Posted by Marjory Abrams
I’ve been cautious about the risks from cell phone radiation since we first started reporting on the topic back in 2008. But a passionate call from Devra Davis, PhD, MPH, founder and president of Environmental Health Trust and author of Disconnect: The Truth About Cell Phone Radiation, What the Industry Has Done to Hide It and How to Protect Your Family has prompted me to get the word out even stronger.
Dr. Davis’s big campaign these days is against children’s unencumbered use of cell phones, smart phones and computer tablets. As she explained to me, and as she details in the brochure at this link, a child’s still-developing bone marrow in the skull absorbs 10 times more radiation than an adult’s, while the head of an infant or toddler will absorb even more. The microwave radiation from cell phones and tablets disrupts DNA, weakens the brain’s protective barrier, and releases highly reactive and damaging free radicals.
According to Dr. Davis, France is banning the sale of phones for children. Russia, the UK, Canada, Belgium, Israel, Finland, Germany, and India have discouraged the use of cell phones by children. In France and Turkey, it’s now illegal to advertise a cell phone with a young child. The World Health Organization recently declared cell phone and other wireless radiation a “possible human carcinogen.”
Contrast this with the US, where babies and toddlers are learning to read from wireless devices and falling asleep to white noise played from phones placed under their pillows. The safety material that comes with an iPad recommends users hold it eight inches from an adult body—but in the hands of a toddler, the device would be held much closer.
The key to cell phone safety, especially for children, is distance.
- Don’t allow young children to play with your cell phone and similar wireless devices unless they are disconnected from the Internet. Although even in “airplane mode,” there is concern about what all that electronic stimulation will do to the developing brain. The younger the child, the greater the risk.
- Don’t hold a cell phone directly up to anyone’s head. Children as well as adults should use a headset or speakerphone if they must use a cell phone at all.
- Don’t carry a cell phone in your pocket or anywhere on the body, since cell phones emit radiation even when not in use. This advice is equally important for children, women and men—in fact, studies have shown that human sperm exposed to cell phone radiation die three times faster, swim significantly more poorly, become more deformed and develop significantly more damage to sperm DNA. Click here to see the warnings that cell phone companies provide with their phones.
Other important safety precautions…
- Beware of a weak signal. Exposure to radiation increases when the signal strength is weak. Limit your use at this time.
- Turn off your wireless router for your home computer network when it is not in use.
- Eat green vegetables and get a good night’s sleep in a dark room to enhance natural repair of DNA that may have been damaged by radiation. This repair happens at night while you sleep.
- Don’t leave a cell phone on your nightstand. You may be sleeping, but your cell phone is busy emitting radiation all night long.
If you’ve never passed along anything you’ve read online before, I urge you to pass along this blog, “ like” it on Facebook, and tweet it on Twitter. It’s that important
