HEALTH RESEARCHERS TURNING TO WI-FI, RFID

Scientists at the meeting, hosted by the FCC, said a number of major reports are pending that could provide more conclusive answers on cellular phone risks. Delegates attended from the U.S., the European Union, Japan and Korea.

Joe Elder, a Motorola scientist and U.S. delegate, said in remarks Mon. that none of the few studies that tied health risks to mobile phone use has been replicated. He noted that there have been 35 long term studies of mobile phones and health, with 17 more in the works. Among them only a 1997 report from Australia by Michael Repacholi found a significant relationship, concluding that mice exposed to 900 MHz radiation an hour daily had twice the cancer risk of other mice.

While several studies have tried, none has replicated Repacholi’s results, Elder said. Elder said a major study that could put concerns to rest -- the INTERPHONE study of head and neck tumors in 13 countries -- should be ready this year. He noted that first results from Denmark did not find a relationship between cancer and cellphone use. But Elder conceded under questioning from an E.U. delegate that the study does not include children.

A major topic of discussions Mon. was the growing use of RFID, Wi-Fi devices in the home and of vehicles that make use of ultra wideband anti-collision systems. With technologies multiplying, many are exposed daily to more and different frequencies, said Norbert Leitgeb, a professor at Graz U. of Technology in Austria and a member of the E.U. delegation.

“We are facing an environmental exposure that is characterized by frequency cocktail and complex signatures from… mobile sources, more frequent uses, longer use, exposure to more complex signals, exposure to microfrequency or broadband signals,” Leitgeb said.”

Leitgeb told us the most significant questions involve the effects of RF on children, pregnant women, the elderly and other “vulnerable” groups. Children and RF risks was the subject of another conference in June in Istanbul. “We have made a cross sectional study involving more than 1,200 persons, including children,” he said. “We saw that variability [in the ability to accept radiation] was at least one magnitude larger than assumed so far. There is a need to look at that.”

Leitgeb also said “fear” of the unknown is an issue that the industry must address: “We all know fear increases with lack of knowledge and understanding and what we can expect for sure is that the new technologies will become more complex, more difficult to understand.”

Gerd Friedrich, a member of the E.U. delegation and German researcher, said that regardless of the real world dangers, the public will demand further studies of RF risks. Friedrich said in Germany, the nation with the most outcry from the public in Europe, 77 projects are under way. “There is so much public demand that we couldn’t avoid having a program,” Friedrich said.

New wireless applications like Wi-Fi present relatively little risk, based on the large amount of data already accumulated on radiation from cellphones, Friedrich told us. He added that researchers nevertheless will have to address pubic fears.

“In principle, there’s really no new technology behind” Wi-Fi, he said. “There’s no real change against GSM. The issue is in the past we didn’t take into account that there’s an issue of fears. Now it’s started and everybody has their hotspots, it has a different dimension.. People try to use the technology on the one hand and on the other hand try to shut off their fears.”

Leitgeb also said that scientists know more about RF risks than the public generally perceives. “There is still much to do in communication of this knowledge and to build confidence,” he said.

Bernard Veyret, a researcher from the U. of Bordeaux in France and an E.U. delegate, said during a presentation on worldwide research that many key issues should be resolved within 2 years. HE said he sees little risk to the public from Wi-Fi devices and other evolving technologies.

“The main difference, and it’s a big difference, is that the mobile phones are the only microwave sources that we put to the head,” he said. “The rest is away from the head and that makes a big difference in exposure. You have a lot of [Wi-Fi] base stations right now, but they are away from the head so the exposure is much smaller.”

Veyret said that while many worry about the radiation risks from new wireless technologies “there is no scientific basis” for concerns. “We are going to do more research on this because of social pressures,” he predicted.