USA: De Koude Oorlog en de gezondheidsrisico's van de mobiele telefoon

Bron: The Scientist

Allan H. Frey een `semi-retired´ wetenschapper uit Potomac, Maryland schrijft een interessant en uitdagend artikel in de Scientist over de relatie tussen de Koude Oorlog en de daaruit volgende misleidende informatie over de gezondheidsrisico´s van elektromagnetische straling in een poging een verklaring te vinden voor de voortdurende controverse rond dit onderwerp. Hij concludeert dat door het bewust achterhouden van een normale open wetenschappelijke discussie en opzettelijk verspreiden van verkeerde informatie honderden miljoenen mensen nu meegesleept worden in een experiment waarvan de gevolgen niet zijn te overzien.


Opinion: Cell Phone Health Risk?
Security concerns during the Cold War may have led to the generation of misinformation on the physiological effects of microwave radiation from mobile phones.

By Allan H. Frey | September 25, 2012
Recently, Congress tasked its investigative arm, the General Accountability Office (GAO), to consider the health risks of mobile phones and to report back to Congress. While a previous report published in May 2010 by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) stated that there was no evidence of increased health risk resulting from exposure to the radiofrequency (microwave) energy emitted by cell phones, the World Health Organization reported the following year that cell phone radiation may be carcinogenic. Also in 2011, the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse published a paper in JAMA reporting that 50 minutes of cell phone use by people altered glucose metabolism in the part of the brain closest to where the cell phone antennas were located. This summer, the GAO completed the task and sent a report to Congress stating that the risks were unclear and deserved greater scrutiny from the government.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) “should formally reassess and, if appropriate, change its current RF energy (microwave) exposure limit and mobile phone testing requirements related to likely usage configurations, particularly when phones are held against the body,” the GAO wrote.

The controversy over whether the technology poses a risk to human health is substantial. And while much of science could be considered controversial, what has, and is, happening in microwave research is not a routine scientific dispute. Concerns about the health risks of cell phones, confusion regarding the evidence for or against such risks, and even misinformation in the scientific literature may all be collateral damage of the Cold War between the USSR and the United States. This was a time when the use of microwave-generating equipment, such as radar, was seen by some as critical to the security of the United States, and efforts were taken to ensure that such innovations were not suppressed by findings that suggested such technology to be unsafe.

Lees de rest van het interessante artikel op: the-scientist.com/2012/09/25/opinion-cell-phone-health-risk/ .

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