Cell Phones Health Hazards - Public Awareness

Cell phone health hazards: Public awareness of possible dangers was probably triggered originally by the Reynard brain tumour case in 1992. About eight lawsuits alleging that cellular phones caused brain tumours have been filed in the USA. Although no cases has so far succeeded they have set the stage and raised safety questions in many people's minds. It has raised old spectres such as the thalidomide tragedy - the result of a product being used widely before adequate long term research had been carried out.

The first part of a major new study of 11,000 mobile phone users was released on 14th May 1998 [1] and although ignored by main BBC News programmes, it was given front page banner headlines by the Daily Express on Friday 15th May. This showed little difference for heating, fatigue and headache effects between NMT analogue and GSM digital phones, but did highlight a three to six-fold increase in fatigue and headaches for heavy mobile handset users and up to a 48-fold increase in the sensation of heat on the user's ear, face or head. The first of the study's more detailed findings were shown at the Biolelectromagnetics Society (BEMS) Annual Meeting in Florida in June 1998 and showed significantly more concentration and memory loss symptoms in regular users of the GSM digital phone handsets.

Only a week earlier news had been reported that on Tuesday 5th May the Cumbran Magistrates Court issued a Summons under section 10 of the UK Consumer Protection Act, 1987 for Roger Coghill to bring a private criminal action against a retail distributor of Orange and Motorola mobile phones. The Magistrate ruled that there was enough scientific evidence (before the new “Mild” evidence mentioned above) to issue a Summons and allow the case to go forward. His action claims that the distributors failed to affix required labels to their handsets warning of possible health risks to users from prolonged conversations as is required by the 1987 CP Act as there is now reasonable evidence of handset use causing possible adverse health effects. He has now filed an updated claim and the pre-trial review is scheduled to be heard on 2nd September 1998. [2] A research letter published in the Lancet [3] by a German team showed a statistically significant increase on blood pressure in people who used a GSM phone for 30 minutes. Although the rise was only about 5% it showed an important biological effect and received national media attention.