"Disconnect": Why cellphones may be killing us [View All]

[Prometheus Bound]

"Disconnect": Why cellphones may be killing us
Sunday, Oct 10, 2010

A new book probes the connection between mobile devices and a host of health problems -- with frightening results

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In "Disconnect," Devra Davis, a scientist and National Book Award finalist for "When Smoke Ran Like Water," looks at the connection between cellphones and health problems, with some disturbing results. Recent studies have tied cellphone use to rises in brain damage, cheek cancer and malfunctioning sperm. She reveals the unsettling fact that many new cellphones now come with the small-print warning that they are to be kept at least one-inch from the ear (presumably for safety reasons) and many insurance companies refuse to insure cellphone companies against health-related claims. Most troubling of all, science has shown that children and teenagers are particularly susceptible to cellphone radiation, raising questions about its effects on coming generations.

Salon spoke to Davis, via land line, about the real dangers of cellphone use, the industry's coverup and what we can do to protect ourselves and our children.

What to you is the most compelling evidence that links cellphones to brain cancer?

The brain cancer connection is in fact a very complicated one. Cancer can take a long time to develop. After the Hiroshima bomb fell, there was no increase in brain cancer for 10 years, even 20 years afterward. Forty years later, there was a significant increase in brain cancer in people who survived the bombing. Now, for studies of people who have been heavy cellphone users (defined as someone who has made a half-hour call a day for 10 years), there is a 50 percent increase in brain cancer overall. And among the heaviest users there's a two- to fourfold increased risk.

And what is the compelling evidence to suggest that cellphones might be tied to sterility in men?

In 2008, researchers found that men with the lowest sperm counts were significantly more likely to keep their phones on their bodies all the time. And it's been found that the sperm exposed to the highest level of radiation from the phone were the most deformed and the worst swimmers. An Australian team led by a fellow named John Aitkin believes that cellphone radiation weakens the ability of the sperm cell to swim because it's affecting mitochondrial DNA (mitochondria are basically the engines of the cell). Very similar work was done at one of the top research institutions in Turkey, and in Poland, Hungary and India.

More: http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2010/10/10/disconnect_cell_phone_interview/

"Disconnect" is also covered here in The Globe and Mail: The disturbing truth about cellphones
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/the-disturbing-truth-about-cellphones/article1724983/