Mobile phone charging

The Times is not a scientific journal. It is a news tabloid.

Sir William Stewart did not write the 2005 report the Times claimed he wrote. The article is an update of a 2000 paper by the IEGMP, which is chaired by Sir William.

http://www.hpa.org.uk/webw/HPAweb&HPAwebStandard/HPAweb_C/1195733730486?p=1158945066117

In 2000 they concluded that the studies to date were inconclusive. No link was shown between cell phone use and adverse health effects. However, the studies also could not prove that no such link exists.

Sir William is the chair of the National Radiological Protection Board, which commissioned the team of scientists that wrote the article reviewing the four studies in Europe. The conclusion of the NRPB was that the studies were inconclusive. Sir William commented to the press after the article was released that the results were inconclusive. I fail to see how that constitutes a danger.

The Health Protection Agency (which by the way is chaired by Sir William Stewart) published a paper last year (2008) stating the following:

"The radio waves that are directed towards the head of the phone user penetrate into the body tissues for a few cm and tend to be absorbed. In being absorbed, they give up their energy to the body tissues and this adds to the energy being produced by the body's metabolism.

Up to a point, the body is able to accommodate extra energy being absorbed in its tissues, but beyond this point, temperature rises or thermoregulatory responses can occur. Protection guidelines advise restrictions on energy absorption in tissues designed to ensure that such effects are small enough not to pose a hazard.

Calculations have shown that the maximum temperature rise produced in the head due to absorption of energy in the radio waves from a mobile phone is around 0.1ºC. Although the IEGMP did not identify any adverse effects on health at this level of exposure, there is no comparable situation where large numbers of people are exposed. It is for this reason that research related to exposure to RF from mobile phones is currently being carried out."

Nobody has yet proven any causal link between heavy cell phone use and tumors. The studies have been at best inconclusive. Likewise, nobody has conclusively proven that jet contrails cause insanity, or that LEDs cause warts. I use a laptop, which emits heat and RF energy; nobody has proven that laptops cause lupus, so I guess I'm running a risk.

You can live your life in fear, getting your scientific information from The Times, but I prefer to get my science from scientists. If the scientific community has not yet shown a causal link, I'm ready to presume there is none. Maybe that means I'll get lupus, but I doubt it.