Letter March 10, 2010

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

By JH Weekly User

Cell Phones—Read the Fine Print  
[This letter has been edited for length. Dr. Davis will speak at the Environmental Health Forum, this week. More on page 43.]

Last week the technology world stood on notice as a fiercely independent state legislator, Democrat Andrea Boland, bucked the Maine political establishment and proposed to place visible warning labels directly on cell phones: 

“Cell phones emit electromagnetic radiation, exposure to which may increase the risk of brain cancer.  Users, especially pregnant women and children, should reduce their exposure.”

The Cellular Telecommunications and Industry Association (CTIA) opposes providing warning labels that can easily be seen on cell phones.  In fact, Boland’s proposal makes it more likely that the harried public will actually see what the manufacturers of phones have quietly begun to tell us.  New phones today come with warnings that few ever see, advising that the phone be kept some distance from the body;  the Motorola V 195, 1 inch, the Blackberry 8300, 0.98 inches, the Nokia, 1100, 1/4 inch and the iPhone, 5/8 inch.  In addition, several of these phones include statements that “phones should not be used or carried on the body.”

A warning found on a pamphlet for the HTC Eris Droid cell phone from Verizon, recommends  “ that no part of the human body be allowed to come too close to the antenna during operation of the equipment,” found on page 11 of the phone’s “Product Safety and Warranty Information” booklet. A customer query about this was referred to an online appendix which explained on page 219: “To comply with RF exposure requirements, a minimum separation distance of 1.5 cm must be maintained between the user’s body and the handset, including the antenna.”

When the urbane Dane Snowden, Vice President for External and State Affairs of the CTIA, was asked at the Maine committee hearing by Representative Peter Stuckey to explain why cell phone manuals included such warnings today, he replied he would have to get back to the committee.  Snowden certainly has experience with consumer matters, having previously served as Chief of the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau of the Federal Communications Commission.

In fact, standards for cell phones were set in 1997, at a time when few people owned phones, and were based on a six-foot-tall man, weighing two hundred pounds, with an 11 pound head talking for six minutes.  The warnings found deep inside the packaging of all modern phones today use this same big guy model.

Today, three out of every four 12 year olds have a phone, as do half of all 10 year olds. For the past decade, there has been no independent research underway on cell phones in the U.S. and there is no ongoing health surveillance, a subject about which I and others testified at the U.S. Senate Hearings in September held by senators Harkin and Specter.  In countries where phones have been used more heavily and for longer periods of time, independent scientists have found four-fold increased risks of brain tumors in those who began to use phones regularly as teen-agers.  Others have found doubled risks in adults who are long-term users.
–Devra Davis, Ph.D., Environmental Health Trust


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Letter March 10, 2010 | Planet JH News Article: Letters To Editor

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