International Wireless Industry Knows Cell Phones Not Safe

Cigarettes and Cell Phones: Public Health Hazards Too Similar to Ignore

The International Wireless Association (CTIA) is aware of the risks associated with cellular phones and wireless technology, but because their bottom-line profit margin is increasingly being put in jeopardy, they are playing at muddying the waters. Public safety is at risk from global Electromagnetic Field (EMF) radiation exposure from using cell phones thats a fact.

Public health safety was also at risk before the link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer was made so explicit in the last decade. We now need the same kind of public action we got back then, for our protection and the protection of our families.

If you don’t know by now, let me make it perfectly clear: Cell phones and associated technologies are a public health hazard. The health risks posed by smoking cigarettes that emerged during the last several decades are unnervingly similar to the health hazards coming to light during the new millennium regarding mobile phones. So similar, in fact, that warning labels on cell phone packaging, just like those we see on cigarette packages are coming to the fore in certain US states. This is a big worry for the CTIA (the International Wireless Association) who would stand to lose substantial revenue should this come to pass.

In a previous post, I mentioned the comprehensive work of Dr.Vini Khurana in which he reviewed over 100 studies conducted on the dangerous health effects of electromagnetic radiation from cell phones. This work resulted in dire warnings and sharp, unambiguous comparisons of the lethality of both cigarette smoking and cell phones. He went so far as to say that cell phones were potentially more deadly because of wider population exposure.

The comparison between the dangers of cigarettes and the Tobacco Industry and health risks now associated with cell phones and the Wireless Technology Industry are popping up all over the place. One article cites no less than 12 different source articles or research studies drawing the parallel between the two industries and their lobby group’s conflicts of interest. *

Dr. Robert Herberman warned his own faculty and staff to limit cell phone use because of his conviction of the dire threat of serious health risk from their use. His alarm may have to do with his review of a 610-page document citing specific dangers associated with EMF’s from mobile phone usage.

The Bio Initiative Report, published in 2007, discusses regulations for RF’s, electromagnetic fields created by wireless technology and concludes with a statement that safety standards were not protective enough of the public. The report indicated that there was evidence for a link between mobile phones and DNA damage, stress factors, genetic effects, immune system function, brain tumors, leukemia, Alzheimer’s disease and breast cancer as well as other deleterious health effects.

My own experience with mobile phone exposure has made me wary of lobby groups funded by organizations like the Wireless Association. While knowing about the risks because of their own research, they officially claim that: “The overwhelming majority of studies that have been published in scientific journals around the globe show that wireless phones do not pose a health risk.” *

This selective view screens out the fact that the studies they reference fail to take into account that it can take at least 10 years for the radiation’s effect to show up as disease. The earlier studies conducted were on subjects with only three or so years of exposure.

Is the telecommunications industry (CTIA, aka: the International Wireless Association) attempting to shove this all under the rug? Is their commentary credible, given that they stand to profit significantly from the cellular expansion now taking place? 4G technology will be with us soon, horror of horrors – I will talk about this in an upcoming post.

We need our leaders to step up and alert the public to these dangers, initiate research that will curtail or ameliorate the deadly effects of wireless technology and stop letting big corporations run riot over our physical and environmental health.

Click here for my 12 tips on how to protect yourself from cell phone radiation.

Resource: * Mobile Phones: An Emerging Public Health Concern, In these New Times, accessed: Apr. 26, 2010 http://inthesenewtimes.com/2010/04/19/mobile-phones-an-emerging-public-health-concern/