Showing posts with label radiation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label radiation. Show all posts

Cell Phone Radiation Exposure



What is really the truth regarding the cell phone radiation exposure? What do we not know that is hurting us?

I really did not plan on doing research on cell phone radiation exposure, it kind of happened. I was researching information when I came across a recent article in the New York Times. The article made me think. The article made me hungry for more information. I kept diving deeper into the truth. The information I found made me think about my family, my friends, my friend's children, my neighbors....

I pictured the parking lot that I occasionally drive by. It is at the high school at dismissal time, full of teenagers. One by one I could see them with their cell phone up to their ears. I thought of the shopping mall and the number of teenagers with their cell phone up to their ears or seen feverishly texting one right after another. What was the cell phone radiation exposure doing to them?

The thought frightened me some but not as much as the thought of the number of younger children using cell phones now or worse yet playing with the old phones that their parents stopped service on. I hate to admit I had even allowed my children to play with a cell phone once upon a time.......

All I kept thinking about was these innocent children, teenagers, families that one day might be looking at a life threatening diagnosis or problems with their health. As a registered nurse I could envision the treatments, medications, and how life can change in a moment with one test results.

I came across an article that was in the New York Times dated June 3, 2008 written by Tara Parker-Popo. It was titled" Experts Revive Debate Over Cellphones and Cancer What do brain surgeons know about cellphone safety that the rest of us don't?" The article was lengthy. I would recommend reading it. I have included part of the article Last week, three prominent neurosurgeons told the CNN interviewer Larry King that they did not hold cellphones next to their ears. "I think the safe practice," said Dr. Keith Black, a surgeon at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, "is to use an earpiece so you keep the microwave antenna away from your brain."

Dr. Vini Khurana, an associate professor of neurosurgery at the Australian National University who is an outspoken critic of cellphones, said: "I use it on the speaker-phone mode. I do not hold it to my ear." And CNN's chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, a neurosurgeon at Emory University Hospital, said that like Dr. Black he used an earpiece.

"Some of the research suggests a link between cellphone use and three types of tumors: glioma; cancer of the parotid, a salivary gland near the ear; and acoustic neuroma, a tumor that essentially occurs where the ear meets the brain. All these cancers are rare, so even if cellphone use does increase risk, the risk is still very low.

Last year, The American Journal of Epidemiology published data from Israel finding a 58 percent higher risk of parotid gland tumors among heavy cellphone users. Also last year, a Swedish analysis of 16 studies in the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine showed a doubling of risk for acoustic neuroma and glioma after 10 years of heavy cellphone use.

Along with Senator Edward M Kennedy's recent diagnosis of a glioma, a type of tumor that critics have long associated with cellphone use, the doctors' remarks have helped reignite a long-simmering debate about cellphones and cancer."

Later in the article the writer, Tara Parker-Pope quotes concern physicians have regarding children and the long term use especially since the skull is thinner than the adult along with the development and growth of the brain.

After I read this article it affirmed my concerns about cell phone radiation exposure. I wonder what will happen in another 10 years to our children. With all the research out there now why are we not proactive about the cell phone radiation exposure? Perhaps it is the nurse thinking wanting to be proactive and intervene before it becomes too late. It is not surprising though that the population as a whole does not do everything to prevent the worse case scenario. The medical community would like to be more proactive to help achieve a better health but sometimes it is a struggle.

I began my research of any products out there that could help to absorb the radiation and change the future of our children. Too bad the cell phone companies did not catch on.