Cancer study ordered into mobile phones: BEWARE THE HEADLINES ONCE AGAIN
There has been an interesting article circulating in the past couple of days
( http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2556768,00.html -- Cancer study ordered into mobile phones http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2556768,00.html ). And once again, what you read on the surface betrays what is below the surface.
When you read the article behind this link, please understand that the mobile phone industry is behind it. In the UK, the mobile phone mast issue is gaining a great deal of momentum. Whenever that happens, the political solution involves putting some money into a study -- a study that will take years to complete -- to assuage the public concern. The tactic is part of the industry's overall strategy to "buy time". With the mobile phone health risk issue, this goes back to the very early days of the WTR when the industry funded our research program, in their mind, "as an insurance policy to buy time". With research going on, the argument can be made in public that the "jury is still out" and from the industry's perspective, "the heat is off". In this case, note specifically that the studies mentioned at the end of the article -- a very selected few from the numerous studies now in the open literature -- are only the studies funded by the industry, with results that mute the present day concern. Don't fall for it.
More research is always a good thing. But, research does not help people who are being exposed to dangerous ICRW (Information-Carrying Radio Waves) today. Research always should be joined with surveillance of high risk groups and the implementation of primary, secondary and tertiary interventions in those high risk groups as appropriate.
G. L. Carlo
Times Letters to the Editor about Mobile Phones
from Vivienne.
I have just received this for circulation to others.
Regards,
V.
Sent: Monday, January 22, 2007 9:08 AM
Subject: Times Letters to the Editor about Mobile Phones
Further to the articel in the Times newspaper on Saturday, and the piece on Radio 4's Today Programme also on Saturday. These letters appeared this morning in the the Times Newspaper in the Letters to thw Editor column.
Chris
The Times January 22, 2007
Mobile phones and microwave sickness
Sir, As your report suggests, there is indeed a significant health risk posed by devices that emit non-ionising radio-frequency radiation ("Cancer study ordered into mobile phones", report, Jan 20).
The phenomenon was first described in 1945 as "microwave sickness", by Soviet scientists trying to determine why radio and radar operators were developing neurological and cognitive difficulties.
International regulating agencies, as well as the mobile phone and wireless industry, suggest that there is currently "no evidence" to suggest that negative health effects result from such emissions. Digging up the thousands of studies to the contrary is one approach a concerned citizen might take.
Why not just follow the money trail and ask why the insurance industry has refused, since the late 1990s, to insure telephone companies for the potential health effects of their wireless and mobile products?
DR DAVID FANCY
Brock University, St Catharines, Ontario
Sir, Six years ago, after the publication of the Stewart report, the Department of Health issued a leaflet warning against mobile phone use by under-16s. Similarly, the industry made a commitment not to market phones to children.
Successive ministers have failed to take any positive action to promote the advice in schools or inform parents of this precautionary policy.
Consequently, we have a generation of children addicted to their mobiles and at risk. Given the huge amount of publicity about junk food and other issues affecting the young, it is surprising that the Government keeps so quiet about mobile phones.
Maybe it's something to do with the £23 billion it received from the industry in licence fees.
KAREN BARRATT
Winchester, Hants
Sir, My father is an electronic engineer, and he wouldn't have a mobile phone for years; he knew the possible effects of the radiation they send out.
Do people realise that mobiles are pumping out radiation all the time they are switched on? Every second or so, they send out a signal. This would be less than the radiation transmitted when a phone is in use, but if the phone is switched on all day, it could have a similar cumulative effect, increased if in a rural area or a car, where the signal is amplified to reach the transmitter.
How many people keep a phone in their pocket, near a woman's ovaries and a man's prostate, which are particularly susceptible to cancer, and leave it switched on all day?
STELLA JOB
Kidlington, Oxon
From Mast Sanity/Mast Network
--------
Could these be the cigarettes of the 21st century? 'Absolutely'
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/3209694/
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Carlo
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=microwave+sickness
( http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2556768,00.html -- Cancer study ordered into mobile phones http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2556768,00.html ). And once again, what you read on the surface betrays what is below the surface.
When you read the article behind this link, please understand that the mobile phone industry is behind it. In the UK, the mobile phone mast issue is gaining a great deal of momentum. Whenever that happens, the political solution involves putting some money into a study -- a study that will take years to complete -- to assuage the public concern. The tactic is part of the industry's overall strategy to "buy time". With the mobile phone health risk issue, this goes back to the very early days of the WTR when the industry funded our research program, in their mind, "as an insurance policy to buy time". With research going on, the argument can be made in public that the "jury is still out" and from the industry's perspective, "the heat is off". In this case, note specifically that the studies mentioned at the end of the article -- a very selected few from the numerous studies now in the open literature -- are only the studies funded by the industry, with results that mute the present day concern. Don't fall for it.
More research is always a good thing. But, research does not help people who are being exposed to dangerous ICRW (Information-Carrying Radio Waves) today. Research always should be joined with surveillance of high risk groups and the implementation of primary, secondary and tertiary interventions in those high risk groups as appropriate.
G. L. Carlo
Times Letters to the Editor about Mobile Phones
from Vivienne.
I have just received this for circulation to others.
Regards,
V.
Sent: Monday, January 22, 2007 9:08 AM
Subject: Times Letters to the Editor about Mobile Phones
Further to the articel in the Times newspaper on Saturday, and the piece on Radio 4's Today Programme also on Saturday. These letters appeared this morning in the the Times Newspaper in the Letters to thw Editor column.
Chris
The Times January 22, 2007
Mobile phones and microwave sickness
Sir, As your report suggests, there is indeed a significant health risk posed by devices that emit non-ionising radio-frequency radiation ("Cancer study ordered into mobile phones", report, Jan 20).
The phenomenon was first described in 1945 as "microwave sickness", by Soviet scientists trying to determine why radio and radar operators were developing neurological and cognitive difficulties.
International regulating agencies, as well as the mobile phone and wireless industry, suggest that there is currently "no evidence" to suggest that negative health effects result from such emissions. Digging up the thousands of studies to the contrary is one approach a concerned citizen might take.
Why not just follow the money trail and ask why the insurance industry has refused, since the late 1990s, to insure telephone companies for the potential health effects of their wireless and mobile products?
DR DAVID FANCY
Brock University, St Catharines, Ontario
Sir, Six years ago, after the publication of the Stewart report, the Department of Health issued a leaflet warning against mobile phone use by under-16s. Similarly, the industry made a commitment not to market phones to children.
Successive ministers have failed to take any positive action to promote the advice in schools or inform parents of this precautionary policy.
Consequently, we have a generation of children addicted to their mobiles and at risk. Given the huge amount of publicity about junk food and other issues affecting the young, it is surprising that the Government keeps so quiet about mobile phones.
Maybe it's something to do with the £23 billion it received from the industry in licence fees.
KAREN BARRATT
Winchester, Hants
Sir, My father is an electronic engineer, and he wouldn't have a mobile phone for years; he knew the possible effects of the radiation they send out.
Do people realise that mobiles are pumping out radiation all the time they are switched on? Every second or so, they send out a signal. This would be less than the radiation transmitted when a phone is in use, but if the phone is switched on all day, it could have a similar cumulative effect, increased if in a rural area or a car, where the signal is amplified to reach the transmitter.
How many people keep a phone in their pocket, near a woman's ovaries and a man's prostate, which are particularly susceptible to cancer, and leave it switched on all day?
STELLA JOB
Kidlington, Oxon
From Mast Sanity/Mast Network
--------
Could these be the cigarettes of the 21st century? 'Absolutely'
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/3209694/
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Carlo
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=microwave+sickness
Starmail - 20. Jan, 22:48
