Your Mobile Phone could Damage Your Health or even Kill You
Could your phone be a danger to you? Most people assume mobile phones are safe and have been responsibly tested for safety. Neither is true
Why did France suspend the sale of 46 types of mobile phones? Why do many countries not allow mobiles to be sold to those under 16 years. Why will no insurance companies insure the phone industry against claims for health damage? Why do all phones come with a warning (in the small print) to keep phones at least half an inch from the body? Why have both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates banned their children from using most of the devices their companies sell?
What are those risks?
- Mobile phones do cause cancer.
- Mobile phones do lower sperm counts and damages fertility.
- In pregnancy, mobile phones can damage baby even before it is born.
MOBILE PHONES CAN CAUSE CANCER
Every study that has analysed phone use for over a decade has found higher rates of both benign and malignant brain tumours in heavy phone users. Teenagers in Sweden who regularly used mobile phones had a four to eight times risk of malignant brain tumours as young adults.
The majority of brain tumours associated with mobile microwave radiation are gliomas. Gliomas are not just cancers, they are a death sentence. Fifty per cent of people with gliomas are dead within two years.
Heavy phone users have a higher risk of parotid (salivary gland) and thyroid tumours (in those with a specific genetic variations). Tumours of the auditory nerve (acoustic neuromas) are three times more common in those who have used mobiles for over a decade. Taiwanese women who kept their mobiles near their chest and abdomen had a five-fold and four-fold increased risk of breast cancer, respectively. (Note the eyes, the brain, the acoustic nerve and the parotid gland receive high levels of microwave radiation from mobile phone calls.) There have been 38 cases of atypical breast cancer in women who keep their mobile phone in their bras. Mobile phone radiation accelerates the growth of thyroid and colorectal cancer cells.
Mobile radiation speeds up the growth of malignant cells from thyroid and colorectal cancer cells.
Many who have died with brain tumours say they would never have used their mobile phones in the same way (putting the phones to head for long periods) if they had been warned about the risks.
Take the case of 15-year-old Justis Greto. He had a wifi booster in his bedroom so he could play video games. His dog always lay beside him in his bedroom while he played these games. Both he and his dog later died from brain tumours.
MOBILE PHONES DAMAGE FERTILITY
Males who use their mobile phones most have the most sickly and lowest number of sperm. Keeping a mobile in a trouser pocket damages sperm. Rats exposed for one hour a day in the equivalent of their teens had long-lasting reductions in sperm count and lowered male hormones. Men with the lowest sperm counts were much more likely to keep their mobiles on their bodies much of the time. Mobile phone use is likely to be a major and often overlooked cause of infertility.
MOBILES USED IN PREGNANCY CAN DAMAGE THE FOETUS
Rodents in the womb exposed to mobile phone radiation developed shortened attention span and serious behavioural problems. Others studies showed damage to brain DNA, defects in learning and change in the appearance of brain cells of the foetus after exposure to mobile phone radiation during pregnancy.
Women are warned not to smoke and to eat healthily in pregnancy but rarely to keep phone use to a minimum. The BabySafe Project founded in 2015 by 300 physicians, scientists and educators has warned of the danger of radiation from mobiles. Nearly all women now use mobile phones during pregnancy so the majority of babies born today have been exposed to microwave harmful radiation with unknown consequences. The potential danger to future generations is compelling and deeply troubling.
Children can be harmed too. In Russia children between five and twelve were followed and tested every year. One group used mobiles, one didn’t. Those that did use mobiles had reduced memory, reduced attention span and more fatigue.
Children are more vulnerable. They can take in double the amount of radiation compared to an adult and can absorb and ten times as much radiation to the bone marrow. And yet half of eight-year-olds in the USA have mobile phones and some teenagers and young adults use them for six hours a day.
WHY HAVE I NOT BEEN TOLD THIS
The phone industry has gone to extraordinary lengths to keep the dangers of mobile phones quiet (the book Disconnect by Devra Davis gives shocking details about how this has been done) despite the fact that they knew they could damage the health of whole generations before they were born.
Current safety standards are woefully inadequate and assume phones can have no biological effect without a change of temperature. They measure heating effects on the model of a very large adult making a six-minute call. It has been known for many years that biological effects, notably damage and poor repair of DNA occur without heating effects.
For two decades studies have consistently shown that legally allowed levels of microwave (mobile) radiation can have serious adverse health effects.
WHAT TO DO
Just knowing phones are a danger to health is a start.
Keep mobiles away from your body, (including when using Bluetooth in a car). Distance counts. Every mm away from the body reduces exposure by 15%.
Don’t carry phones in pockets next to the body.
Don’t sleep near a mobile phone or charge the phone in the bedroom.
Keep calls short and where possible use ear phones or phone on speaker.
Avoid airpods. These send microwaves right through the brain and eyes and have never been tested for safety. Wired air tube headsets are okay.
Switch to airplane mode when not using. However, many models will continue to transmit microwave radiation until Bluetooth, Hotspots and wifi tracking and others are switched off. Some phones will emit even when turned off (for geolocation).
Be careful if downloading large files (videos, audio) or if using in a low service area. In these situations, microwave radiation will be high.
Beware of other sources of microwave radiation:
Keep your distance from routers/modems.
Don’t put laptops on your lap and use battery-mode where possible to reduce radiation.
WHAT COULD BE DONE
We go to great lengths to make cars and planes safer. Not so, mobile phones. And yet, the industry could make mobile phones safer tomorrow. They already have the technology. In France when the sales of many mobile phones were suspended, the phone companies sent software updates to reduce the level of radiation and make them safer straight away (but only to France).
These companies also have the technology to warn people if the phone is being held too close to the body. They could reduce radiation by between 50-99% making them far safer. The technology to default to airplane mode exists as does the technology to monitor call time and warn when radiation levels become too high. They could work on much shorter wavelengths which do not cause vibrations in the human body. They could redesign antennae to use less power.
OTHER SOURCES OF INFORMATION
Disconnect by Devra Davis (on which this leaflet is based).
www.radiationresearch.org