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Now Half the World Has a Cell Phone -- Why That is a Brain Tumor Epidemic Waiting to Happen - Articles
 
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June 14 2008
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Now Half the World Has a Cell Phone -- Why That is a Brain Tumor Epidemic Waiting to Happen

cell phones, mobile phonesThe number of mobile phone users worldwide soared to over 3.3 billion by the end of 2007, a total penetration rate of 49 percent.

Africa showed the greatest increase, and more than two-thirds of all cell phone subscribers now come from developing countries. Cell phones account for nearly 90 percent of all telephone use in Africa. India and China added 154 million and 143 million new subscribers respectively.

The global annual average growth rate for cell phone subscribers currently stands at 22 percent. However, subscriptions to mobile phone plans increased at a rate of 39 percent annually in Africa between 2005 and 2007, and the rate of increase in Asia over the same period was 28 percent.

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Dr. MercolaDr. Mercola's Comments:
I cannot think of a more dangerous situation than this. This is the reason we are facing a brain cancer epidemic, which some scientists expect to grow to 500,000 cases by 2010, and over a million cases in the U.S. alone by 2015. Every time you use a cell phone, you are exposing your brain to dangerous and potentially cancer-causing radiation.

Study after study has shown the connection between cancer and cell phone use, and the information has been out there for a decade now. But cell phone companies have done their best to deny, obfuscate, or downplay the danger.  I guess they would rather put half the world at risk than put even a dime of their own profits at risk.

Ten Years of Known Danger

The dangers have been well known since at least 1998. In that year, Dr. George Carlo released the results of a massive research project that had been funded by the cell phone industry itself in an attempt to downplay cancer fears. To the industry’s dismay -- and also to their surprise, since they selected him assuming he was an industry shill, rather than the honest scientist he proved to be -- he came to the exact opposite conclusion from the one they were hoping for. His results included findings of:
  • A nearly 300 percent increase in the incidence of genetic damage when human blood cells were exposed to radiation in the cellular frequency band
  • A significant increase in cell phone users’ risk of brain tumors at the brain’s outer edge, on whichever side the cell phone was held most often
  • A 60 percent greater chance of acoustic neuromas, a tumor affecting the nerve that controls hearing, among people who had used cell phones for six years or more
  • A higher rate of brain cancer deaths among handheld mobile phone users than among car phone users (car phones are mounted on the dashboard rather than held next to your head)
These findings, which came well over a decade after cell phones were first introduced (before that there was no safety research at all), caused a shake-up in the scientific world. Soon, many more scientists confirmed Dr. Carlo’s findings.

In 2000, Swedish researchers found that cell phone users were almost two and a half times more likely to develop tumors near where they held their cell phone antenna than in any other portion of their brain. Similar studies were conducted in subsequent years on ever-larger groups of people, always with the same result.

An Italian study in 2002 found that radio waves caused leukemia cells to replicate ferociously after long exposure. In 2004, the massive REFLEX report on DNA damage from radio waves found that cells exposed to electromagnetic fields similar to those of cell phones showed a significant increase in single and double-strand DNA breaks. If I wanted to, I could list a mountain of research studies all pointing to the same conclusion -- exposure to cell phone radiation can cause brain cancer.

The Industry Strikes Back

The cell phone industry, of course, has long since corrected the “mistake” it made with Dr. Carlo, and funded a number of studies purporting to prove that cell phones are safe. For example, in 2006, they made sure headlines blared reports that an epidemiological study had “proven” cell phones can’t cause cancer.

However, a cursory reading of the study shows that it excluded heavy cell phone users from consideration, failed to differentiate between frequent use of cell phones and almost no use, and declared an improbably low rate of overall cancer that contradicts known statistics. After all that, it proudly concluded that it had found no increased risk for cell phone use. Well, no wonder.

Don’t be fooled by their lies. Holding a cell phone next to your head is as foolish as drinking a bottle of pesticide.

Protect Yourself and Your Children

Dr. George Carlo and I have recently finished writing Wireless Deception, which is the most up to date book in the world on this issue. It is currently in final editing and typesetting stages and we hope to have it out by the fall.

Even if you manage to avoid brain cancer, you may find yourself faced with other health problems both major and minor, such as headaches and dizziness, Alzheimer’s disease, autism and even impotence.

At this point, you cannot completely avoid wireless radiation from all sources; they pervade the environment. However, getting rid of your cell phone altogether can help protect you. But even if you don’t want to take that step, you can still minimize your exposure and reduce your risks by doing the following:

Children Should Never Use Cell Phones: Barring a life-threatening emergency, children should not use a cell phone, or a wireless device of any type. Children are far more vulnerable to cell phone radiation than adults, because of their thinner skull bones.

Reduce Your Cell Phone Use: Turn your cell phone off more often. Reserve it for emergencies or important matters.

Use A Land Line At Home And At Work: Although more and more people are switching to using cell phones as their exclusive phone contact, it is a dangerous trend and you can choose to opt out of the madness.

Reduce or Eliminate Your Use of Other Wireless Devices: You would be wise to cut down your use of these devices. Just as with cell phones, it is important to ask yourself whether or not you really need to use them every single time. If you must use a portable home phone, use the older kind that operates at 900 MHz. They are no safer during calls, but at least they do not broadcast constantly even when no call is being made.
 
Use Your Cell Phone Only Where Reception Is Good: The weaker the reception, the more power your phone must use to transmit, and the more power it uses, the more radiation it emits, and the deeper the dangerous radio waves penetrate into your body. Ideally, you should only use your phone with full bars and good reception.

Turn Your Cell Phone Off When Not In Use: As long as your cell phone is on, it emits radiation intermittently, even when you are not actually making a call.

Keep Your Cell Phone Away From Your Body When It Is On: The most dangerous place to be, in terms of radiation exposure, is within about six inches of the emitting antenna. You do not want any part of your body within that area.

Use Safer Headset Technology: Wired headsets will certainly allow you to keep the cell phone farther away from your body. However, if a wired headset is not well-shielded -- and most of them are not -- the wire itself acts as an antenna attracting ambient information carrying radio waves and transmitting radiation directly to your brain. Make sure that the wire used to transmit the signal to your ear is shielded.

The best kind of headset to use is a combination shielded wire and air-tube headset. These operate like a stethoscope, transmitting the information to your head as an actual sound wave; although there are wires that still must be shielded, there is no wire that goes all the way up to your head.
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Community Comments ( 13 )
 Comment on this Article
  
  
Fortitude of Heaven
 [ Joined on 02/08 ] [ Posted on May 29, 2008 ]
8 Points        
   
 
Novice User
Alot of times, it's unavoidable. Everywhere you go and in the house, there's Wi-Fi. But fortunately internet routers emit far less electromagnetic radiation than cell phones.

Just how powerful are these cell phones even when not in use? Try putting it near a speaker or radio and you'll hear erratic distortion sounds from it. Personally, I have a cell phone like anyone else but I almost never use it and turn it on only when absolutely necessary. Some people think I'm ancient, some think I'm antisocial...

It's undeniable. Each and every time a concern is raised about the safety/effectiveness of a product, its industry will ALWAYS deny it and says that it's safe. Even when beyond doubt that it is harming and killing people. Why should anyone trust what the industry has to say? After all, they're the ones who either stands to gain or lose heavily.

The problem itself is industrialization (of course, without it we'd still be agrarian). A select few will profit immensely at the expense of the masses. You have pollution, greed, conflicts of interest, corruption, and suffering. I think of the industry like a feral beast. Either that it's kept caged and under control, or it will consume and devour everyone. Money is powerful, and as long as they have PWP (power, wealth, prestige), they can practically get away with mass murder.
 [ Reply ]
  
  
NutritionalHealingCenters
 [ Joined on 10/07 ] [ Posted on May 30, 2008 ]
5 Points        
   
 
Apprentice User
This is a tradegy waiting to happen of course but my view is slightly different.  A great deal of my work is focused on heavy metal and chemical toxicity as it relates to illness and dis-ease in the body.  My clinical findings suggest that those with the highest level of metals in their body have the most difficulty with EMF (their cell, pda, microwave oven at home, and even the electronics in their car can occasionally cause rather bizarre symptoms in these patients but not always as most of the time people are completely unaware that they have metals as this truely is a silent epidemic).  The metals in your body simply acts like an antenna drawing in EMF.  That is why it is my mission to educate everyone to get screened for metal and chemical toxicity and God willing our healthcare system will catch on to environmental causes.  It is a tradegy that we all have to tolerate the increase in unavoidable EMF from wireless emissions among other sources.  The jury is out as far as what effects the radiation alone will do to our delicate brains but eliminating the 'antenna effect' by cleaning the metals out of the brain and nerve tissue may be one of the best forms of prevention within our control.  If I was a betting man I would put my money on Senator Ted Kennedy having an underlying heavy metal toxicity in his brain as most of my previous and current end stage brain tumor patients that come to me as a last resort looking for help all have a metal problem.  Every single one of them.  But I will admit that I have only worked with roughly 18 or so that have come to me with brain tumors so far and I imagine that their could very well be other underlying causes as well.  I guess time will tell. 
 [ Reply ]
Mercola
  
DrJon
 		[ Joined on 03/07 ]  [ Posted on May 30, 2008]
5 Points        
   
Apprentice User
  Mercola
Another Great Post NHC !!!  Wow...your 'Antenna Effect' theory makes perfect sense to me.  Thank you for sharing this for everyone's benefit Do c !
  
  
dimages
 [ Joined on 05/08 ] [ Posted on May 29, 2008 ]
4 Points        
   
 
Novice User
It is unlikely that people in developing countries will have access to the type of health care necessary to repair the damage caused by cell phone use. If repair is even possible.
 [ Reply ]
  
  
samurai
 [ Joined on 04/07 ] [ Posted on May 29, 2008 ]
3 Points        
   
 
Savvy User
Thank you so much for the story from the Aussie guy's story you gave last week.  I wish you the very best of luck, Aussie guy.  I believe that you are   going to get better.
 [ Reply ]
  
  
Mr.AK
 [ Joined on 06/06 ] [ Posted on May 29, 2008 ]
2 Points        
   
 
Apprentice User
Welcome to the largest scientific experiment ever created - using humans as enthusiastic guinea pigs - buying up every wireless gadget being invented. By the time the truth is known, it will be too late to go back.
 [ Reply ]
  
  
Sheila C
 [ Joined on 12/06 ] [ Posted on May 30, 2008 ]
1 Points        
   
 
Apprentice User
Makes you wonder if Ted Kennedy used his cell phone alot.
 [ Reply ]
Mercola
  
ZPE
 		[ Joined on 02/08 ]  [ Posted on June 2, 2008]
       
   
Savvy User
  Mercola
Ironically Ted Kennedy has shaped many of your pro-FDA and pro-Pharma laws, and according to one report that I read he has been on high dosage statins since he had surgery on a blocked artery in Oct 07. The article suggested a link to his tumor and the statins. . .
  
  
phil stilliard
 [ Joined on 08/07 ] [ Posted on June 14, 2008 ]
       
   
 
This user is BELOW novice level and all their comments need to be reviewed with great caution.

Cell phone radiation is damaging the bees, isn't it?  Bees get confused, cannot find their way back to the hive, so die.

 [ Reply ]
  
  
KelleyEidem
 [ Joined on 11/07 ] [ Posted on June 14, 2008 ]
       
   
 
Novice User

Don't have cell phone and don't want one. When I wrote "The Doctor Who Cures Cancer," I met some former brain tumor patients. One described the feeling of his pain to be like a bowling ball trying to escape through his nostrils.

Without getting too graphic, he couldn't wipe himself.

Another brain tumor victim, who was a Harvard educated physician who graduated from Yale Medical School, told me that he actually pounded his head against the bathroom wall in his home because he was in so much pain. This occurred only a few days into his illness becoming manifest. His son, Mark, asked his Mom, "Why is Daddy hitting his head against the wall?"

After that ordeal, he said one of the tests involved blowing air into his head. He said it felt like they doctor was trying to blow up a football inside his head. Dr. Fishbein had to keep sitting up during the three-hour ordeal when all he wanted to do was lie down.

His surgery consisted of having holes drilled into his skull prior to removing sections of his skull during surgery.

So, no thanks...

The best to you.

Kelley Eidem

 [ Reply ]
  
  
Carl Forsberg
 [ Joined on 10/07 ] [ Posted on June 13, 2008 ]
       
   
 
Novice User

Dear Friends,

I guess I am really dating myself. I am seventy one this year, no, I do not own a cell phone. I do have a cordless phone in my apartment but I went back to my line based phone because I found even the cordless phone was giving me headaches when I used it for long phone calls.

After I changed back to my line based phone I have not experienced the the headaches and sometimes just irritation, at all. I do not understand what this obsession with cell phones is all about. When I am out walking or shopping, the last thing I would want is for a phone to start ringing. I love going out for a good long walk, because I want to get rid of the continual din of media and technology invading my environment. I am in excellent health, 90% raw vegan, and am taking no medication for any illness. At my age that is becoming a rarity. I am sure not going to mess my life up with some new gadget that I believe has been shown to be really harmful.

As I hope you younger people will realize (before it is too late), your health is the most precious gift you have. It is far more valuable than money. It is not something you can buy. It is something you have earned, by taking good care of the wonderful body that you have. Please don't wait to learn this before it is too late. It is your choice.

Carl      

 [ Reply ]
  
  
CEM
 [ Joined on 02/08 ] [ Posted on June 13, 2008 ]
       
   
 
Novice User

Not only did my ex-husband have a brain tumor removed last year (a heavy cell phone user), but I'm 'electrosensitive' myself ever since cell phone masts began to blanket the continent - this is an emerging illness!

What's more, I suffer from chronic Lyme, and somehow I can't ignore this...

'Cross Currents' by Robert O. Becker M.D. – page 72.

"In 1975, Professor Richard Blakemore, also of Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory, became intrigued by the strange behavior of some bacteria he was studying. Blakemore noticed that the bacteria always clustered at the north side of their culture dish. Even if he turned the dish so that they were at the south end and left it overnight, the next morning the bacteria were back at the north side. While such "magnetotrophic" bacteria had been described before, no one had ever done what Blakemore did next: he looked at them under the electron microscope. What he found was astonishing. Each bacterium contained a chain of tiny magnets! The magnets were actually crystals of the naturally magnetic mineral magnetite, the original lodestone of preliterate peoples. Somehow, the bacteria absorbed the soluble components from the water and put them together in their bodies as the insoluble crystalline chain.

Later studies showed that this arrangement was of value to these bacteria, which lived in the mud on the bottom of shallow bays and marshes. If they were moved by the tide or by storm waves, their magnetic chains were large enough (in comparison to their body size) to physically turn their bodies so that they pointed down at an angle corresponding to the direction of magnetic north. All the bacteria had to do was swim in that direction, and sooner or later they would be back in the mud. This was an interesting mechanism, but it did not contain any sophisticated information transfer. The bacteria did not "know" that north was the way to swim; they just did so..........

 [ Reply ]
  
  
debbiestreet3
 [ Joined on 06/06 ] [ Posted on May 30, 2008 ]
       
   
 
Novice User
Thankfully, I don't NEED to use a cell phone that often, but I know alot of people who do. Yes, there will be alot of brain tumors in people in the future. It has to do with our culture, or society and way of living. People have to care more  about their health even tho you can not see what is happening,than want things. Also, how often is too often when using your cell phone?. My teenager uses it more to text which might be alot better. I heard that alot of people in the Asian countries  use texting ALOT, does that count.?
 [ Reply ]

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