CAP calls for ban on mobile phones
posted in - Offbeat news, - Palmdoc, - Technology |
The outspoken President of the Consumer’s Association of Penang has called on the Government to Ban mobile phones. Not ban mobile phone use during driving mind you, but ban Mobile phones completely. All this hoohah because a neurosurgeon is saying he believes data shows that there is a link between mobile phones and brain tumours.
The Consumers’ Association of Penang (CAP) has called on the government to ban the use of mobile phones.
Its president, S.M. Mohamed Idris, said a renowned US-based neurosurgeon had warned recently that mobile phones could be a greater threat to human health than smoking and even asbestos.
“This latest alert indicates that using mobile phones for more than 10 years could more than double the risk of brain cancer,” Idris said, citing a study by neurosurgeon Dr Vini Khurana.
At the CAP office here yesterday, Idris said the study by Dr Khurana revealed that there was significant and increasing evidence for a link between mobile phone usage and certain brain tumours.
Here is Dr. Khurana’s Mobile Phone-Brain Tumour Public Health Advisory. According to his website, he is currently based in Australia and not the US.
Every now and then someone will bring up this brain tumour/mobile phone link scare. Basically what Dr. Khurana has done is to review the literature and he has written his conclusions and recommendations in this website. The trouble is, the evidence is “soft” at best and there perhaps confounding factors not accounted for in whatever studies which shows an apparent link. A link mind you is also not the same thing as cause and effect. At the same time, there are studies which also show that Mobiles don’t cause cancer. As you would imagine, there has been follow-up to the publicity from Dr. Khurana’s controversial statement, and you might also want to read:
Pittsburgh Expert Disputes Cell Phone, Brain Cancer Link
Cell Phones and Cancer – Scaremongering from the Independent
Who kicked up the cell phone scare?
Brain cancer fears over heavy mobile phone use
In the last link (Sydney Morning Herald), Dr. Khurana was quoted:
He said the link between mobile phones and brain tumours had not yet been “definitively proven” because widespread mobile phone usage commenced in the mid-1980s and solid tumours might take several years to form.
“In the years 2008-2012, we will have reached the appropriate length of follow-up time to begin to definitively observe the impact of this global technology on brain tumour incidence rates,” Dr Khurana said.
But he said there was already enough evidence to warrant industry and governments taking immediate action to reduce mobile phone users’ exposure to electromagnetic radiation and inform them of potential dangers.
“Worldwide availability and use of appropriately shielded cell phones and hands-free devices including headsets, increased use of landlines and pagers instead of current mobile and cell phones, and restricted use of cellular and cordless phones among children and adults alike are likely to limit the effects of this physically ‘invisible’ danger,” Dr Khurana said.
So Dr. Khurana himself says there is no proven link but it is just a possibility in the years to come. He is calling for the industry to improve shielding and reduce exposure to EMR, not a total ban like what the CAP President is saying. Anyway go read Dr. Khurana’s paper (PDF format) and judge for yourself. I find this part of the paper quite bizarre:
Bluetooth ear-piece devices are NOT safe. Microwaves generated by the mobile phone are wirelessly transferred and directly transmitted into the ear canal and surrounding head region via the coupled blue tooth device
I cannot fathom how “microwaves can be transmitted wirelessly” up to the bluetooth ear-peice. Bluetooth technology employs short range low power radio transmission operating at the 2.4 GHz radio frequency bandwidth. Microwave operates at frequencies between 300 MHz and 300 GHz which includes the 2.4 GHz frequency. My concept is that a wireless Bluetooth headset merely takes the audio transmission from the mobile phone and transmits this via Bluetooth radio frequencies to the headset. The higher power microwave transmission from the mobile phone is further away and how on earth is this also going to “travel up wirelessly” via the Bluetooth radio channel? The main issue is that Bluetooth headsets are LOW POWER devices as compared with the higher power transmission from mobile phones (or even worse Mmicrowave ovens) so they are not the same thing.
In the meantime I am of the opinion that the CAP call for banning mobile phones altogether is not sound. One may argue that banning mobile phone use while driving (even with a hands free kit) is more appropriate since it distracts drivers and causes accidents. I think what the BMJ reminds us in their article “Brains and mobile phones” is sensible:
The biggest risk to health from mobile phones is using them while driving
Not brain tumours!
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May 30th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Sometime I wonder if we were to follow this CAP president advise, we would have to live in stoneage like Flinstone. Maybe he thinks that Malaysian should live like the Amish