Ever wondered if the iPhone safely tucked in the front pocket of your jeans could lead to an unwanted call from … cancer? From inducing testicular cancer to exploding popcorn kernels, the physical power of cell phones has been elevated to a radical level by urban myths. Although the impact is questionable, it is a fact that Radio Frequency radiation, the energy waves emitted by cell phones, can travel to your brain at the speed of light. Though the specific health effects are yet to be determined, San Francisco environmental officials have taken preliminary measures to educate the public about RF radiation. Their ordinance calling for very specific requirements against cell phone dealers has caught the attention of the public, the experts and the cell phone retailers of our community.
Since the time brick-sized cell phones could barely fit in your handbag, never mind a pocket, no solid verdict on their dangers has emerged, but people have been concerned about this controversy. On Oct. 21, Denmark scientists released the results of a fifteen-year-long study, providing the public with the most recent analysis on the issue of RF radiation in the British Medical Journal. According to the study, “there were no increased risks of tumors of the central nervous system, providing little evidence for a causal association.” Conducted in Denmark, scientists compared computerized information on cancer rates to the amount of participants’ cell phone use during the years 1982 to 1995. The results concluded that cell phone use does not lead to an increased risk of brain cancer, although that does not mean you can turn your back on your phone.
This wariness is because the concern about a possible danger of cancer has not been obliterated due to one major glitch in the study: the researchers had no way of measuring the phone’s promixity to an individual. The study’s data was based on cell phone subscriptions and the amount of time a cell phone was in use. With no data concerning the caller’s adjacency to the phone, it was impossible to get an exact measurement of the exposure to RF radiation. Without this crucial information, an accurate study of the impact of cell phone radiation is yet to be accomplished.
What the Public Has to Say
Because no studies offer consistent evidence or a clear conclusion, people usually trust what their friends tell them.“I’ve heard that if you hold your cell phone right to your ear, the radiation can cause brain cancer,” sophomore Sophia Phillips said. Another rumor, spread on YouTube in many viral videos, show cell phones popping popcorn kernels, which in reality does not happen. This, along with countless other urban myths, has created a reputation worse than Lindsay Lohan’s, and are picked up by others faster than a call from that special someone.
Despite pervasive legends of the cancer-causing cell phone, the public continues to ignore warnings and use their beloved little helpers, and with good reason. On Oct. 27, a federal judge ruled that San Francisco has to tone down the medical warning, according to an Oct. 28 article in the SF Chronicle “Cell-phone law goes too far, judge tells S.F.” It appears that possible medical consequences of cell phone use has not been determined. “One thing that is clear is that if radio frequency electromagnetic radiation affects peoples' health, the effects are subtle,” Bryan Marten, who teachers AP Chemistry and Honors Chemistry, said in an email Oct. 20. “Radio frequency is a part of the electromagnetic spectrum that is very low in energy. If cell phones used X-rays instead of RF to transmit their signals, practically every cell phone user all over the world would have tumors.”
An Expert Opinion
As cell phone use increased, rumors of radiation-caused cancer spread from ear to ear. What with all the studies conducted concerning cell phone radiation, it comes as a surprise that there is still no evidence to prove or disprove whether cell phone use is as safe as using your Bluetooth in the car. “The studies are typically case-control studies which observe a large number of people over many years, and then study how the health of people with different levels of cell phone use compares,” Kilian Koepsell, a neuroscientist for UC Berkeley, said in an email Oct. 20. “The main difficulty is to make sure that differences, in, for instance, the number of cancer cases are actually caused by the cell phone use and not by any other factor.”
For example, in the Danish study, other unmeasurable factors included the device’s battery level and its distance from cell phone towers. Other factors, mitigating the impact but ignored by the study, included the subject’s exposure to other electronics that emit RF radiation, such as microwaves, televisions, radar and radio broadcasts.
Although a gray area still exists between scientific studies, most of them indicate that cell phones do not cause the rumored effects. Some experts believe that more research must be done. “As a scientist, I think those studies are absolutely necessary, until we have a definitive answer to the question if and how harmful RF radiation from cell phone use is,” Koepsell said. “However, it will probably take a very long time until this question is settled, so for the cell phone users of today the final outcome of these studies is less important than the knowledge about the potential risk and how to minimize it.”
The International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified RF radiation as a possible carcinogen to humans, even without consistent evidence. “There is a real possibility that RF radiation increases the risk of cancer,” Koepsell said. “At least, this what the World Health Organization concluded earlier this year after reviewing hundreds of scientific studies.” With the threat of radiation, one would assume people would be fearful of such gadgets, avoiding any possibility of harm. But people are anything but afraid. According to the National Cancer Institute’s website (www.cancer.gov), there are 5 billion cell phone subscriptions globally. Despite the “what if,” people still do not appear to understand that their close proximity to cell phones could be even more dangerous than your Droid ringing in class under a teacher’s eye.
San Francisco Rings the Alarm
As rumors continued to spread like mass-texts, the San Francisco Department of the Environment and the Board of Supervisors passed the first Cell Phone Ordinance, requiring retailers to warn customers how much radiation their cell phone emits, on June 22, 2010. By prompting the Right to Know Act, which would provide information about possible chemical exposure, the supervisors hope to empower Americans to demand to know what chemicals they are exposed to on a daily basis.
The intent of the Right to Know law is to inform Americans by labeling the ingredients of household items like nail polish or groceries, as well of what is emitted from a cell phone. The Cell Phone Ordinance educates people about what ‘ingredients’ are in their cell phones, while the Right to Know justifies it, bring them closer than an iPhone and its glitter-case.
In retaliation to the Cell Phone Ordinance, the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association filed a lawsuit, which forced SF supervisors to vote on a second ordinance to revise the first ordinance, which had been passed on July 19, 2011. The new law requires retailers to provide customers only with general information about radiation and ways to prevent exposure, like holding a cell phone away from your ear when you speak into it, rather than stating the amount of radiation emitted by cell phones, as that is controversial data. The revised Cell Phone Ordinance requires retailers to hang posters and pass out brochures and stickers providing information about possible health effects.
The revision of the law resulted in yet another lawsuit from the CTIA. U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup, who is currently judging the lawsuit, stated that there is no scientific proof that the link between cancer and cell phones exists, according to an article on the Huffington Post on Oct. 21. In the Chronicle article, Alsup ruled that the law went too far and ordered the city to soften their message and stop requiring retailers to post the warning on their walls.
Like rollover minutes, some students think the law could be beneficial. “I feel like we are the first generation that will grow up with this technology,” junior Michael Wasney said. “We don’t know the long-term effects because it’s such a new thing. I think it will be useful.”
To others, the law may just be a waste of government time. “I think they should supply the information but I don’t think people would actually read it or even care,” sophomore Nadine Kahney said. “However, I think it’s important for people be aware if cell phone radiation is linked to cancer.”
You can ignore the rumors for now because no dependable evidence has yet been confirmed, but it is smart to be wary of electronics that emit RF radiation like microwaves, televisions, radio broadcasts and cell phones. After all, there have been too many cases where people’s health has been impacted by exposure to environmental factors that were later determined to be carcinogenic. Although phones and other electronics provide you with a lifeline you don’t want to be without, they may also take away your lifeline — literally.
A version of this article first appeared in the Nov. 4, 2011 print edition of The Lowell.
All illustrations by Hoi Leung
