Cell Phone Radiation, Health Risk and Precautionary Principle · Health Risk and Precautionary Principle ... •Based on thermal effects of cell phone radiation ... from cell phone,

CELL PHONES AND CELL TOWERSHealth Risk and Precautionary Principle

Dariusz Leszczynski, PhD, DSc

Adjunct Professor, University of Helsinki

Editor-in-Chief of Frontiers in Radiation and Health

(specialty of the Frontiers in Public Health, Lausanne, Switzerland)

Member of the Advisory Board, Cellraid, Ltd, Oulu, Finland

Dariusz Leszczynski in INDIA, September 15 - 19, 2014

Who I am... few examples of my experience

• Adjunct Professor at the University of Helsinki, Finland

• Chief Editor of ’Radiation and Health’; specialty of Frontiers in Public Health

• Two doctorates in biochemistry and in cell biology

• 22 years (1992-2013) at Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority

• 2003-2007 as Head of Radiation Biology laboratory

• 2000-2013 as Research Professor

• Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School 1997-1999

• Guangbiao Professor at Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China 2006-2009

• Visiting Professor at Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia 2012/2013

• Testified in US Senate hearing on cell phones and health, in 2009

• Expert in IARC 2011 classification of carcinogenicity of cell phone radiation


WHO defintion of health

“Health is a state of complete physical, mental andsocial well-being and not merely the absence ofdisease or infirmity”

Whenever discussing safety of radiation emitted by the wirelesscommunication devices we need to remember this WHOdefinition of health


Safety standards – who sets?

• Set by ICNIRP - International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection

• ICNIRP’s membership: by invitation only “private club”

• Membership of ICNIRP based on similarity of scientific opinions of experts

• No accountability for ICNIRP experts

• Limited scientific debate when all ICNIRP members have a similar opinion

• WHO EMF Project recommends use of ICNIRP safety standards

• WHO EMF Project was started and run by former ICNIRP Chairman - Dr. Repacholi


ICNIRP sets safety standards

WHO recommends to useICNIRP safety standards

In Finland Ministry considersWHO recommendation

In Finland Ministry asks STUKopinion on ICNIRP standards

STUK expert recommendsuse of ICNIRP standards

STUK expert is ICNIRP member who prepared safety standards

Setting safety standards in… Finland


Safety Standards – short-comings

• Based on thermal effects of cell phone radiation

• Not accounting for other parameters of exposure

• Dosimetry based on macro-scale temperature changes

• Lack of micro-scale dosimetry

• Models do not resemble living cells and organs

• Comparisons to classical heating do NOT apply


Macro-scale dosimetry

WaterSalt

Sugar+ =

Problem:free movement of ions


Problems associated with the safety standards

• No information whether/how cell phone radiation affects humans

• No certainty that safety standards protect all users from anything besides thermal effects

• Any equipment radiating below safety standards is considered safe which might be misleading

• Compliance with safety standards is used as an excuse to stop research funding and to deploy new wireless technologies without any testing

• Non-thermal effects exist but are refused to be studied in depth because of the “excuse” of safety standards


IARC evaluation may 2011

• 30 invited experts divided into four sub-groups• Dosimetry

• Epidemiology

• Animal studies

• Mechanistic laboratory in vitro studies

• Decissions done by consensus or by simple majority

• The vast majority of experts voted for possible carcinogen classification


IARC 2011 and after IARC: Epidemiology

• Interphone & Hardell studies• no reliable exposure data

• risk increase in long-term avid users

• Children – only CEFALO• exposures for 2-4 years

• has no statistical power to detect small risk

• Trend-data - Little et al. 2012: slow rise of brain cancer cases in USA• trend is similar to Interphone “prediction” but not Hardell “prediction”

• Danish Cohort update study – no effect but no exposure data at all

• Million Women study - no effect but exposure data inadequate


The limited human evidence was based on the results of two sets of epidemiological studies European Interphone group and Hardell group in Sweden.

After the IARC evaluation, in 2014, was published a new epidemiological study - the French CERENAT.

The French study reached similar conclusions as Interphone and Hardell previously –long term avid use of cell phone increases a risk of developing brain cancer.

It means that now there are three replications of the same epidemiological type of study, the case-control study, that all suggest cell phone radiation might increase a risk of brain cancer.

After IARC evaluation: Epidemiology

IARC 2011: Human studies

• The vast majority are “feelings” studies• Subjects asked how they feel

• Subject asked do they feel when radiation is on/off

• EHS must exist – question is only of radiation cut-off level

• Otherwise RF would be the only factor not causing individual sensitivity in people

• Problem of EHS – studied by psychologists not physiologists – wrong methods

• WHO definition of health – how to consider it? IARC classification justifies reasoning for “mental and social well-being”

• Lack of studies examining biochemical responses of human tissues• Single skin proteomics study

• Two studies examined glucose metabolism in the brain

• That is all!


IARC 2011: Animal studies

• No classical toxicology possible• By classical toxicology RF would be judged as harmful to humans

• Not possible to overdose cell phone radiation because of heating effect

• Life-time exposures to radiation doses similar to those emitted by cell phones show no effect – result useless for human health risk estimation

• Co-carcinogen studies show some effects – cell phone radiation might potentiate effects of carcinogenic chemicals or radiation


*…but… what nobody is speaking about!

Risk evaluation of radiation emitted by the base stations:scientific studies where exposure levels are similar to levels emitted by cell phones can be considered as toxicology studiesexamining effects of radiation emitted by base stations


IARC 2011: Mechanistic studies

• Laboratory evidence was considered, by voting (no consensus) as insufficient to support/show mechanism of cell phone radiation effects


Leszczynski et al. 2002

Caraglia et al. 2005

Friedman et al. 2007

Buttiglione et al. 2007

Yu et al. 2008

Lee et al. 2008

Mechanism ?: Cell phone radiation affects stress response

Cell

proliferation

and

expression

of cancer

regularory

genes

Scale of the potential problem

Even if individual risk will be small, considering that there are over 6 billion of cell phone users, the burden for the society might be sizable in monetary and human suffering terms

Radiation exposures from cell phones and from smart phones are not comparable – smart phone radiation exposures are much higher because of data traffic


The IARC classification, of cell phone radiation as a possible carcinogen, invalidates the ICNIRP and WHO claims that the current safety standards protect all users.

In three independent epidemiological case-control studies, two of which were evaluated by IARC, adult participants used regular, off-the-shelf, cell phones.

These cell phones were built to fulfil all ICNIRP safety standards.

However, avid use of such “safe” cell phones for period of over 10 years led to increased risk of brain cancer.

This means that the current safety standards do not protect sufficiently users of cell phones and casts doubt whether safety standards for cell towers are reliable.

Un-reliability of safety standards

Invoking the Precautionary Principle

“Whether or not to invoke the Precautionary Principle is adecision exercised where scientific information is insufficient,inconclusive, or uncertain and where there are indicationsthat the possible effects on environment, or human, animal orplant health may be potentially dangerous and inconsistentwith the chosen level of protection.”


Invoking the Precautionary Principle

• Scientific information is insufficient, inconclusive, or uncertain• IARC classification as possible carcinogen (2B category)

• There are indications that the possible effects on human health maybe potentially dangerous• epidemiological studies from Interphone group and from Hardell

group show increased brain cancer risk in long-term avid users

• Inconsistent with the chosen level of protection• epidemiological studies showing increased risk in long-term avid

users were generated based on the use of regular cell phonesmeeting current safety standards = current safety standards are beinsufficient to protect users


India: problem of location of cell towers



• Cell phone app - runs on any commercial Android phone

• Measures RF emission exposure from cell phone, cell tower and wi-fi

• Accurate algorithm to estimate total RF emission

by Cellraid in Finlandcellraid.com



before now

Cell tower radiation exposure in India


[drawings no to scale]

before now

Cell phone radiation exposure

lesser exposureof the users


Conclusions

• IARC classification of the cell phone radiation as a possiblecarcinogen is a sufficient reason for invoking Precautionary Principle

• Claims that the current safety standards protect all users are notsupported by the scientific evidence

• Current safety standards should be urgently revised to better reflectthe available science

• Users should be informed about the current scientific uncertaintyand advised to limit exposures whenever possible and feasible andstrongly discouraged from keeping cell phones close to body (inpockets)


Documents

Cell Phone Radiation, Health Risk and Precautionary Principle · Health Risk and Precautionary Principle ... •Based on thermal effects of cell phone radiation ... from cell phone,