Phones and electromagnetic pollution
The 'widespread use of mobile phones even by children Mobile antennas: Possible long-term risks and adolescents, and the resulting proliferation of the "repeaters" (antennas mounted on poles and pylons, known as "base stations", SBR ), are visible to everyone.
Italy ranks first worldwide in number of phones per capita and per kilometer of SBR, exceeds by 5-10 times far more technologically advanced nations (Germany, England, USA), and is preceded in this "special" classifies only the city of Hong Kong.
The perception of a possible risk to human health following exposure to electromagnetic fields (EMF) used for this technology has spread in recent years without finding a clear answer from the health authorities, scientists and the press, even with news contradictory, alarming or all of tranquilizers, with a consequent spread misinformation.
So I will provide an update of the objective scientific results on the long-term cancerogenetici, therefore particularly severe and irreversible, attributable to this technology. As for mobile phones (cordless, cellular analog and digital), the results published by three groups of researchers in fifteen articles on best international journals, demonstrate consistent and statistically significant increased risk of developing tumors in the head , benign and malignant, for regular users of mobile phones. This increased risk cancerogenetico (up to four times more than those who does not use mobile phones) is shown with certainty only after ten years into the use of mobile phones because this is the "latency time" of the tumors head, ie the time that elapses between the induction of the tumor at the cellular level and the possibility of medical diagnosis based on the development of macroscopic tumor. This explains why another fifteen studies, invariably supported by mobile phone operators, based on latency of less than five years and of those who had made occasional use of mobile phones, found no increased risk of cancer, have indeed shown a reduction of risk, ie, a protective effect of the use of mobile phones as regards the incidence of tumors in the head and even in other organs!
Unfortunately, these latest figures, devoid of any scientific substance, are almost always the only ones that are cited by authorities and by certain "experts" official order to reassure the public.
The possibility of carcinogenic risk resulting regular and prolonged use of mobile phones is confirmed by several observations:
1) tumors are more frequent on the side of the head on which the phone is used, where there is more exposure to electromagnetic fields;
2) the number of tumors increases with the duration of use of the mobile phone and with increasing intensity of cem issued by this, for example when the cell compensates by activating its own battery, a weak signal of SRB (ie, when there are few "notches" on the screen): ie there is a definite dose-effect relationship;
3) the authors who had published negative results, given the opportunity to observe patients with "latent period" of at least ten years in the use of the phone, had to realize significant increases in the risk of cancer;
4) in Padua, for example, there was an increase in hospitalizations for brain cancer fivefold since 1996 (60 cases) to 2002 (296 cases), and these tumors primarily affect the "white collar", that is to say the professionals, clerks and technicians to work intensively using mobile phones.
Regarding the risk of cancer among people living in the vicinity of radio base stations, apart from anecdotal reports, ie reports of "clusters" ("clusters") of tumors in the vicinity of a SRB, has been published to date a single epidemiological study (Eger et al; Umwelt-Medizin.Gesellschaft, 17.04.2004) which showed an increase of 2-3 times, statistically significant, the risk of getting cancer in the population living in the vicinity of the SRB and that is exposed to levels of electromagnetic fields significantly higher than the population lives far away.
This study was conducted in Germany where, despite the limitations of the law is more permissive, that is, with levels of EMF higher than in Italy, given the lower use of cell phones and then the smallest number of SRB, the average levels of EMF are significantly lower than in our cities.
This unique study on the increase of tumors in the vicinity of SRB is, for now, purely illustrative, but highlights the urgent need to extend as soon as this type of investigation. In fact, by all the data now available on the biological effects and those of acute health fields produced by mobile phones and base stations, is no longer tenable the argument that there is a causal link between emissions of telephony and damage to human health.
The cell phone is an important technology that has developed in a particularly tumultuous in the last 20 years, still has huge potential for expansion. If exposure to c.e.m. used for cellular telephony proves associated with an increase, however slight, of any type of harmful effect to human health, the enormous number of users and the now ubiquitous presence of electromagnetic fields of significant intensity, may give rise to a health problem potentially very serious.
As always happens when science begins to investigate the possible harmful effects due to the use of products which are hidden behind the huge economic interests and planetary (think tobacco, asbestos, vinyl chloride and, more generally, to the plastics industry), even in the case of mobile telephony in the scientific literature on the subject reflects the constraints exercised by the producers through targeted funding, monitoring results, political influence, conflicts of interest and other now well-tested practices such as bribery, media campaigns, confidential information, etc..
There is certainly no coincidence that studies funded by the managers or producers have consistently given negative results with regard to possible harm to human health produced by exposure to EMF used in mobile telephony. Although these studies have proved inconsistent for a thorough examination, they end up making confusing and contradictory to the overall picture, even in the presence of an excess of positive data products through research, "independent".
In the face of a very considerable mass of experimental data that emphasize biological and health effects and possible mechanisms of action at the molecular, cellular and physiological cem used in mobile telephony, is now untenable and totally unjustified position of the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the European Community, in fact stops guidelines established in the late '80s. These guidelines, in fact, are based, for the purposes of the definition of exposure limits:
a) only on the health effects, thus ignoring the biological data that underlie them and which clarify the mechanisms of induction;
b) only on the effects definitively established, notwithstanding the provisions of the precautionary principle;
c) only on the effects of thermal nature, and are now well-documented effects "nonthermal" or "very low intensity";
d) only on the acute, short-term, in spite of the data documented in the literature related to chronic effects in the long term, particularly genetic and cancerogenetici. This position of the WHO and the EC, rigid, ahistorical, refusing even the scientific comparison, appears to be conditioned not so much by prudence as well identifiable by conservation interests.
The Precautionary Principle, was born in strictly environmental issues (Rio de Janeiro, 1992) and became part of the Treaty establishing the European Union (Maastricht, 1994), in its extension to respond to health aspects of management policy the risk that applies in circumstances with a high degree of uncertainty in scientific data, and reflects the need to take steps to limit a potential serious risk, without having to await the result of scientific research.
In essence, it suggests to adopt measures to prevent harm, even when you are completely certain that the harm will occur. By adhering to this approach, the precautionary principle had been well embedded in our national and regional exposures to EMF, and this was also due to the need to protect health, especially the most sensitive subjects (children, elderly, sick) by the pursuit of "quality objectives" that minimizzassero exposures, even at lower values than those reached on the basis of exposure limits and values of conservatism.
Unfortunately, since 2002 this has been frustrated by the issue of laws that have effectively made it unenforceable on the precautionary principle and "quality objectives".
Nevertheless, the Italian courts of all levels has seen fit to continue to protect the right of priority to advance health and physical integrity of citizens in the face of scientific evidence of possible increases in risk, even when it exceeds the limits set by New laws now in force would mean that cell phone use decreases the risk of getting cancer.
Note: Excerpt from "Mobile phone, our own worst enemy" of www.casasalute.it