A Short History The exponential use of mobile phones Almost every adult has a mobile phone, and so do many

y children. Prof. Kenneth J. Rothman, one of the worlds leading epidemiologists, states the following: Within only a few years a substantial proportion of the worlds population has adopted a new technology that involves placing a small radio transmitter up against the head, in some instances for hours a day.[1] The explosion of mobile phone use in the last few decades has been astounding: In 1988 there were approximately 500,000 mobile phone subscribers in the US, by 1993 this had grown to 13,000,000. [2] By 2006 there were 223 million mobile phone users. [3] Mobile phones transmit and receive Radio Frequency (RF) signals in order to communicate. The RF signals from mobile phones fall within the microwave part of the electromagnetic spectrum.[4] This radiation is also referred to as microwave radiation or electromagnetic radiation. In short: Mobile phones use microwave radiation to communicate. Consequently, our landscapes and cities are covered by base stations that relay the microwave signals used for communication. Both the base stations and the mobile phones emit microwave radiation.

In the last twenty years, the US has adopted mobile phones as a integral part of everyday life; 223 million people have started using personal mobile devices that emit microwave radiation. In order to make this work, there are at least 126,000 cell phone towers that also emit microwave radiation.[5] Could this microwave radiation have a negative impact on our health?

Mobile Phone Disadvantage #1 An Unsafe Safety Standard Microwaves can be harmful to humans, the most obvious harmful effect is heating: warming up your food in the microwave is an everyday example of heating through microwaves. Consequently, safety standards have been established to limit the microwave radiation exposure from mobile phones and base stations. This section will explain why the established safety standards are limited and do not protect your health. One of the first organizations to look to would be the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The FCC has an interesting take on Radio Frequency standards, it states on the FCC website: The FCC is required by the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 to evaluate the effect of

emissions from FCC-regulated transmitters on the quality of the human environment. At the present time there is no federally-mandated radio frequency (RF) exposure standard.[6] The FCC maximum the head through a (SAR): does have a standard that defines the RF energy allowed to be absorbed through when using a mobile phone, measured value called the Specific Absorption Rate

The SAR is a value that corresponds to the relative amount of RF energy absorbed in the head of a user of a wireless handset. The FCC limit for public exposure from cellular telephones is an SAR level of 1.6 watts per kilogram (1.6 W/kg).[7] However, the safety standards only protect from the heating effect of the microwave radiation, also called the thermal effect. If the microwave radiation does not cause a temperature increase in your head of more than one degree, the microwave exposure is deemed to be safe. The underlying assumption is that there cannot be cell damage without heating. And without cell damage, there is no health risk. The no damage without heating-theory can be considered old and backward. Many research studies have shown that non-heating, or non-thermal, microwave radiation has a profoundly negative effect on the human body.

A 2003 study by Prof. Salford et al for example, established for the first time evidence for neurological damage caused by non-thermal microwave exposure.[8] Dr G.J Hyland, an authority on the potential health effects of non-thermal microwave radiation, states that: there is thus absolutely no justification for claiming that Mobile Telecommunication Technology is safe and does not constitute a risk (both directly and indirectly) to public health.[9]

The popular belief that adverse health effects can be induced only by the heating effect of [mobile phone] radiation is a fallacy.[10] Furthermore, mobile phones are not allowed in hospitals and on airplanes due to the concern that the microwave radiation might interfere with the electronics. It does not make sense to acknowledge that there might be interference on sensitive electronic equipment due to the microwaves, but exclude the possibility that these same microwaves might have an impact on our body. After all, the human body is an extremely sensitive electrochemical instrument that uses various wave-based electrical processes (e.g. brain waves), each characterized by a specific frequency.[11]

Concluding, the current safety standards for microwave radiation emitted by mobile phones only take thermal heating into account: microwave radiation is considered to be safe if your body temperature does not increase by more than one degree. The nonthermal effects are not taken into account, making the safety standards a mockery of public health. New standards should be developed in order to protect the public from the possible health consequences of exposure to microwave radiation. The next article in this series will look into the second disadvantage on mobile phones: