My point of view is that using a cell phone is a lot like smoking a cigarette in the 1950s. Cell phone makers don't really want you to know how bad these things are for you, even if you might want to know how bad they are for you. So, I remember for example, doctors coming on the TV and smoking cigarettes and saying they were safe for you (as an adult) to smoke and that they smoked and thought cigarettes were perfectly healthy as long as you used filters. This was how ridiculous TV adds regarding cigarettes were in the 1950s. My thought is that cell phones, electric cars and hybrids all cause ill health eventually in people. So, I don't use an electric car or hybrid for this reason yet (until lead shielding is installed regularly to protect the drivers and passengers. Likewise, I never hold a cell phone up to my head to speak (unless I don't have any other choice which is only less than 5% of the time or I use hands free in one of our vehicles. So, I would compare cell phones, electric vehicles, and hybrids to smoking cigarettes in the way they affect people's health especially children growing up riding in one.
It isn't going to kill you this year but in 20 to 50 years likely it is going to (or might) kill you depending upon your genetics.
for example, begin quote from:
Cigarette smoking is responsible for more than 480,000 deaths per year in the United States, including more than 41,000 deaths resulting from secondhand smoke exposure. This is about one in five deaths annually, or 1,300 deaths every day. On average, smokers die 10 years earlier than nonsmokers.
end quote from:
CDC - Fact Sheet - Fast Facts - Smoking & Tobacco Use
So, within 20 to 50 years I expect hybrids, electric cars, and cell phones to be responsible for each likely about 480,000 deaths per year in people who used them back to 2000 or so. So, I would expect this between 2050 and 2070 this century where you would have 480,000 or more dying every year from hybrids, electrics and cell phones (especially in regard to cell phones people who wear their phones over their hearts (all kinds of heart tissue damage and heart attacks), and people who hhold up cell phones to their heads all kinds of brain cancer and other tissue damage in the head.
So, this is why using earphones might be helpful in staying alive longer. Using your speakerphone rather than putting it up to your head is good too or using hands free in your car rather than speaking with the phone up to your head also.
In regard to hybrids and electric vehicles I would rather not regularly be in one every day of my life driving everywhere. This is what I think.
Cell phone radiation study finds more questions than answers
CNN Explains: Cell phones and radiation 02:29
Story highlights
- High cell phone radiation exposure is tied to rare tumors in male rats in a government study
- More research is needed to determine whether similar findings would emerge in humans
(CNN)Cell phone radiation and a potential link to cancer risks have left consumers and scientists alike scratching their heads since mobile phones became widely used in the 1990s.
Some studies have failed to show a link
between radiofrequency from cell phones and certain health problems,
such as increased risks of tumors, while others suggest the opposite.
Now, two much-anticipated reports released Friday by the US Department of Health and Human Services' National Toxicology Program add to the cell phone conundrum.
The
comprehensive research reports detail findings from two large animal
studies -- one in rats and one in mice -- that link high levels of cell
phone radiation to some evidence of carcinogenic activity in male rats,
including a rare type of tumor called a schwannoma in their hearts. There were no such significant findings in the female rats.
Similarly, no significant findings emerged in the mouse study, according to the reports.
The studies were a part of the National Toxicology Program's 10-year, $25 million assessment of radiation exposure and potential health effects.
"One
of the things that we found most interesting about our findings was
that the malignant schwannomas -- even though they occurred in the heart
and not in the head of these animals -- were in fact schwannomas," said
John Bucher, a senior scientist at the National Toxicology Program and
one of the authors of the reports.
"These
experimental animal studies are but one approach to understanding
whether exposures to radio frequency radiation pose a risk to human
health," he said, adding that studies are continuing at the National
Toxicology Program to examine changes on the molecular level in tissue
samples from the rodents.
He added, "I have not changed the way I use a cell phone."
Although
tumors and biological changes were found among rodents in labs, it
remains unclear whether similar findings would emerge in humans, and
more research is needed, Bucher said.
The US Food and Drug Administration
notes that cell phones emit low levels of radiofrequency energy that
are non-ionizing and thus not considered strong enough to permanently
damage biological tissue including DNA.
Cell phone safety confusion and controversy
The National Toxicology Program studies involved about 3,000 rodents in all, Bucher said.
The
animals were exposed to radiofrequency radiation levels equal to and
higher than the highest level currently allowed for mobile phone
emissions. The researchers tracked the health of the animals from in
utero to two years after their birth.
A 2-year-old rat would be somewhat comparable to a 70-year-old human, Bucher said.
The
researchers divided the rodents into two groups based on radiofrequency
radiation levels, low or high, and exposed their entire bodies to
radiofrequency radiation for 10-minute increments totaling to about nine
hours a day over the two-year period.
"It's
important to consider the magnitude of the exposures to the animals in
these studies in relation to what one might typically receive from using
a cell phone," Bucher said. "The lowest energy level of the radio
frequency radiation we studied was similar to the highest level
currently permitted for cell phone emissions."
Among
the male rats, the researchers found tumors in about 6% of those in the
highest radiation exposure group, Bucher said. That percentage
"exceeded the mean historical incidence (0.8%), and exceed the highest
rate observed in a single historical control group (2%) of completed
peer reviewed studies," the researchers wrote.
The
researchers also found that the male rats in the high-exposure group
appeared to live longer than the other rats, but more research is needed
to determine why and how that may be relevant to the study results.
Overall, the findings "don't go much further than what we have reported earlier," he said.
In
2016, the National Toxicology Program released preliminary data
indicating that high levels of cell phone radiation increased brain tumor growth in male rats.
Yet
"after reviewing all of the data from these studies, the evidence for
increased malignant schwannomas in the hearts of male rats is the
strongest cancer finding in our study," Bucher said.
"In
our complete evaluation, we again had a lower level of certainty that
small increases in the numbers of male rats with tumors in the brains
were associated with exposures to cell phone radiofrequency radiation,"
he said. "These findings are termed 'equivocal evidence of carcinogenic
activity,' meaning it was unclear if the tumors were related to the
exposures."
Study: Lifestyle has a bigger role in causing cancer 01:41
In 1999, the FDA nominated cell phone radiofrequency emissions for toxicology and carcinogenity testing.
"It's
important to understand that -- as is commonly done in these types of
risk assessment studies -- the study was designed to test levels of
radiofrequency energy exposures considerably above the current safety
limits for cell phones to help contribute to what we already understand
about the effects of radiofrequency energy on animal tissue," Dr.
Jeffrey Shuren, director of the FDA's Center for Devices and
Radiological Health, said in a statement after the release of the reports.
"The
current safety limits are set to include a 50-fold safety margin from
observed effects of radiofrequency energy exposure. From the FDA's
understanding of the NTP results, male rats that showed carcinogenic
activity were exposed to a radiofrequency energy exposure rate that is
much higher than the current safety standard," he said.
"Looking
at the results in animals, the conclusions still require careful
discussion, as our preliminary understanding of the NTP results is that
the study found mostly equivocal, or ambiguous, evidence that whole body
radiofrequency energy exposures given to rats or mice in the study
actually caused cancer in these animals."
In March, the National Toxicology Program will hold an external expert review of the complete findings from the rodent studies and is accepting public comments.
'It's incumbent on all consumers to pay attention'
Jerry Phillips, a biochemist and director of the Excel Science Center at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, devoted about a decade to examining cell phone radiation during his career and conducted some of the earliest studies on the potential health impacts of cell phones, he said.
Regarding
the new National Toxicology Program reports, "this keeps adding to the
body of evidence that says you really have to be a little careful when
we start talking about human safety and exposure to radiofrequency
fields," said Phillips, who was not involved in the reports.
The
early research Phillips conducted, as a scientist previously with the
US Department of Veterans Affairs' Pettis VA Medical Center in
California, was funded by the telecommunications company Motorola, he
said.
"They
funded us to do some whole animal studies, similar to what NTP did but
with a different premise, and they also funded us to do some other
studies with cells, just isolated cells, and that included a study to
look at DNA damage in response to exposure to two of their cell
telephone signals," Phillips said. "The study was based on the
presumption that this type of radiation, this low-energy non-ionizing
radiation, was not itself going to be carcinogenic."
Those
study results suggested that cell phone radiation possibly could be a
co-carcinogen, "that is if you have another cancer-producing agent, the
radiation would help promote the formation of tumors," he said.
The new National Toxicology Program study suggests otherwise, that it could be carcinogenic, he said.
As
scientists continue to seek answers to the many questions that remain
concerning cell phone radiation safety, Phillips said, he thinks all
consumers should monitor the research findings to come.
"I
think it's incumbent on all consumers to pay attention to any potential
adverse effects of any of the products that we rely on until more
research is done," he said.
In 2010, CTIA, a trade association representing the US wireless communications industry, released a statement about the Interphone project, an international set of studies on cell phone radiation coordinated by the International Agency for Research on Cancer.
"CTIA
and the wireless industry support continuing efforts of public health
specialists and expert scientists in this area," the statement said.
"All
cell phones sold in the U.S. must comply with the FCC's radiofrequency
exposure standards, which are designed to include a substantial margin
of safety for consumers. Numerous experts and government health and
safety organizations around the world have reviewed the existing
database of studies and ongoing research and concluded that RF products
meeting established safety guidelines pose no known health risk."
CNN has contacted the association for a response to the latest study but has not heard back at time of publication.
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