal tumor, I believe science will in time tease out all the precise mechanisms of harm.
In fact, they've already identified at least one such mechanism, which explains how electromagnetic fields impact your cells and damages your DNA—a fact that Siddhartha Mukherjee, an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University fails to mention in his article.
The Difficulty of Assessing Risk Factors for Cancer
Mukherjee is correct in his assessment that determining the carcinogenic potential of cell phone radiation is extremely difficult and troublesome for a number of reasons, but primarily because it's near impossible to find a control group that doesn't use cell phones.
So, as was the case with smoking and lung cancer, the statistical link between the carcinogen, which was pervasive, and the disease, which was prevalent, seemed to "vanish."
But, as history has since shown us, that didn't mean the association between smoking and lung cancer wasn't real…
So, when it comes to cell phone radiation exposure and cancer, while many claim it's impossible to untangle cause from coincidence, many qualified experts now disagree, stating there's "irrefutable evidence" that electromagnetic fields and microwave radiation from cell phones do indeed cause biological changes, and that these alterations can lead to cancer and other health problems.
Additionally, you have to remember that cancer may not appear until you've been repeatedly exposed for several decades.
For example, a review of 11 long-term epidemiologic studies published in the journal Surgical Neurology two years ago revealed that using a cell phone for 10 years or longer approximately doubles your risk of being diagnosed with a brain tumor on the same side of the head where the cell phone is typically held.
Professor Mild, lead researcher of that particular study, cautioned that the danger may be even greater than what they found because cancers need a minimum of 10 years to develop.
This places the primary concern on our children, as they're now exposed to cell phones on a regular basis straight from birth.
In essence, our children are the unwitting guinea pigs while researchers struggle to come to a consensus on the dangers. That means it's your job to decide which side you want to err on—the side of caution, or the side of trust in an industry that has everything to lose by admitting their products are a danger to human health…
From my perspective, mounting evidence clearly indicates that we MUST invoke the precautionary principle with regards to cell phone use, as well as other wireless technologies.
What the Research Says about Cancer Risk from Cell Phone Use
Although the New York Times ran with the "inconclusive evidence" angle, many prominent and qualified experts disagree with this general consensus. One such expert is Dr. Martin Blank, PhD, who gave an informative speech at the November 18, 2010 Commonwealth Club of California program, "The Health Effects of Electromagnetic Fields," co-sponsored by ElectromagneticHealth.org.
Dr. Blank speaks with deep experience and commanding authority on the impact of electromagnetic fields on cells and DNA, and explains why your DNA, with its 'coil of coils' structure, is especially vulnerable to electromagnetic fields of all kinds. It possesses the two structural characteristics of fractal antennas, electronic conduction and self-symmetry.
These properties contribute to greater reactivity of DNA to electromagnetic fields than other tissues.
Dr. Blank is adamant when he says that there IS evidence of harm, and that the harm can be significant. He also points out that the science showing harmful effects has been peer-reviewed, published, and that the results have been replicated, evaluated and "judged by scientists capable of judging it."
I wrote an in-depth article about these findings back in January. If you missed it, go ahead and review it now.
Dr. Karl Maret, M.D. is another uniquely well-qualified expert on this topic, as his background includes medicine, electrical engineering, and biomedical engineering. He has recently begun educating physician groups specifically on the biological impacts of communication technologies, such as cell phones and wireless technologies.
In a recent interview , that is featured above, with ElectromagneticHealth.org founder Camilla Rees, Dr. Maret shared some of the most compelling arguments to date on why you must use extreme caution when it comes to cell phones, cordless phones, smart meters, and other forms of electromagnetic fields (EMFs).
I highly recommend setting aside an hour to listen to this informative interview as well.
The Flawed Research Behind the Cell Phone Safety Spin
As the New York Times accurately points out, trials like the international Interphone study have tried to "cleanse the field of doubts," but rather than lay all questions to rest, they've stirred up more questions and doubt about the safety of cell phones.
This is why you simply cannot take the word of the CTIA (the wireless industry trade group) for granted when it states that "no research has found cell phones to be a danger to health." They misinterpret and misrepresent certain studies while ignoring a large portion of the published research showing harm!
I wrote about the serious flaws of the Interphone study when it was first released. The International EMF Collaborative found that the study seriously underestimates the brain cancer risk from cell phone use. For example, some of the key design flaws of this study include:
Today, Virtually Everyone is a "Heavy User," which is a Definite Risk Factor
Another fact conveniently ignored by both the CTIA and the media is the fact that the Interphone Study Group did eventually acknowledge that "heavy users" of cell phones—which is MOST people today, including children and teens—had an approximately doubled risk of glioma, a life threatening and often-fatal brain tumor, after 10 years of cell phone use.
And here's the most shocking piece of evidence of this risk: their definition of a "heavy user" was someone using a cell phone for about two hours per month!
So how could any rational objective scientist claim that this study proved cell phones safe, when you double your risk of a fatal brain tumor after using your cell phone for just two hours a month for 10 years?
For more information about the Interphone study, I recommend reading the report, "Cellphones and Brain Tumors: 15 Reasons for Concern, Science, Spin and the Truth Behind Interphone." After closely reviewing the facts and the flaws of the Interphone study, the report concluded:
World-Class Scientists Set Record Straight on Cancer Risk
I also recommend reading through the editorial published January 24, 2011 in the U.K. Journal of Occupational & Environmental Medicine by the lead scientist on the Interphone study, Elizabeth Cardis, and Siegal Sadetzki. (They led the Israeli component of the study, which found that regular users, as well as heavy users in rural areas showed increased risk of salivary gland tumors, due to higher levels of exposure.)
In their editorial, they clarify the Interphone study results, stating that the cell phone-brain tumor data is indeed troubling.
They further advise:
"Simple and low-cost measures, such as the use of text messages, hands-free kits and/or the loudspeaker mode of the phone could substantially reduce exposure to the brain from mobile phones.
"Therefore, until definitive scientific answers are available, the adoption of such precautions, particularly among young people, is advisable.
"While more studies are needed, indications of an increased risk (of gliomas - a particularly dangerous form of brain tumor) in high and long-term users from Interphone and other studies are of concern. ... Even a small risk at the individual level could eventually result in a considerable number of tumors and become an important public-health issue."
According to Camilla Rees of www.ElectromagneticHealth.org :
"It is very important these two scientists are now independently and personally taking such a strong stand, particularly in light of the Interphone study group's own Press Release, which avoided highlighting the risks of brain tumors the study indeed did find. This gives us faith more scientists may inform the public about what the science is really telling us on this very important public health issue."
New Chinese Study Shows Dramatic Increase in Risk for Parotid Gland Tumors
As recently as last month, a Chinese study showed that long-term, heavy cell phone use may also raise your risk of malignant parotid gland tumors (tumor of the salivary gland) anywhere from seven to 13 times!
This is a major risk that needs to be taken very seriously. As Microwave News reported:
"The raw data -- that is, before being adjusted for other possible risk factors like sex, age, income, smoking status and the like -- point to cancer risks that are elevated 10-fold, 20-fold, and even 30-fold, depending on the type of tumor and how heavy cell phone use is defined …
For instance, those who had used mobile phones for over 10 years had more than 10 times the rate of epithelial parotid gland malignancies, the dominant type of cancer of parotid gland. The risk rose to 20 times that of controls for mucoepidermoid carcinoma, the primary subtype of parotid gland cancer.
Those who used a cell phone for more than two-and-a-half hours a day had a more than 15-to-30 fold elevated cancer risk. Previous studies have rarely pointed to a risk that is more than double or triple the expected rate."
More Evidence of Biological Effect on Brain from Cell Phone Use
Another important study, funded by the US government, was published in JAMA in February of this year. Using a specialized brain scanner capable of detecting alterations in glucose, the researchers were able to determine that cell phone radiation trigger your brain cells to metabolize glucose at an increased rate.
As reported by CNN:
" The findings of the study, which examined the subjects during just one 50-minute exposure, raise a key question, the researchers said: What, if any, are the long-term consequences of repeated increased brain activity due to exposure to cell phone radiation?
"We need to rule out that there is a not long-lasting effect in healthy people," Volkow said. "We don't know what repeated exposure and artificial activation of the glucose will have on the brain."
We know is that glucose metabolism equates to cell activation. So the findings indicate that radiation from your cell phone clearly has a well-defined measureable influence on your brain. Essentially, each time you put a cell phone up to your ear, you're artificially activating your brain cells.
That much is clear.
But whether or not this excess glucose production is harmful, or can cause a cascade of problems down the line, is still unknown.
Remember, Children are Most at Risk!
It's obvious that since children today are using cell phones at an earlier age than any previous generation, their lifetime exposure will exceed that of an adult. This is extremely troublesome, because not only will they be exposed for longer, their skulls are also far thinner than adults and their nervous systems are still developing, making them particularly vulnerable to damage.
Therefore, I strongly urge you to avoid using cell phones around children, and to not let your children play with or talk on a cell phone.
There's already evidence of the increased risk to children as brain cancer has now surpassed leukemia as the number one cancer killer in children. Australia, for example, has seen an increase in pediatric brain cancers of 21 percent in just one decade. This is consistent with studies showing a 40 percent brain tumor increase across the board in Europe and the U.K. over the last 20 years.
Remember, Your Body is a "Bioelectric Machine"
Barring all the scientific evidence, it simply makes sense that cell phones and wireless technology can impact the human body once you understand that your body is bioelectric. Your body produces electrons to keep an electrical current flowing, and inside every cell are mitochondria, the 'power plants' of the cell that can be impacted by electromagnetic fields.
As Dr. Maret explains in his interview with ElectromagneticHealth.org, your body is a complex communication system where cells, tissues, organs, and organisms "talk" -- it's a veritable "electronic symphony in your body." This communication includes finely tuned bio-electrical transmitters and receivers, which are tuned like tuning into a radio station.
And when you expose a radio antenna to a significant amount of external noise, you get static, and that is what is happening to your body in today's EMF-saturated environment.
Common-Sense Guidelines to Protect Your and Your Family's Health
There are few EMF-free zones left in the world today, so you can't completely avoid all radiation. If you're willing to give up your cell phone and return to using a land line, you can virtually eliminate one of the most immediate hazards to your brain. But if you're not prepared to take that step, you can at least minimize your exposure by heeding the following advice:
If you must use a portable home phone, use the older kind that operates at 900 MHz. They are no safer during calls, but at least some of them do not broadcast constantly even when no call is being made.
Note the only way to truly be sure if there is an exposure from your cordless phone is to measure with an electrosmog meter, and it must be one that goes up to the frequency of your portable phone (so old meters wont help much). As many portable phones are 5.8 Gigahertz, we recommend you look for RF meters that go up to 8 Gigahertz, the highest range now available in a meter suitable for consumers.
Alternatively you can be very careful with the base station placement as that causes the bulk of the problem since it transmits signals 24/7, even when you aren't talking. So if you can keep the base station at least three rooms away from where you spend most of your time, and especially your bedroom, they may not be as damaging to your health.
Ideally it would be helpful to turn off or disconnect your base station every night before you go to bed.
You can find RF meters at www.emfsafetystore.com. But you can pretty much be sure your portable phone is a problem if the technology is labeled DECT, or digitally enhanced cordless technology.
Also seek to avoid carrying your phone on your body as that merely maximizes any potential exposure. Ideally put it in your purse or carrying bag. Placing a cell phone in a shirt pocket over the heart is asking for trouble, as is placing it in a man's pocket if he seeks to preserve his fertility.
If you are in a meeting, on public transportation, in a courtroom or other public places, such as a doctor's office, keep your cell phone turned off out of consideration for the 'second hand radiation' effects. Children are also more vulnerable, so please avoid using your cell phone near children.
Make sure that the wire used to transmit the signal to your ear is shielded.
The best kind of headset to use is a combination shielded wire and air-tube headset. These operate like a stethoscope, transmitting the information to your head as an actual sound wave; although there are wires that still must be shielded, there is no wire that goes all the way up to your head.
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Chernobyl's guide to tyranny
02.05.2011, 09:00
Serious political lessons still need to be learned from the world's worst nuclear disaster von Tony Barber
Japan's nuclear safety authorities raised the alert level at the Fukushima plant recently to a maximum seven. This means they consider the emergency to be as serious as the Chernobyl disaster in the Soviet Union. That seems a rather overstated comparison to me.
Twenty-five years after the explosion at the Ukrainian facility, I vividly recall every detail of those terrible days of April 1986. I was a 26-year-old foreign correspondent working in Moscow for Reuters news agency. On Friday, April 25, I flew to Kiev to spend a couple of days with Rhona, an ebullient Scottish friend who was teaching at the city's university under a British Council programme. I was the only western journalist in Kiev that weekend.
While we caroused the night away, extraordinary events were unfolding 130km to the north. Technicians were conducting experiments that involved the disabling of automatic shutdown mechanisms at the plant's fourth reactor. After a tremendous power surge, the reactor blew up at 1.23am on Saturday, April 26.
Under Vladimir Putin Russia has seemed prone to the same policies of secrecy that once characterised the USSR
Except for high-ranking Communist party officials, the KGB and a number of scientists, doctors and fire-fighters, no one in the Soviet Union, let alone the wider world, knew anything about this. Soviet habits of secrecy and deception kept millions of people in the dark even as radiation spread across Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and beyond.
In blissful ignorance, Rhona and I spent Saturday and Sunday touring Kiev in the warm spring sunshine. By Soviet standards it was a pleasantly green and airy city, full of parks and rolling hills - now invisibly coated with radiation. On Sunday evening we had a few drinks in the dollars-only bar of a hotel. Outside, we made our way to a tram stop, where we sat on a bench waiting for a ride to Kiev university.
On Monday, April 28, I returned to Moscow. No sooner had I walked into the Reuters office, a short distance from the Kremlin, than a colleague asked if I had noticed "anything funny going on" in Kiev. No, I hadn't. The streets were calm, the airport was normal. "Ah," my colleague replied. "It's just that the Swedish embassy called us and asked if we knew anything about a nuclear disaster in Ukraine."
Within hours the truth came out. Authorities in Finland and Sweden reported the drift of radioactive clouds towards Scandinavia. Anxiety swept the world. But still the Soviet government maintained its silence - until, almost 68 hours after the accident, the official news agency Tass published a short, opaque article indicating that there had been an accident at Chernobyl.
Dwelling in time-honoured fashion on propaganda rather than facts, Tass then issued a second article alleging the US had experienced 2,300 nuclear accidents and breakdowns in 1979 alone. Hypocrisy and duplicity were as Soviet as stale bread.
My personal drama reached its crescendo when a US embassy official in Moscow tested me for radioactive poisoning. My body's background levels were normal. But when the Geiger counter moved over the pair of jeans I'd worn at the tram stop bench in Kiev, it emitted a beep-beep-beep of shrill squeaks.
"Okay, Mr Barber," said the US diplomat, "We're gonna burn those jeans for you."
A quarter of a century on, I believe the most important lesson of Chernobyl is that oppressive and secretive political systems fail their populations on an epic scale. Democracies err, but tyrannies, isolated and suspicious of their own citizens, value neither human rights nor individuals. As a result, they are often woefully lacking in the safety culture expected of a normal industrialised society. They are more likely to act irresponsibly in a crisis.
This point was not lost on Mikhail Gorbachev, the reformist Soviet leader. He exploited the mishandling of the accident as an argument in favour of abandoning decades of secretiveness and replacing it with glasnost (openness). But old habits die hard: under Vladimir Putin, the prime minister and former president, Russia's authorities have not been forthcoming about events such as the sinking of the submarine Kursk in 2000 and other incidents.
A second lesson is that the nuclear industry must be forced to observe the highest standards of design and maintenance. A flawed reactor design and inadequately trained workers caused the Chernobyl accident. Likewise, poor regulation allowed old reactors such as at Fukushima to continue in service.
According to the authorities in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, the economic losses attributable to Chernobyl run into hundreds of billions of dollars. Whilst these estimates may be exaggerated, there is no question that the cost of keeping nuclear plants safe is far smaller than the cost of cleaning up a Chernobyl-type catastrophe.
The final lesson is that mankind is imperfect. The human instinct to acquire knowledge, to venture into uncharted territory, is at once noble and dangerous. If the Chernobyl crew had not staged their reckless experiments, there might have been no accident. And I would not still dream of a smouldering pair of jeans.
- © 2011 The Financial Times
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