Are 100 million Americans and 500 million people worldwide exposed to potentially harmful radiation every time they use their cell phone?
This book is a gripping narrative of scientific detection that answers this and other troubling questions, while also telling a disturbing tale of governmental neglect, corporate manipulation, and personal tenacity and courage. It is essential reading if you are among the millions of Americans who hold a cellular telephone against your head every day, if you are beguiled by the newest wireless Internet gadgets, or if you just want to know whether government is truly looking after the public's health.
No appliance of our time has found more consumer acceptance than the cell phone, yet an undercurrent of concern about possible health effects has pervaded public awareness since 1992, when reports began appearing of people who'd developed brain tumors after using the device. The wireless industry quickly appointed an independent scientist, Dr. George Carlo, to study the issue. Though industry officials claimed that “thousands of studies” already demonstrated cell phone safety, Carlo vowed to follow the science wherever it might lead him. In fact, he soon discovered that few studies had ever been done, and there was certainly no consensus on the vital question of whether we're exposed to dangerous radiation each time we place a cell phone to our head.
One by one, alarming signs appeared in Dr. Carlo's research: that cell phones interfere with heart pacemakers; that the developing skulls of children are penetrated deeply by the energy emitted from a cell phone; that the blood brain barrier, which prevents invasion of the brain by toxins, can be compromised by cell phone radiation; and most startlingly, that radio frequency radiation creates micronuclei in human blood cells, a type of genetic damage known to be a diagnostic marker for cancer. Yet, in 1999 the industry debuted cell phones emblazoned with colorful cartoon characters - designed to appeal to children.
As Dr. Carlo continued turning up scientific findings that cell phones may pose health risks, the industry responded by not renewing his research funding, and sought to discredit him personally among reporters and other scientists. Undeterred, he redoubled his efforts to learn the truth and discover what critical safeguards can still be devised to protect the public health.
Dr. Carlo and veteran journalist Martin Schram's book is a clarion call for more research to develop wireless devices that do not harm consumers and for more aggressive supervision by Congress and federal regulatory agencies. It will leave reders angry and incredulous that a device about which so many unanswered questions still hover is being marketed to an unsuspecting public.
The authors also provide the most thorough presentation offered anywhere of preventive safeguards consumers can adopt right now. Their fascinating and troubling examination of the collision between science and politics, presented in an ingenious format that directs readers to alternately “Follow the Science” and “Follow the Politics”, is an accessible and enlightening primer for which concerned members of the public will be deeply grateful and which policymakers will ignore at all our peril.
