Cell Phones, Towers, and Your Brain

**O'nus** · 12-16-2009 02:37 AM

Many people wondered, and still do, if cell phones and cell phone towers have adverse effects on your brain.

Here are some studies and the results that they have found:

"This review summarizes the current state of evidence concerning whether the RF energy used for wireless communication might be carcinogenic. Relevant studies were identified by searching MedLine with a combination of exposure and endpoint terms. This was supplemented by a review of the over 1700 citations assembled by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) International Committee on Electromagnetic Safety as part of their updating of the IEEE C95.1 RF energy safety guidelines. Where there were multiple studies, preference was given to recent reports, to positive reports of effects and to attempts to confirm such positive reports. Biophysical considerations indicate that there is little theoretical basis for anticipating that RF energy would have significant biological effects at the power levels used by modern mobile phones and their base station antennas. The epidemiological evidence for a causal association between cancer and RF energy is weak and limited. Animal studies have provided no consistent evidence that exposure to RF energy at non-thermal intensities causes or promotes cancer. Extensive in vitro studies have found no consistent evidence of genotoxic potential, but in vitro studies assessing the epigenetic potential of RF energy are limited. Overall, a weight-of-evidence evaluation shows that the current evidence for a causal association between cancer and exposure to RF energy is weak and unconvincing. However, the existing epidemiology is limited and the possibility of epigenetic effects has not been thoroughly evaluated, so that additional research in those areas will be required for a more thorough assessment of the possibility of a causal connection between cancer and the RF energy from mobile telecommunications."
+ International Journal of Radiation Biology
- http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs...53000500091097

"Total HF-EMF and exposure related to mobile telecommunication were far below recommended levels (max. 4.1 mW/m2). Distance from antennae was 24–600 m in the rural area and 20–250 m in the urban area. Average power density was slightly higher in the rural area (0.05 mW/m2) than in the urban area (0.02 mW/m2). Despite the influence of confounding variables, including fear of adverse effects from exposure to HF-EMF from the base station, there was a significant relation of some symptoms to measured power density; this was highest for headaches. Perceptual speed increased, while accuracy decreased insignificantly with increasing exposure levels. There was no significant effect on sleep quality.

Despite very low exposure to HF-EMF, effects on wellbeing and performance cannot be ruled out, as shown by recently obtained experimental results; however, mechanisms of action at these low levels are unknown."
+ Subjective symptoms, sleeping problems, and cognitive performance in subjects living near mobile phone base stations
- http://oem.bmj.com/content/63/5/307....urcetype=HWCIT

"Despite numerous limiting factors entailing a high variability in radiofrequency exposure assessment, but owing to a sound statistical technique, we found that exposures from GSM and DCS base stations increase with distance in the near source zone, to a maximum where the main beam intersects the ground. We believe these results will contribute to the ongoing public debate over the location of base stations and their associated emissions."
+ Residential exposure to radiofrequency fields from mobile phone base stations, and broadcast transmitters: a population-based survey with personal meter
- http://oem.bmj.com/content/66/8/550....urcetype=HWCIT

"Radiofrequency (RF) waves have long been used for different types of information exchange via the airwaves—wireless Morse code, radio, television, and wireless telephony (i.e., construction and operation of telephones or telephonic systems). Increasingly larger numbers of people rely on mobile telephone technology, and health concerns about the associated RF exposure have been raised, particularly because the mobile phone handset operates in close proximity to the human body, and also because large numbers of base station antennas are required to provide widespread availability of service to large populations. The World Health Organization convened an expert workshop to discuss the current state of cellular-telephone health issues, and this article brings together several of the key points that were addressed. The possibility of RF health effects has been investigated in epidemiology studies of cellular telephone users and workers in RF occupations, in experiments with animals exposed to cell-phone RF, and via biophysical consideration of cell-phone RF electric-field intensity and the effect of RF modulation schemes. As summarized here, these separate avenues of scientific investigation provide little support for adverse health effects arising from RF exposure at levels below current international standards. Moreover, radio and television broadcast waves have exposed populations to RF for > 50 years with little evidence of deleterious health consequences. Despite unavoidable uncertainty, current scientific data are consistent with the conclusion that public exposures to permissible RF levels from mobile telephony and base stations are not likely to adversely affect human health."
+ Workgroup Report: Base Stations and Wireless Networks—Radiofrequency (RF) Exposures and Health Consequences
- http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1849947/

"Statistics were calculated with SPSS statistical software. A total of 371 were included in the study. The duration of possession and the daily transmission time correlated negatively with the proportion of rapid progressive motile sperm (r = − 0.12 and r = − 0.19, respectively), and positively with the proportion of slow progressive motile sperm (r = 0.12 and r = 0.28, respectively). The low and high transmitter groups also differed in the proportion of rapid progressive motile sperm (48.7% vs. 40.6%). The prolonged use of cell phones may have negative effects on the sperm motility characteristics."
+ IS THERE A RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CELL PHONE USE AND SEMEN QUALITY?
- http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs...14850190924520

Conclusions (tl;dr):

+ It is really difficult to assess the real affects of cell phones because so much of the population is exposed to it already. Any individual case studies are also suspect to self-fulfilling prophecies. This is a difficult thing to study and gives lots of room for debate.
+ Cell phones do not cause cancer and insignificant correlations to cancer development
+ While there is no genotype influence, there is possible phenotype influences. It is worth further investigation as it is not 100% certain to rule out the possibility of its influence in phenotype expression.
+ There is good reason to believe that cell phone use reduces the motility of sperm.
+ There are regulations to keep cell phone towers at proper distances from urban areas.

Wow. Honestly, ever since the whole Paul Brodeur and his microwave conspiracy (and electrical tower crap), I thought this would be the same case. However, it seems like it may not be.

What do you think...?

~

**nina** · 12-16-2009 02:53 AM

Here's what I think.

**Odd_Nonposter** · 12-16-2009 03:36 AM

All I know or care about is that they are an eyesore.

**Naiya** · 12-16-2009 03:49 AM

I just read about a recent study on this, tried looking for it again but I think I deleted the email with the link. But yeah pretty much reiterated the OP anyway.

**Invader** · 12-17-2009 10:25 PM

Alright, this puts me in a bit of a predicament. I looked a bit more into what
the solid reason was supposed to be that allegedly allows RF to damage
organisms. The answer lies in carrier waves, which are modulated waveforms
that are used to carry information. Carrier waves can be frequency
modulated (FM), amplitude modulated (AM) or pulse modulated. Frequency
modulation is supposed to allow some RF to sometimes resonate
with cell receptor sites inside our bodies, although whether or not that is
true is yet to be determined.

The interesting thing to note, though, is that microwaves do not get short
enough in wavelength to match up with the size of a receptor site (which I
imagine is only a few nanometers in length) to achieve resonance, which
reduces the possibility that cell phone towers can have that effect. It
is instead possible for other, shorter RF bands to do this. Possible.
Under the circumstance that random receptor sites are excited, the cell
would identify the signal as foreign and halt all transport across the cell wall.
Waste would be retained in the cell, sometimes for periods long enough to
cause malfunction with typical cell behavior. It is for this reason that it was
hypothesized that RF could cause cancer. Maybe you can confirm that
waste backup in a cell could effect it to that extent.

[As per the city hearing with cell phone antennas being mounted within 20
feet of where my head is right now, the only thing that can keep a cell
company from going through with this is if there is enough reception in the
area already. The building I reside in has some spotty reception, but that's
due to whatever is in the walls that makes it so. Parking garages do the
same thing, and one doesn't place a cell tower on top of it to remedy the
situation. Since there is no conclusive evidence to suggest that organic
damage will be done to me, though, it feels as if there is less to worry about.]

Now, some questions:

1) Government safety regulations for cell phone towers are based on tissue
heating from RF. Since the RF from a tower heats bellow damaging levels,
cell towers are safe. The fact remains that they cause some heating. I
read somewhere that the cornea has no mechanism by which to cool itself,
and to be exposed to a heat source for long enough can be the cause of
cataracts. Is that true?

2) Is the motility of sperm a result of RF interacting with the sperm cells, or
by RF interacting with something else in the body that is linked to sperm cell
production? That part is interesting.

3) I suggested through PM that the use of a Faraday cage embedded within
the walls of a living unit might yield some worthwhile results, since one of the
problems with the studies is that we are already being exposed to RF on a
daily basis. If RF were canceled out entirely, perhaps some differences in
sleep quality or cognitive function could be found. I think it sounds worthy of
being looked into, what do you think?

4) What do you mean by phenotype expression being influenced by RF?

There are regulations to keep cell phone towers at proper distances from urban areas.

I wish that were the case here!