Experts
Divided On Mobile Phone Hazards
Reuters
Journalist: Patricia Reaney
November 27, 2000
It's no
wonder that people are confused about the health hazards of mobile phones.
Even scientists are divided on how dangerous they may be.
So far there
is no irrefutable medical evidence that mobile phones cause brain tumours or
other medical problems but there have been studies suggesting there could be
cause for concern.
Two review
articles published in the Lancet medical journal on Friday added to the debate
by presenting opposing views of the safety of the phones that have become as
essential to modern lifestyles as washing machines.
Dr. Kenneth
Rothman, of Epidemiology Resources Inc. in Boston says it is simply too early
to reach a verdict on mobile phones. But he says that the danger of them
causing an accident is more immediate than the harm from electromagnetic
radiation.
The heaviest
users of mobile phones, he said, have more than double the number of deaths in
road accidents than the lightest users.
"Based
on the epidemiologic evidence available now, the main public-health concern is
clearly motor vehicle collisions, a behavioural effect rather than an effect
of radiofrequency exposure as such," he said in the journal.
Even if
scientists establish a link to brain cancer, he believes it will still be
smaller than health risks from accidents.
Perception
of Safety
But Gerard Hyland, a theoretical biophysicist at the University of Warwick in
England and the International Institute of Biophysics in Neuss-Holzheim in
Germany, takes a different view.
He argues
that mobile phones can cause non-thermal damage to the body because their
frequencies can interfere with body frequencies.
Headaches can
be caused by the effect of radiation on the dopamine-opiate system of the
brain and sleep disruption is consistent with the influence of radiation on
melatonin levels, he added, referring to brain chemicals.
But Hyland,
who called for more research into the impact on body frequencies, admitted it
would be difficult to establish a link.
"There
is a subjective element to how sensitive we are. What might affect you may not
affect me," Hyland explained in a telephone interview.
In a
commentary on the reports in the Lancet, Dr Philip Dendy, a former chief
physicist at Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge, England, said at the moment
it came down to public perceptions of safety.
"There
are indicators which should certainly cause us not to be complacent but they
fall short at the moment of conclusive proof," he told Reuters.
"There
is no absolute scale of safety," he added. "The bottom line is, at
present time, the knowledge base of the hazards of mobile telephones is not
good enough."
