Cell
Phones Damage Health
By Speeding Up Brain Response Times
As consumer concerns mount that prolonged
cell phone use could lead to problems ranging from headaches to tumors, a recent
study showing an alarming rate of brain cancer in some cell phone users
is helping swing scientific opinion in Britain.
Dr. Alan Preece, head of biophysics at
Bristol Oncology Center, is among a group of scientists becoming increasingly
convinced that radiation from cell phones triggers chemical processes in the
body that may be harmful.
Six separate studies now indicate that response
times speed up when people are exposed to radio frequency (RF) signals from
mobile phones. "Perhaps we now
have to accept there is an effect on the brain," Preece told a London
conference on the health risks of mobile phones.
"The response time has improved because
of stress proteins, which are switched on by a gene. This needs further
research. The chronic exposure to radio frequency signals might well have a
detrimental (health) effect," states Preece.
Stress
proteins are produced when body
temperature rises, but Preece and other scientists said they can
also be released purely as a result of RF signals,
when body temperature is normal.
Other research from Sweden and Switzerland
has indicated that radiation from mobile phone calls disturbs sleep.
In a study not yet published in scientific
literature, Swedish professors Lennart Hardell and Kjell Hansson Mild found that
people who had used analog mobile phones for up to 10 years had a 26% higher
risk of brain cancer than a "control" sample of patients.
The study has unsettled many scientists --
even though it is based largely on a previous generation of mobile phones, many
of which were installed in cars with aerials on the roof, and which emitted
signals continuously, unlike the latest, digital phones.
"One can no longer go around saying
there is no link (between cell phone use and health effects)," Preece said.
"Without
question, there is a biological threat," agreed James Lin, professor of Bioengineering and Electrical Engineering
at the University of Illinois. "The question is how hazardous cell phone
use is."
He noted that it takes nearly a decade for
most brain cancers to develop -- longer than the period of use covered by most
studies.
Reuters
September 21, 2001
