Cellular find number person phone

Most of the patients who come to see Arthur Forman at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston are destined to get bad news. The 50-year-old neuro-oncologist's specialty is brain tumors. Besides diagnosing and treating the cancers, he also tries to explain what might cause them. "Patients have a lot of wonder and regret about these things," he says. "There is always a mea culpa." Lately, patients want to know if their cellphones might be at fault. "People ask because they hear about it in the news," he says.

News reports have certainly given America's 100 million-plus cellphone users plenty to worry about. Last month a Maryland man with brain cancer filed an $800 million lawsuit against cellphone makers, and preliminary findings recently led one researcher to sound the alarm. "There are serious questions that have been raised about the safety of cellphones," says the researcher, George Carlo, an adjunct professor at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Forman, too, thinks there might be something to the notion that the friendly little devices could cause cancer.

Quit worrying. Scientists familiar with the research--even some of those responsible for the disturbing findings--generally say users can rest easy. Dozens of studies have shown few signs of a risk. Of the two or three studies at the root of the alarm, scientists either have not been able to duplicate them--suggesting they could be statistical flukes--or don't know how the findings apply to actual cellphone users. "We have looked at the research, and we do not find anything that demonstrates any health hazards," says Russell Owen, head of radiation biology in the Center for Devices and Radiological Health at the Food and Drug Administration. While research continues, worried users can take simple steps to cut their exposure to their phone's emissions.

Heads up. A cellphone is a miniaturized radio receiver and transmitter, and the health concerns focus on the radio waves it gives off. The waves fall in the same part of the electromagnetic spectrum occupied by powerful sources such as microwave ovens and airport radars. But no one sticks his head into a microwave oven, and by the time a radar signal reaches a person its strength is minuscule. A cellphone transmits no more than 6/10th of a watt--but does so right next to the user's head.

Microwaves can heat tissue--that's how microwave ovens cook food--but the heat generated by cellphones is negligible, says John Moulder, a professor of radiation oncology at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. "If cellphones have any biological effect, it isn't thermal," he says. It's the possibility of nonthermal effects that is attracting attention. Radiation produced much higher in the electromagnetic spectrum, such as X-rays and the sun's ultraviolet light, poses a cancer risk because it can damage DNA in living tissue.

If cellphones have this kind of effect, it has yet to be found. Researchers have not been able to rule out the possibility, however-- science is notoriously bad at proving a negative. And lawsuits filed against cellphone makers have fueled public concern, although all but the latest have been dismissed. "Many of the studies that have gotten a lot of publicity have only limited relevance to cellphone use," says Moulder. What is more, he says, "often what is quoted is not the main finding of the research."

In fact, most surveys show no link between cellphones and brain cancer. Researchers at the Epidemiology Research Institute in Newton Lower Falls, Mass., for example, compared causes of death in two groups, each including more than 100,000 drivers. One group used hand-held cellphones; the other used car phones with the antenna on the roof, which meant the drivers weren't exposed to microwaves. The research, funded in part by cellphone companies, found no differences in cancer deaths, says Kenneth Rothman, one of the investigators. In a 1999 letter to the Journal of the American Medical Association, the authors wrote: "The only category of cause of death for which there was an indication of increasing risk with increasing minutes of use was motor vehicle collisions."

In another study, researchers from the American Health Foundation compared the cellphone use of more than 450 patients hospitalized for brain cancer with the phone habits of the same number of patients hospitalized for other reasons. The study found no correlation between the use of cellphones and brain cancer, although a small subgroup of the brain cancer patients who were cellphone users had a higher-than- expected incidence of a rare form of tumor--a finding that Joshua Muscat, the study's principal investigator, says could simply be chance.

Scant evidence. Scientists in Sweden are also studying brain cancer patients, comparing their use of cellphones with that of people who do not have the disease. So far they have reported no increased risk associated with cellphones. The investigators did note a correlation between the location of tumors and the side of the head on which the phone is most often used. The association is based on just a handful of brain cancer cases, however--too few to be statistically significant, says Muscat, who has looked at the data.

In a different tack, researchers have beamed microwaves at lab animals or cultured cells and looked for signs of DNA damage. So far, most studies have come up negative. A study published in 1994 by researchers at the University of Washington did find DNA breaks in brain cells of exposed rats. But others have been unable to replicate the findings.

Other scientists found an increased number of micronuclei--small abnormalities that indicate damage to the chromosomes--in human blood cells exposed to high levels of cellphone radiation. But "we cannot draw any direct correlation [to] what would happen in a human exposure scenario," says the lead researcher, Graham Hook of ILS, a toxicology laboratory in Research Triangle Park, N.C. "We need more studies."

The government agrees. The National Cancer Institute is doing another survey of brain cancer and cellphone use. And the FDA, which met with researchers in the field earlier this month, is urging manufacturers to fund projects to follow up on the lab results. Cellphone makers, meanwhile, are trying to allay customer concerns. This fall, cellphone packaging will begin displaying a number called the specific absorption rate (SAR), which indicates how much energy the body absorbs from the device; the number varies depending on antenna placement and design.

Moulder says concerned users can take precautions such as using a headset, with the phone and its antenna carried at the hip. The FDA also recommends shortening calls. Callers with older-model analog cellular phones may want to upgrade to digital PCS phones, which use a fraction of the energy to transmit calls.

And keep the cancer worries in perspective. "If we can't prove that [something] does cause cancer, then we gain assurance that it probably doesn't," says Moulder. Weigh any concerns against the benefits, such as keeping tabs on kids or calling for help if you're stranded. Even Forman, who tells patients their cellphones may be risky, owns one. "I don't use it much," he says. "And when I do, I hold it 3 inches away from my head."

Cellphone on my mind

This top-view model of a human head shows the distribution of the power absorbed from a cellphone.