Chapter 3

Mobile Phones

When someone in your family holds a mobile phone against their head, the level of radiation the phone emits needs to be strong enough to travel to the nearest base station, which could be anything from metres to kilometres away. The radiation penetrates the walls of your house and any solid objects that are in the way. Needless to say, the signal also penetrates the person’s skull and is absorbed by their brain.

How much radiation their brain absorbs will depend on the person’s size and age. Children’s brains absorb much more radiation than those of adults, and so does their bone marrow.

Similarly, if someone in your family holds a phone next to some other part of their body — for example, in a bra, shirt pocket, or trouser pocket — then the radiation penetrates the closest part of their body — their breast, hip, or uterus or testes.

The important thing for you to know is that when your family’s phones were tested for compliance with relevant radiation standards, they were found to comply as long as they were held at a distance from the head. They were never tested for compliance or found to comply if held directly against the head or the body.

You can check this is the case by looking at the User Guide for your mobile phone. The same information is carried on many of the devices themselves. For instance, on an iPhone, you can tap Settings > General > About > Legal > RF Exposure to read: ‘To reduce exposure to RF energy, use a hands-free option, such as the built-in speakerphone, the supplied headphones or other similar accessories.’ Until very recently, the message also advised users, ‘Carry iPhone at least 5mm away from your body to ensure exposure levels remain at or below the as-tested levels.’ This has been replaced with the simple assertion that testing was carried out ‘with 5mm separation’.

This means that a person who holds a phone directly against their head or body, which most people do, is exposed to more radiation than allowed by international standards and guidelines.

Here’s what happened to four young women who did just that.

A 21-year-old woman consulted a doctor for a bloody discharge from her left nipple and was diagnosed with breast cancer. She had carried her phone in the left side of her bra, right next to the position of the tumour, for several hours each day. Another 21-year-old developed tumours in the part of her breast adjacent to the position of her phone, which she’d been carrying for eight hours a day for six years. A 33-year-old developed tumours of her right breast immediately underneath the positon in which she’d stored her phone in her bra on and off for eight years. A 39-year-old developed tumours in her right breast where she’d placed a phone she used with a Bluetooth device while commuting to work over a ten-year period. None of these women had any family history of breast cancer or any other breast-cancer risks. All tumours were adjacent to the position where the phone was stored. All women underwent mastectomies.

As I mentioned earlier, there are concerns about how safe it is to use mobile phones for long periods of time. Scientists have found increased risks of brain tumours for long-term mobile-phone use (generally ten years or more) or heavy phone use. Some of those studies have reported no increased risks of ‘regular’ mobile-phone use — but they have defined this as using a mobile phone for just one call a week for six months. That’s anything but regular use in today’s society, where it’s not uncommon for people to spend hours on their phone each day.

Because radiofrequency radiation has been classed as a ‘possible’ carcinogen — and some scientists think there’s enough evidence for it to be classed as a ‘probable’ carcinogen — many authorities have recommended that people reduce their exposure to mobile-phone radiation.

Many of these authorities express particular concern about the use of mobile phones by children, who are generally thought to be far more vulnerable to it than adults.

Risk and precaution

If you’d like to reduce your exposure and your family’s exposure to mobile-phone radiation, here are some useful suggestions — including some behaviours to avoid.

LEAST WISE

• Spending long periods on calls with the mobile phone directly against your head.
• Letting children have unlimited use of mobile phones from an early age.
• Using a mobile phone when you drive — apart from exposing all the occupants of the car, it increases the risk of accidents.
• Using a mobile phone close to your baby, for example while breastfeeding (‘brexting’).

WISE

• Don’t hold your mobile phone directly against your head for calls.
• Don’t carry your mobile phone next to your body while it is turned on unless it’s in a shielded pouch.
• Limit the amount of time you spend on your mobile phone.
• Text rather than speak.
• Try to return calls on a landline.
• Don’t use a mobile phone in a car, bus, or train.
• Don’t use your phone in low-reception areas, including lifts.
• Use an air-tube headset for calls (i.e. don’t use a headset with a wire, which can conduct the signal into your head, and don’t use one with Bluetooth, which is just another type of wireless radiation).
• Use the speaker function.
• Don’t use mobile phones for playing games, listening to music, or other unnecessary uses.
• Don’t keep your mobile phone next to your bed at night when it’s turned on.
• Don’t use a mobile phone when pregnant or near a young child.
• Purchase mobile phones with as few functions as possible to discourage unnecessary use.
• Turn your mobile phone off when it isn’t needed.
• Use a suitable mobile-phone shield to block mobile-phone radiation.
• Especially reduce children’s exposure to mobile-phone radiation.
• Set a good example.

WISEST

• Use a corded (not cordless) phone. Yes, it is still possible to buy a corded phone!

Mobile kids

There are good reasons to believe that children are more vulnerable to mobile-phone radiation than adults — as well as concerns about the effects of phone use on attention, behaviour, and learning, which you’ll see more about later. So it makes sense to reduce their exposure as much as possible. Here are some ways you can help them do this:

• Don’t give babies and children a mobile phone to play with.
• Avoid giving a child a mobile phone until it becomes absolutely necessary for them to have one.
• Teach children to keep their mobile phones turned off unless there is an emergency.
• Teach them responsible mobile-phone use.
• Don’t allow children to have a mobile phone in their bedroom at night.

Mobile-phone shields and protective devices

As people’s concerns about mobile-phone radiation have risen, so have the number of shields and so-called protective devices on the market — some of which work and some of which don’t.

Products that do work are those that cause a measurable reduction in exposure to the user. This is usually demonstrated in SAR (specific-absorption rate) tests conducted by reputable laboratories, so look for the test reports before buying. This category of product includes mobile-phone pockets and cases with screening on one side (to block radiation to the user’s head) but not on the other (allowing the phone to connect with a base station). However, no product can block all radiation from a mobile phone — if it did, the phone would not be able to connect with the network.

There is also a huge range of products claiming to harmonise or neutralise mobile-phone radiation. Unfortunately, these products make no difference to the amount of radiation emitted by the phones in SAR tests, and their claims can’t be scientifically tested.

Strategies for reducing your family’s exposure

If your family is like most, you may have become so used to using your mobile phones that family members are exposed to more radiation than you would like. If that’s the case, here are some strategies that might be helpful in reducing exposure and cutting down on mobile-phone overuse.

BEDROOMS

Make the bedrooms in your home places of rest and safety.

• Take the mobile phones out of all bedrooms at night.
• If you need an alarm clock, try a battery-operated one — they have no wireless emissions and no magnetic fields.

PLAN AHEAD

Being organised avoids the need for many panicked calls for emergencies such as do you want one kilo of sausages or two?

• Write a shopping list.
• Work out where to meet in advance.
• Before they leave home, make sure you know where your children are going to be so you don’t need to keep ringing them to find out!

SET UP GOOD ALTERNATIVES

There are times you might need to use your mobile phone, but there are plenty of times you can do just as well without it.

• Take a book to read on the train.
• Retain or renew your landline so that you can be called without using the mobile network. Give people your landline number rather than your mobile number.
• Install a corded phone so that it’s available when you need it — and use it for most of your phone calls.
• Set up an answering machine or voicemail on your phone line. If you miss someone’s call, you can call them back later.
• Set up a desktop or laptop with wired internet connection — and make sure the wireless networking is disabled — so that you can use this computer rather than your phone for accessing the internet.

THINK ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE’S EXPOSURE

• Ring people on their landline rather than their mobile number.
• Avoid using your phone in crowded places, such as public transport, where you expose others.

CONNECT MEANINGFULLY

Use the time you save on unnecessary phone activities to connect face-to-face with your family and friends! This is a good tip not only for avoiding wireless radiation, but also for living a more mindful, fulfilling life.

[For more about children and mobile phones see Chapter 7]

[For more about authorities’ recommendations see Appendix A]