Warning: Limit cellphone use now

Warning: Limit cellphone use now   Thu, July 24, 2008
By JENNIFER C. YATES AND SETH BORENSTEIN, AP

PITTSBURGH — The head of a prominent cancer research institute issued an unprecedented warning to his faculty and staff yesterday: Limit cellphone use because of the possible risk of cancer.

The warning from Dr. Ronald B. Herberman, director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, is contrary to numerous studies that don’t find a link between increased tumours and cellphone use, and a public lack of worry by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Herberman is basing his alarm on early, unpublished data. He says it takes too long to get answers from science and he believes people should take action now — especially when it comes to children.

"Really at the heart of my concern is that we shouldn’t wait for a definitive study to come out, but err on the side of being safe rather than sorry later," Herberman said.

Herberman’s advice is sure to raise concern among many cellphone users and especially parents.

In the memo he sent to about 3,000 faculty and staff yesterday, he says children should use cellphones only for emergencies because their brains are still developing.

Adults should keep the phone away from the head and use the speakerphone or a wireless headset, he says. He even warns against using cellphones in public places like a bus because it exposes others to the phone’s electromagnetic fields.

The issue that concerns some scientists is electromagnetic radiation and its possible effects on children.

It’s not a major topic in conferences of brain specialists.

A 2008 University of Utah analysis looked at nine studies with thousands of brain tumour patients and concludes "we found no overall increased risk of brain tumours among cellular phone users. The potential elevated risk of brain tumours after long-term cellular phone use awaits confirmation by future studies."

Studies last year in France and Norway concluded the same thing.

Still, Herberman cites a "growing body of literature linking long-term cellphone use to possible adverse health effects including cancer."

"Although the evidence is still controversial, I am convinced that there are sufficient data to warrant issuing an advisory to share some precautionary advice on cell phone use," he wrote in his memo.

A driving force behind the memo was Devra Lee Davis, the director of the university’s centre for environmental oncology.

"The question is do you want to play Russian roulette with your brain?" she said in a cellphone interview. "I don’t know that cellphones are dangerous. But I don’t know that they are safe."

Of concern are the still-unknown effects of more than a decade of cellphone use, with some studies raising alarms, said Davis, a former health adviser in the Clinton Administration.

She said 20 groups have endorsed the advice the Pittsburgh cancer institute gave, and authorities in England, France, India and Canada have cautioned children’s use of cellphones.

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty recently advised parents to limit their children’s use of cellphones after Toronto Public Health issued an advisory telling parents to take precautions to minimize their children’s exposure to radio frequency waves from cellphones until more research is done. Toronto public health officials said children under eight should use land lines when they can and use a cellphone only when needed. They advised children and teens to limit their cellphone use whenever possible.

Herberman and Davis point to a massive ongoing research project known as Interphone, involving scientists in 13 nations, mostly in Europe. The published research focuses on more than 5,000 cases of brain tumours.

 

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