re:20/20 Safety of Cell Phones

[jillian.wright@detir.qld.gov.au]

Dear Radsafers,
 =

I read through the transcript of the program.
With the exception of the segment at the end (with details of the repo
rt from the Institute for Mobile and SatelliteTechnology, Dusseldorf, =

Germany on the SAR levels measured for 5 different mobile phones), thi
s was presented on the Four Corners on the Australian ABC about three =

months ago.
It raised some interesting issues but left out a whole heap of relevan
t information.
 =

Two particular points of omission are:
1. What epidemiology looks at is the stastistical probability that a h
ealth effect is due to the proposed causation and is unlikely to have =

occurred by accident. Just because the people cited have both used mob
ile phones for extended periods  and have had tumours of certain type =

and location is not evidence of a cause/effect relationship.
2. The World Health Organisation established the International EMF Pro
ject in 1996. The purpose of this program is to address the need for a
n accelaerated program to provide scientific concensus and clarificati
on of these issues. One of the main foci of the program is to ensure t
hat research is conducted in areas where there is dissention about the
 level of risk or insufficient information available to properly asses
s the risk. There is quality control to ensure that the research condu
cted is of an appropriate standard. It is planned to formally assess t
he health risk of EMF exposure after the research is completed. =

There was no reference to the WHO EMF Project in the program. In fact =

the program implied that there was no really independant research bein
g conducted. =

The Home Page for the project is http://www.who.ch/emf/
 =

I have some figures of SAR levels from mobile phones that were measure
d at the National Physics Laboratory, Middlesex, UK. =

The phones tested were more recent models than those tested in Germany
. They were:  Nokia 5110 - fixed antenna 0.37
Nokia 2110 - antenna extended 0.44
                     - antenna retracted 0.25
Nokia 6110 - fixed antenna 0.29
Ericsson GA 628- fixed antenna 0.26
Motorola V 3688 - fixed antenna 0.02
Motorola Star TAC 70 - antenna extended 0.02
                                      - antenna retracted 0.01
 =

They are substantially lower than the German figures. I suspect that t
he measurement methodology, and in paticular the geometry of exposure,
 has a large influence on the SAR levels measured. I would want to kno
w a lot more about this methodology before I decided which report more
 completely reflected the SAR recieved by users of mobile phones. In a
ddition, people in Australia tend to update their mobiles about every =

two years so the current or recently redundent models should be the on
es tested.
 =

The current basis for the current Exposure Limits is that the mechanis
m for biological interaction is solely thermal and that there is no co
nclusive evidence of any other health effect, including carcinogenesis
..
I peronally disagree with this premise as increased rates of bone rege
neration related to diathermy at 27.12 MHz  have been well established
 for many years and hand numbness and diminished  2-PD were found by K
olmodin-Hedman et al in 1988 and hand numbness by Bini et al in 1986. =

Both were noted in operators of dielectric heaters.
 =

Exposure to RF radiation  is certainly one area where the ALARA princi
ple should apply.
 =

Jill Wright
Senior Inspector (Non-Ionising Radiation)
Workplace Health and Safety, DETIR, Queensland, Australia
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