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Reuters / Mike
Segar
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Biological and health
scientists from Russia and Iran to the USA are calling on the UN, the World
Health Organization and national governments to develop strict regulations
concerning devices and cellphones that create electromagnetic fields.
The
scientists are from 39 nations and have authored 2,000 peer-reviewed papers on
the health and biological effects of non-ionizing radiation, which is part of
the electromagnetic field spectrum. In a letter, they say that devices like
cellphones pose risks of cancer, genetic damage, changes in reproductive
system, and learning and memory deficits.
RT.com reports:
“Putting
it bluntly they are damaging the living cells in our bodies and killing many of
us prematurely,” said
Dr. Martin Blank, from the Department of Physiology and Cellular Biophysics at
Columbia University, in a video message.
“We
have created something that is harming us, and it is getting out of control.
Before Edison’s light bulb there was very little electromagnetic radiation in
our environment. The levels today are very many times higher than natural
background levels, and are growing rapidly because of all the new devices that
emit this radiation.”
One
example that was cited is the cellphone. Blank pointed to a study which showed
that as cellphone usage has spread widely, the incidence of fatal brain cancer
in younger people has more than tripled.
The
scientists see the unregulated use of radio frequency radiation in cellphones
and Wi-Fi as developing into a public health crisis. Blank said biologists and
scientists are not being heard from committees that set safety standards, that
safety limits are much too high and that biological facts are being ignored.
“They
are not protective,” he added. “We are really all part of large biological
experiment without our informed consent. To protect ourselves, our children,
and our ecosystem, we must reduce exposure by establishing more protective
guidelines.”
Scientists
are appealing to the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) to “convene
and fund an independent multidisciplinary committee to explore the pros and
cons of alternative to current practices that could substantially lower human
exposure to RF and ELF fields.”
They
request that the deliberations be “transparent and impartial,” and involve
industry players in the field. However, scientists believe industry “should not
be allowed to bias the process or conclusions.” Once completed, the analysis
would offer the UN and WHO a guide for precautionary action.
Questions
have surfaced about the safety of EMF among the scientific community and with
the public, but it is largely absent from national debate despite the
ubiquitous use of devices, particularly in the United States.
“…In
the United States, where non-industry-funded studies are rare, where
legislation protecting the wireless industry from legal challenges has long
been in place…to suggest it might be a problem – maybe, eventually, a very
public-health problem – is like saying our shoes might be killing us,” wrote
journalist Christopher Ketchum in a 2010 GQ article called “Warning: Your Cell
Phone May Be Hazardous to Your Health.”
Ketchum said a 2008 study
sponsored by the International Agency for Research on Cancer in France reported
that after a decade of cellphone use, the chances of getting a brain tumor –
specifically on the side of the head where you use the phone – go up as much as
40 percent for adults.
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