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23/09/2008 - European Parliament Recommends Stricter Safety Limits for Cell PhonesThere have been two stories of significance reported in the last couple of weeks that have gained considerable coverage. The following is highlights taken from them both (second as the first AITN entry) and some brief Powerwatch comments. The European Parliament has voted 522 to 16 to recommend tighter safety standards for cell phones. In light of the growing body of scientific evidence implicating cell phone use with brain tumors, the Parliament says, "The limits on exposure to electromagnetic fields [EMFs] which have been set for the general public are obsolete." The European Parliament "is greatly concerned at the Bio-Initiative international report concerning EMFs, which summarises over 1500 studies on that topic and which points in its conclusions to the health risks posed by emissions from mobile-telephony devices such as mobile telephones, UMTS, WiFi, WiMax and Bluetooth, and also DECT landline telephones." Further, it points out the need to "address vulnerable groups such as pregnant women, newborn babies and children." It is astonishing that the vote had such a huge majority, with 97% of the votes all recommending tighter safety standards. The next issue has to be decide how this is to be reached, but at least there is some level of European recognition that, whilst ICNIRP guidance levels have some valid use, they are not appropriate to national policies where precaution against risk of varying levels of certainty is required. Links
Also in the newsMobile phone use 'raises children's risk of brain cancer fivefold'A number of British newspapers have run with headlines along the lines of "Mobile phone use 'raises children's risk of brain cancer fivefold'" this week. This headline is based on the latest (as of this story unpublished) research by Lennart Hardell. The coverage is referring to data that suggests that, whilst the overall trend in the paper was pointing towards a 70% increase in overall risk for long term mobile phone usage, those that started using their phone when under 20 years of age had this risk increased to a 5-fold risk. The authors themselves caveat that the number of cases were very low, but also commented that there was a consistent relationship between age groups, with the risk increasing the younger the age group was. Links
Illegal masts pulled down in Norway and GreeceFollowing similar recent actions in Norway, the City of Athens has torn down five illegal mobile phone masts that were erected without having following proper procedures, with another three due to be torn down this week. Links
Astonishing misinformation from ScienceMicrowave News have recently covered the article in Science that looked at charges of fraud levelled at some of the research published in the REFLEX report 4 years ago. It started with a shocking opening statement: "The only two peer-reviewed scientific papers showing that electromagnetic fields (EMFs) from cell phones can cause DNA breakage are at the center of a misconduct controversy at the Medical University of Vienna." This is completely incorrect, and has been so since the turn of the century - for the most prestigious scientific journal in the World to report on the current state of the science in this manner is baffling to say the least! The article in Microwave News went on to cover a number of the other papers that have found DNA breakage from cell phone radiation, and there are a number of papers linked on our mobile phones page looking at DNA strand breaks and a number of other cellular effects. Links
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