Judging by this article in the Independent, I smell another round of debate coming regarding cell phones and health:
A giant study, which surveyed more than 13,000 children, found that using the handsets just two or three times a day was enough to raise the risk of their babies developing hyperactivity and difficulties with conduct, emotions and relationships by the time they reached school age. And it adds that the likelihood is even greater if the children themselves used the phones before the age of seven.[...]
They found that mothers who did use the handsets were 54 per cent more likely to have children with behavioural problems and that the likelihood increased with the amount of potential exposure to the radiation. And when the children also later used the phones they were, overall, 80 per cent more likely to suffer from difficulties with behaviour. They were 25 per cent more at risk from emotional problems, 34 per cent more likely to suffer from difficulties relating to their peers, 35 per cent more likely to be hyperactive, and 49 per cent more prone to problems with conduct.
The scientists say that the results were “unexpected”, and that they knew of no biological mechanisms that could cause them. But when they tried to explain them by accounting for other possible causes – such as smoking during pregnancy, family psychiatric history or socio-economic status – they found that, far from disappearing, the association with mobile phone use got even stronger.
You know, we’ve had a bumper crop of baby bumps in my office this spring. I’m reminded of just how many ladies in the office will chat on their cell phones while walking outside at lunch…or of the guys in the office whose young children will call them on the cell phone when picked up from day care….
4 responses so far ↓
1 Iesha // 20 May 2008 at 10:14 am
Is this actually true that a cell phone could harm your fetus?
2 HonoluluSheri // 20 May 2008 at 11:40 am
BRAVO!! Now I have something to show my adult children!
This reminds me of the first warnings about cigarettes actually NOT being too good for you…(see also the last scene in the movie Thank You For Smoking).
Children in Britain are kept from using Cell Phones because they believe Cell Phones Hurt People! The FDA and Public Health do not protect us - remember always: this is a Capatalistic Republic and big business/money is the “Ruler.”
Thanks to our Government’s FAILURE TO DEMAND IT, you can’t even GET a reliable report on the SAR value ratings (the measure the strength of the signals/radiation coming from each phone) because each phone company plays games when measuring them . You can’t make reliable comparisons (even if you could believe the data at all!)
Aside from the “drunk driver syndrome” one takes on while talking on a cell phone while driving (only a few states have banned this deadly practice!!), it will probably take our country the same thirty years to admit that Cell Phones Cause Health Problems that it took to admit the tobacco industry had deceived them. Rich companies can pay any expert to lie! We’ve all seen too much of this. And then there was Enron.
The studies have been out for a while - just like the studies talking about toxic fumes from new RVs and Mobil Homes (formaldehyde) which have been out since the 1980s and yet our government STILL does not demand changes in the RV/Manufactured home industries practices…..AND they give them away to Katrina victims!!!
Look at how our Government inspectors are handling diseased beef, contaminated medical ingredients imported from China, and on and on and on.
Lets take back our country. BOYCOTT gasoline. Boycott GMO foods. Boycott cell phones until they act with care and responsibility and stop lying to us. Withholding our dollar from those who abuse us is the only way to make big business listen.
We used to have bumper stickers in the 1970s which read, GO TO HEALTH, FDA! We should also include all Government agencies whose job it is to protect us, not take bribes from big business.
3 Anonymous // 21 May 2008 at 12:43 am
Well gee thank you for trying to add more limitations to pregnant women. Next thing we know we will be locked in padded rooms just because “everything will be not good for us”! Newsflash! Kids have had behavioral problems since the beginning of time without the aid of cell phones.
4 MikeTheActuary // 21 May 2008 at 10:49 pm
Considering the epidemic of pregnancies that broke out in my office over the winter, I have a newfound respect for the restrictions that pregnant women are told to live under.
It’s something I’m never going to be able to experience, however, due to my wife’s health problems. She had a brain injury in a car accident over six years ago.
She’s actually doing much better now, thanks to an implant that she’s gotten inside her head, which delivers the smallest of electrical charges to her brain. The effect of it seems to be to distract her brain from all the anomalous noise caused by her injury…and the effects are amazing.
Precisely how or why it works, we don’t know. Other than intellectual/geeky curiosity….well frankly, I don’t care how it works. All I know is that there is a definite effect.
If a tiny bit of electromagnetic energy can have such a profound impact on an adult brain, imagine what a similar amount of energy can do to a child or fetus’ developing brain.
Consider the amount of new sources of electromagnetic energy that we’ve seen introduced into our environment in the past 10 years — cell-phones, cordless phones, wi fi, ….
I wouldn’t advocate that folks become complete luddites when it comes to children…but what’s the harm in trying to reduce the risk, by using headsets and wired lines, given that even a formerly skeptical scientist sees an (admittedly unexplained) correlation?