Ethics of Innovation - Health Risks in the Mobile World

How responsible are those people and companies inventing the latest mobile devices and wireless networks?

What if these devices and wireless networks are like cigarettes: after prolonged use some people get seriously ill?

I took my time investigating:

- "Results from present studies on use of mobile phones for >10 years give a consistent pattern of
increased risk for acoustic neuroma and glioma (brain tumors)". This study of Lennart Hardell & Co investigated two cohort studies and 16 case control studies. The paper was published in April 2007 in the Occupational and Environmental Medicine Journal. 

- "... found no evidence for an association between tumor risk and cellular telephone use among either short-term or long-term users." A Danish study inspecting adults and their use of mobile phones in 21 years time period. Published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

- "Children should not place computers on their laps while they are using wireless Internet connections because of potential health risks" . Says professor Lawrie Challis, who also leads the committee on mobile phone safety research in UK.

- "Blue Angels mobile phones  for children should not be provided by teleoperators and dealers, since their SAR rate is above 0,6 W/kg . Children are recommended to use  corded phones in their daily communication. (Translation from German)  This statement was made by the German Government Bureau of Radiation Protection (Bundesamt für Strahlenschutz). Similar concern was expressed here.

These kind of results, although controversial, make me...worried. Remember: our generation started using mobile phones when we were adults. Younger generations start using mobile devices and wireless networks in their early childhood and they will be exposed to various sorts of radiation much longer than our generation.

What does this has to do with ethics and innovation? The following incident 'woke me up':

In February 2007 I was attending a seminar in Helsinki and was listening to one of the inventors of Apache Mobile Web Server. In terms of ARPU this kind of server in the mobile phone means more traffic and more income from data transfer to operators. From ubiquitous computing perspective user may carry all services with himself/herself (in the mobile phone) and have them easily accessible.

During his presentation I asked that inventor, an engineer, whether he and his partners have thought about implications on health of people using that server in their mobile phone (in their pocket) 24/7. He did not answer my question, more like he continued to explain how fantastic technologically this invention theirs is.

I find this kind of behaviour (and answer) irresponsible. These  mobile pocket servers will most likely multiply the amount of radiation to the tissues of the user. Is it really ethical to innovate if we do not pay close attention to possible health effects already in the invention phase? How much have we tested these services' health effects before launching to market / releasing in a community? What does sustainability mean in the mobile business? I am glad to hear your comments about these topics.

UPDATE 13th January 2008:  Check also the next part of this discussion: "Ethics of Innovation 2 -  Recommendations for Sustainable Mobile Inventions".

After word: There has been some good 'ethics of innovation' discussion before. Please, look at here and here and here. 

Comments

[Jeff Ubois]

There is so much money at stake over the health effects of cell phones that any concensus about risks is unlikely. At best, for the software engineers who take the time to read the conflicting reports you cite, there will be evidence that thare is a serious question about the effects of their web server. Still, I'd agree there is a duty to ask the question, and to leave it open in the hope that some sort of answer can be found. Less clear to me is the appropriate political response to these kinds of health risks; I can also imagine carriers (or monopolistic imcumbents in other fields) demanding that governments limit the use of competing "unauthorized" technologies.

[Mikko Ahonen]

Hi Jeff

Great remarks :-) I value your ethics-related work in many areas of life.

Your comments made me to think about … how things started to go wrong and how this hype was born.

Earlier: Carriers' income was based on the minute-based billing model.

Now: There are no more traditional carriers. More like there are many players whose income is based on the amount of data transferred and the speed of the connection.

The Catch: Customers are ”educated” to demand more and more bandwidth. And to have faster and faster connections. And to have services as accessible as possible. Being wireless and mobile is suddenly ”trendy”. Ordinary people just want the same speed they currently get through DSL and fiber optics (=through landlines). High-end mobile users are even willing to buy extra for services that enable them to use the fastest possible connections. And device and network manufacturers are fulfilling these wishes and creating even more demand. And (hardly) anybody things about the risks and consequences.

I would call this ”The Vicious Circle of Mobile Era” :-(

[Tere]

What i find curious in some of the studies is that the RF radiation improves some cognitive functions. The only effect RF is supposed to have on human tissue is warming it up. Yet there is no reason why warming the brain up should improve cognitive functions.

Plus, I haven't yet met a neuroscientist taking part in these studies who would let their children use a mobile...

[jahe]

From engineer perspective this is partly clear issue. The limits for RF radiation are defined by authorities and if the device does not exceed those, it should be safe to use. It is also proven by various studies that radiation as such is not extremely dangerous.

However, you may consider are those limits taking into account that one can be exposured to the radiation e.g. some 5 hours a day (like a WLAN usage with laptop). Also new radio frequencies and technologies are taken into use with increasing speed so are the exciting limits properly tested to be safe also with the new technology?

There will always be people warning about radiation risks and this debate will last forever, unless some new research data would be available.
I would expect that it would be possible to build small size broadband antenna equipped with measuring system that would record the RF field strength as a function of frequency. People could keep this device inside his pocket or hat all day. The system could transfer by itself the data recorded to the PC or Internet server every night.
This kind of study would show how much people really are receiving RF radiation and in addition that could also lead to more detailed correlation between people suffering some illness like cancer and the radiation exposured. If you would for example show the correlation between 2.5GHz RF radiation and some certain illness, that would be a hard evidence. The problem with current studies or at least the completed ones is that the possible statistically interesting cases are mixed with large amount of data.

[Mikko Ahonen]

I am glad to receive comments from engineer community! Thanks jahe.

Your test suggestion is most welcome...but how do we get guinea-pigs? Can we really use humans for these kind of tests?

We already know that mobile phones most likely cause DNA damage ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed&uid=15869902&cmd=showdetailview&indexed=google) and elevated cancer risk may be expected in children from microwave exposure (
https://www.who.int/peh-emf/project/mapnatreps/Russia_2007_EMF_activity_report.pdf
)

BTW, I just heard that the "safe" Danish study I mentioned in the posting has proved riskier: "We agree with Ahlbom et al. that the overall evidence regarding cancer risk and shortterm use of cellular telephones is reassuring. As stated in the final paragraph of our manuscript, we also agree that further study is warranted to evaluate the possibility of an association between long-term cellular telephone use and brain tumor risk."
http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/99/8/655 .

What do we wait? Where are those precautionary actions from industry and governments?

[Mikko Ahonen]

Hi Tere. You had a point.

Cognitive functions will most likely be improved because a mobile phone causes ... stress to our cells and therefore we become alert and focused for a moment. Igor Belyajev with his research group has found that 1 hour long 3G phone call is visible in the cell level as long as 72 hours.
http://www.congrex.com/valdor2006/papers/40_Belyaev.pdf , http://web.comhem.se/igor.belyaev/miljomag.pdf

I am almost sure that the recent (2nd January 2008) recommendation of France was based on that evidence. "France warns against excessive mobile phone use" http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSL0223157720080102?rpc=63
This recommendation is targeted especially to parents and children.

France and especially Paris have been lately shutting down WLANs in libraries and public places:
http://derstandard.at/?url=/?id=3140155

When will other EU countries and cities follow?