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Recently, two well-known scientists in the U.S., David Carpenter, the director of the Institute of Health and Environment at the University of Albany, and Ronald Herberman, director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, gave testimony to a House Subcommittee on the potential dangers of cell phone radiation to the human body—and in particular to children. The testimony was significant in that it was the first time that such high-level individuals from leading health/cancer institutions of learning have issued such warnings at this level of government.

The global cell phone industry is estimated to be worth more than $40 billion, and there are now approximately 3 billion people using cell phones around the planet. Here in Japan, as of August 2008, there were 104,426,900 cell phone subscribers, meaning that many adults have two devices and most kids of school-going age also have one. Indeed, around 30% of elementary school students, 58% of middle school students, and 96% of high school students now have a cell phone. Thus, if were proven that cell phones can cause cancer, a huge business sector would be thrown into chaos.

I was intrigued. What made Carpenter and Herberman decide to risk their professional reputations and state that the cell phone industry may be creating a health problem at least as big as the tobacco industry did with lung cancer? Their actions are especially notable because the official line from U.S. government authorities, from the FCC and FDA on down that hundreds of health studies made to date have shown little or no correlation between cancer and cell phone usage.

Carpenter and Herberman men presented to the subcommittee a number of European studies that show that certain cancers do in fact appear to be related to high cell phone usage—such as one by Swedish cancer researcher Lennart Hardell, which has found that certain rare benign tumors on the auditory nerves of the inner ear are most likely to occur on the side of the face where the user holds their cell phone. And another by the Royal Society in London which reported last year that adolescents who start using cell phones before the age of 20 are five times more likely to develop brain cancer by the age of 30 than those who didn’t.

It is this last connection about kids that has most people worried, and indeed, Herberman showed the subcommittee images of how radiation from a cell phone can penetrate far deeper into the brain of a child, due to the thinner bone of their skulls.

If true, that cell phones can trigger various brain cancers and are particularly dangerous for children, this would constitute a major worry for those of us living in Japan, where the authorities are encouraging parents to give their young school children GPS-loaded cell phones so as to keep track of their children. Although on the face of it, such cell phones are only used occasionally, the kids soon learn that it is fun to talk to their friends after school, and before you know it the parents are having to introduce usage limits because the kids are blowing out the family’s phone budget.

I know from personal experience that pre-teens and teens in particular live on their cell phones and will easily use them for hours a day if not supervised properly. Family plans and other flat-rate pricing schemes have exacerbated the problem, and for an average kid going to a cram school until 8 or 9 o’clock in the evening, adequate supervision of their phone usage by their parents is not very likely.

The real problem is that there is so much conflicting information out there about whether or not cell phones can cause cancer. As of 2006, there were about 500 human studies on the subject, with about half stating cell phones are safe and half saying they are not. Typical of this situation was a famous 2004 Swedish study which found that there was a 240% higher likelihood of acoustic neuroma suffers having the tumor appear on the side of the head where they would hold their phone cell—thus indicating a direct link between cell phones and certain types of brain cancers. But then in 2006, a Danish study of 420,000 people who were also cell phone users declared that they could find no connection to usage and cancer. Furthermore, a major British study written up in 2007 came up with a similar conclusion—that there was no demonstrable connection.

As recently as February of this year, researchers at the Tokyo Women’s Medical University found that from a base of 322 brain cancer patients they could not establish a relationship between their patients’ condition and the use of cell phones. As a result of the study, the media ran headlines around the world stating “Japanese Study Clears Mobiles of Brain Cancer Risk.”

But while the Japanese researchers were unable to establish a connection, it is probably fair to say that their sample was both very small and that they were looking at very specific thermal effects of phone radiation rather than considering other possible causal factors. Most researchers agree that if cell phone radiation (RF) was a problem, it would hurt human cells by heating effects that break down the DNA proteins or cause so-called heat-shock proteins to appear in cells. Conventional thinking is that cell phones are unlikely to cause direct cell ionization of the type found with gamma rays and X-rays. But the problem is that repeated experiments have failed to show actual deleterious effects caused by heating human cells with cell phone radiation.

However, a new line of research came up last year when Israeli scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science found that that short-term exposure to low-level cell phone radiation (875Mhz) can trigger a chemical switch that controls how human and rat cells divide. The Israelis were quick to say that they are drawing no health conclusions about their experiments, but the fact remains that there is now proof that cells are indeed affected non-thermally by cell phones.

So do cell phones cause cancer or not? No one knows for sure. But Dr Herberman probably takes the best stance on the subject by advising cell phone users to err on the side of caution. He says that cell phone usage has really only become widespread in the last decade, and it will be another 10-20 years before any really significant health demographics start to emerge—much the same situation as for smoking and lung cancer 30 years ago.

Thus, while there is no proof cell phones are dangerous, there is also no proof they are safe. And where children are involved, given their proven susceptibility to deeper brain penetration by cell phone radiation, if it comes about that a cell phone-cancer connection is found, then it will be these children who will bear the brunt of the resulting health fall-out.

Herberman suggests the following tips for limiting your exposure to possible radiation effects—particularly for children:

1. Use a convention fixed-line phone if one is available
2. Keep cell phone conversations short
3. Use a hands-free device or attachment that keeps the
phone antenna away from your head
4. Limit your childrens’ cell phone use
5. Keep your cell phone away from your body when it’s turned on

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