A shocking new cell phone radiation study conducted on adolescents and their cell phone usage asks the question, “Are children at increased risk of brain tumors already?” The conclusion of the study is even more shocking than the question because it implicates all children who use cell phones. Almost 3,000 children a year in the United States alone are diagnosed with brain tumors, constituting a quarter of all childhood cancers. Could this be just an unfortunate coincidence?
The World Health Organization (WHO) recent ruling backs up this concern, “radio frequency electromagnetic fields, such as, but not limited to, those associated with wireless phones” are a 2B carcinogen. That’s to say cell phone radiation is likely cancerous to humans and very dangerous for your children.
Conclusion of the most recent cell phone cancer study
The study concluded if children continue exposing themselves to cell phone radiation in this way, many would be at increased risk of specific brain tumors by their mid-teens.
The concern becomes even more alarming given the vast majority of the junior high school students participating in this study (90 percent), with an average age of approximately 12 years old, were engaging in cell phone activity with prolonged exposure to cell phone radiation.
Risky cell phone behaviors?
What kinds of behaviors are contributing to this increase in cancer and cell phones?
As many as two-thirds of the children in the study had their cell phones with them at bedtime. They kept them in close proximity in the bedroom or under their pillow.
Other research conducted on adolescents in England, Hungary, Spain, Sweden and Australia found over the course of less than a decade, cell phone usage by children and the subsequent exposure to harmful phone radiation has ballooned from a third to almost 100 percent.
All cell phone users need to be cautious in usage; however, children are a special concern. Society has a greater responsibility to take care of the younger population and children present a special scenario when it comes to phone radiation exposure.
According to the study, a child has increased susceptibility to the effects of cell phone radiation due to:
• Much thinner skulls
• A smaller brain to dissipate heat from rf radiation
• Increased brain tissue conductivity
These physiological differences lead to higher radiation absorption rates. Also known as SAR levels. Because cell phone radiation exposure is beginning so early in life, there is a much longer period of exposure, therefore elevating risk. Findings from other studies also showed increased risk based on pressing the phone to the head, especially without consistently switching from one side of the head to the other.
The 2012 BioInitiative Report
The New Zealand study is supported by the much awaited 2012 BioInitiative Report. This report explains the connection between using wireless devices, i.e., cell phones, the consumer’s health, and the radiation these devices emit, known as electromagnetic fields (EMFs). The 2012 report involves 29 health professionals spanning 10 countries who took on findings from close to two thousand previously unpublished studies.
The 2012 BioInitiative Report was independently conducted and evidence-based, and therefore free of the usual governmental and health policy bias. The 2012 report focuses on a multitude of health complications stemming from exposure to low level radiation including infertility, autism, the effects on unborn children, NTD’s, Alzheimer’s disease, brain disorders, immune system dysfunction and breast and brain cancer.
Up until at least the age of 18, children’s cell phone usage increases, not decreases. The use of cell phones by children should be a matter for informed choice by parents. But how many parents are sufficiently informed on cell phone radiation safety issues to make the right decisions for their children?
The evidence is compelling. At the very least, informed parents should be severely curtailing cell phone use by their children and removing cell phones from the bedroom. Making sure proper cell phone radiation safety accessories are used, as with RF Safe’s Safe Cell Phone Accessories. Air-tube Headsets reduce radiation exposure to the head, and cell phone pocket shields reduce cell phone radiation to the body. When paired together these two cell phone safety accessories greatly reduce exposure to cell phone radiation
Sources for this article include:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
http://www.ehjournal.net/content/12/1/5
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19268551