So I duck into the main house to get some more soy for a cuppa, and the housemates have Today Tonight on TV, and I catch the tail end of a segment looking at mobile phones. The reporters got an independent lab (EMC Technologies Pty Ltd) to test the SAR (specific absorbtion rate) of several mobile phones, the Nokia E65 was three times the Australian safety limit of 2W/kg. Of the four phones the lab tested, only one came in under the 2W/kg limit at both 1800 MHz and 2100 MHz -- the cheapest one, a non-3G Vodaphone Sagem handset.

The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency, is to begin an investigation.

The video of the segment is now up on the Today Tonight website. Click the heading "Health fears over mobile phones".

Professor Bruce Armstrong. the University of New South Wales' Professor Public health, has spent the last ten years looking at this subject and says in the footage, "I would not want to be a heavy user of a mobile phone ... the evidence that's accumulating is pointing to a two fold increase in tumours."

There are plenty of stories about people getting tumours in their brain or jaw by having the phone stuck to the side of their head for long periods, so over the years we have been told to allay our fears by using some form of handsfree system, either a corded earpiece and microphone or one of the new breed of bluetooth headsets, and keep the phone on the belt or in the pocket.

Using a phone in a pocket, in conjunction with a handsfree kit, the radiation is stronger because the antenna system is designed to radiate from the back of the handset, away from the head; it should also be pointed out that when a handset is kept in a pocket, the body acts as a form of dampening field which results in the phone requiring more power to maintain contact with a base-station. The world standard for SAR is 2 watts per kilogram and specifically states that this is to be the total emission strength of the handset. Unfortunately for modern 3G phones, it seems the manufacturers have re-interpreted this to mean "only on the side close to the head", so EMC did tests on four phones, but from the back of the handset instead of the face.

In the 1800 Mhz band, the Nokia E65 measured 3.35 W/kg, and the Telstra HTC 2.46 W/kg, when measured from the back of the handset. Tests done at the 2100 MHz showed the Sony measured 2.16 W/kg, the Nokia at 5.84 W/kg and the Telstra HTC at 2.92 W/kg. This means that all three of the 3G phones tested break not only Australian but world standards on emission strength.

Interestingly enough, one fact that the reporter managed to dig up that I didn't know (but confirmed by some web research) is that the phone makers all recommend that the phone be held between 1.5 and 2.2 centimetres away from the body when in use, and that most laboratories that do SAR testing also measure the field strength this far away from the handset, not "up close 'n personal" in the way most people use their phones. This means that to get a truer power / SAR rating for a handset, multiply the published figures by approximately 1.24 (according to the inverse square law).

Any mobile phone is dangerous to some affect. But I can't trust TT or ACA.

My 2 cents.

AH!!!!!! anyone want to buy and e65? im giving up mine asap before my balls get fried

Dude. You are supposed to hold the phone to your ear.

But it's usually in the hip pocket 90% of the time right?

HA HA DE HA HA! its in my pocket 95% of the time smart ass

I very rarely keep my phone in my pocket. It's either on my desk or in my bag. I figure I'm safe (so far).

Brains, could you elaborate on what these figures and findings mean?

Do you honestly believe anything they put on Today Tonight?? Seriously?!

Not saying it isn't true, but until someone with a little more credibility (so pretty much anyone else) than Today Tonight tells us, I'll be taking it with a grain of salt.

Ahahaha ahhaahahahahaa Today Tonight >.>

That all depends on what the story is covering, who's doing the talking and how the story is presented ... and to a reasonable extent, the ability to read between the lines. Professor Armstrong is a well respected name in health, and has been chosen by the World Health organisation to head the Australian section of a 13-country analysis on the health risks of wireless technology, so even if the reporter is a total pratt, his words carry a lot of cred.

So too does the words of Chris Zombolas of EMC Tech, as his company is the second-largest independent EMR testing company in the world, and has gone on record publicy several times is that to keep the company's findings at all credible, he flatly refuses to accept any funding or contracts from the telecommunications industry itself. EMC boasts as clients many national and state governmental health bodies around the globe.

(Anyway, I don't watch TV as a rule, what got my attention was the phrase "the electromagnetic effects of the human body" which appears halfway through the segment, so I left the kitchen and headed into the no-Brains-land realm of the lounge where the TV set lives. I wouldn't know whether the TT crew are good, bad or just muckrakers, but the fact it is mainstream news media means the latter almost definitely applies.)

Specific absorption rate (SAR) is an indication of the amount of radiation that is absorbed into the body when exposed to electromagnetic radiation (EMR); the higher the SAR rating the more radiation that is absorbed into the body. A SAR value is a measure of the maximum energy absorbed by a unit of mass of exposed tissue over a given time or more simply the power absorbed per unit mass. SAR values are usually expressed in units of watts per kilogram (W/kg) in either 1g or 10g of tissue. Here in Australia, our maximum limit (which funnily enough the TT reporter got wrong) is 1.6 W/Kg in 1g of tissue, according to Australian Standard AS/NZS 2772.1, and regulated under the Australian Communications Authority Standard ACA RS 1999.

If the amount radiation absorbed by the body is too high, or the body is exposed for a long period of time, the energy level disrupts cellular DNA, exponentially increasing the chance of DNA replication failing and causing mis-shaped strands of DNA to form as a cell divides during the normal course of growth. If a cell forms with some genomes misplaced or damaged that causes the growth inhibition factor to stop working, you end up with rapid multiplication of cells that don't die off when they're supposed to -- in other words, a tumour.

Another factor is that our nerve cells rely on electrical energy to transmit information, not only what our senses tell us but also how to control and mediate the multitude of organs in our bodies. The brain is a dense mass of neurons, all constantly sending millions of tiny electrical impulses to each other. It is these signals that are picked up by an electroencephalograph (EEG) to draw all those squiggly lines we see when we witness someone's head bristling under a nest of wires. What is also known and acknowledged by medical science is that magnetic fields alter how our nerves and neurons function -- if an external EM field is strong enough, it can cause a neuron to misfire, either sending a pulse at the wrong time and/or altering the strength of the pulse.

Professor Con Stough, from the Brain Sciences Institute at Melbourne's Swinburne University, published a paper last year that finally proves scientifically that mobile phones are having an impact on our heads. He tested 120 people to see how the electromagnetic radiation affected their memory and ability to solve problems and the results have been published in the scientific journal Neurophyschologia. "For things like memory or information processing, or learning, there was an impairment due to the mobile phones."

Studies in Europe and the UK show there has been a 40 per cent across-the-board increase in the number of brain tumours in the past 20 years, and it is no coincidence that this covers the same period of time that mobile phones have been in common use. What is alarming researchers in the UK is the dramatic rise of incidences of brain tumours occuring in children -- so much so that brain tumours now surpasses leukemia as the number one life-threatening disease for children.

Dr Charles Teo (MBBS FRACS), head of the Centre For Minimally Invasive Neurosurgery at Sydney's Prince of Wales Hospital, is a world leader at removing brain tumours using a technique he devised called neuroendoscopy -- rather than cutting out a huge chunk of skull to expose the work area, he uses a small hole and special manipulators to remove the tumour. Whilst he himself carries a mobile phone, he says he hardly uses it and will often return a call on a land-line rather than speak for more than a few seconds on a mobile call, and his staff know that if they need to contact him, they are to use SMS.

"When patients come in with a brain cancer, I often say to them, "your cancer was on the right side of the brain, it is in the area just above your ear, can you tell me if you feel that you have had more exposure than most people to mobile phones," and I am never surprised when most people say something like, "yes I have used my phone continuously for the last seven years and it is always stuck to my ear on this side..." well that is where the cancer is. Coincidence? Not from where I'm standing, the correlation is self evident,' said Dr Teo.

Glad I don't have a mobile phone then.

But your avatar indicates that you're already dead Jun.

FWIW iPhone has Digital SAR of 0.974W/Kg

Ha! Funny.

The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency website still states this:

Quote:

There is essentially no evidence that microwave exposure from mobile telephones causes cancer, and no clear evidence that such exposure accelerates the growth of an already-existing cancer. More research on this issue has been recommended. Users concerned about the possibility of health effects can minimize their exposure to the microwave emissions by: limiting the duration of mobile telephone calls, using a mobile telephone which does not have the antenna in the handset or using a 'hands-free' attachment. There is no clear evidence in the existing scientific literature that the use of mobile telephones poses a long-term public health hazard (although the possibility of a small risk cannot be ruled out).

I couldn't find anything on the site to indicate they were to start an investigation. One would think they would state this new discovery?

From here - ARPANSA - Mobile Telephones and Health Effects