Beyond Creativity

Are cell phones dangerous? About the Larry King Show

Unfortunately my earlier postings and risk assessments are becoming confirmed.

Please, watch the following Larry King Show about health risk and cell phones.

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Part Five

Short remarks:

- The highlights can also be found at the CNN site.

- All experts recommend to use hands-free or speaker phone

- Corded phones are recommended for children

- The comment on the video about Sweden's use of cell phones was not exact: The earlier NMT signal was continuous, not pulsed like GSM and 3G. Additionally, 3G (UMTS) cell phones and base stations are utilising a mechanism called QPSK (Quadrature Phase Shift Keying) which makes the signal form even riskier, according to the REFLEX project leader Franz Adlkofer and researcher Igor Belyaev. These effects to humans are demonstrated in the TNO experiment and to animals in Thomas Thillman's ITEM experiment. There is a big difference from safety perspective, human brain (or cells) may "recognise" pulsed signal. Please, check also Hyland's legendary paper "Physics and biology of mobile telephone". Update 2nd July 2008: Carl Raleigh provides a thorough  signal modulation overview.

- Doctor Vini Khurana on the video has produced an interesting risk analysis report.

- Modern phones come with built in antenna. Older phones had an external antenna and your head/body was not used for that :-\

- Many laboratory experiments do not simulate the magnetic field enough. When the phone is pressed against the head, the magnetic field is something like 8 microTesla in 1 cm distance.

- Who is the first manufacturer and the first carrier to advise customers about safe ways to use their mobile phone? It's about time!

- The future of mobile business is cloudy. Earlier I tried to foresee the future.

Any comments on the video or the topic?

How Ethical is Mobile Business? The Health of Our Children

Please, watch the following video. Australia's Interphone research group leader warns children (and adults) about mobile phones related brain tumours. Video starts when you click the picture.

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Background information.

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Another example comes from Russia:

Handsets pose danger for children

The Russian National Committee on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (RNCNIRP) has expressed its opinion regarding the possible influence of handset electromagnetic field on children and teen-ages. The experiments, consultations and discussions held led to the resolution ‘Children and handsets: future generations’ health is under threat’. The given resolution comprises opinions of leading Russian scientists in hygiene and radiobiology of Non-Ionizing Radiation. The given resolution is based on mo… full text

Source: CNews

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Earlier children and mobile phone related warnings:

- France warns against excessive mobile phone use.

- Germany: Handys für Kinder sind nicht sinnvoll

- Update 28th May 2008:  India: Cellular towers near schools, colonies may be banned 

- Update 25th June 2008:  An appeal from 20 international experts assembled around Dr David Servan-Schreiber in relation to the use of mobile phones.

Additionally, Prenatal and postnatal exposure are becoming serious health risks.

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My questions:

How responsible are mobile phone manufacturers and carriers?

They have known these health risks for decades, but no single mobile phone box comes with any kind of warning or safe use instructions. Additionally, carriers (teleoperators) are digging up telephone cables in countries like Finland and even small children are forced to use a mobile phone in their communication.

How can ordinary people and governments allow this kind of development?

Ethics of Innovation 2 - Recommendations for Sustainable Mobile Inventions

Previously I examined ethical problems and health risks related to mobile devices and wireless networks.

Now I will list some recommendations to make inventing and innovation more sustainable. (Updated, 27th December 2007 and 29th May 2008).

In the global level:

- Start talking about ethics and consequences of inventing within engineer communities. Why don't forums like Wimax Forum , UMTS Forum , Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) , Symbian and Open Handset Alliance have discussion about ethics (including radiation risks)? Why can't International Telecom Union (ITU) initiate this discussion?

- Raise awareness among device manufacturers and teleoperators (carriers). Why is it so difficult to discuss openly about these issues? Every company nowadays has their 'Values' and 'Code of Conduct' and 'Sustainability Policy', but these documents / web sites are are not talking about ethical risks of innovation. Can business risks be handled by denying ethical problems?

- Separate financial benefits from mobile device development. There is a long history of denying health risks, e.g. with tobacco, when money is at stake. Would there be needed an international treaty like with tobacco?  (Please, note: I am not suggesting here a total ban of mobile devices and networks, more like independent control and re-invention)

- Put more resources on longitudinal, medical studies of mobile phones and mobile networks use. Do doctors, engineers and researchers talk enough with each other?

- Reconsider the "burden" of landlines maintenance for carriers. Now carriers are trying to get rid of their landline subscribers, but at which cost? What if people using landlines (corded phones) are eventually more fortunate (healthier) than those who abandoned them? Why do parents give up landline and buy mobile phones to children as young as five years? Are there inequality questions involved in development countries where Wimax is the only possibility?

In the local community level:

- Start discussing about 3G + Wimax base stations and their locations. Why are there base stations just 50 meters from schools and hospitals? Why can not teleoperators (carriers) consult citizen organisations and healthcare professionals where these masts are installed and how their antennas  are equipped? (Now the 'formal' discussion is mostly about aesthetics ;-)

- Rethink the scale of those WiFi City Programs. Are these programs really sustainable with hundreds of antennas? Do people really become 'free', 'creative ' and 'innovative' through WLANs and ubiquitous computing? Are people are asked any permission when their offices and apartments are WiFied? How sustainable is FON in a longer run?

-  Reconsider WLAN use in schools and in homes. The state of Bavaria just recently recommended schools not to proceed with WiFi because of health risks. How do these kind of recommendations affect programs like OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) ? When will the mobile learning community discuss about these topics? Is 24/7 WLAN as risky as frequent GSM calls?

- Find out what can be done with materials that protect from radiation. How can spaces be built and designed in another way?

In the technological design level:

- Re-think the construction of masts, antennas and software. How optimised is for example W-CDMA from sustainability perspective? Which frequencies are the most harmful? The biggest risk seems to be that standards are based only on thermal effects, not biological ones. Please, check also the background info how ICNIRP guidelines were "democratically" set. OK, the views of Don Maisch may be harsh, but I am afraid there a seed of truth in his document. Who dares to change ICNIRP staff and guidelines?

- Focus more on sustainable hands-free design. Is Bluetooth really the answer with additional radiation? I would recommend air-tube or similar solutions.

- Redesign speaker-phone functionality in mobile phones. Now only expensive mobile phones enable you to have talk with the mobile phone on the table. When will somebody re-invent mobile phones with excellent conference phone functionality?

- Be prepared for the rebirth of corded phones and their design.

-  Enable more devices with off-line functionality. Make calendar, alarm clock, notepad etc work even when the connection (transceiver) is switched off. Would this be useful for time-management as well?

- Put more focus on client-software and it's functionality (Mobile Java + Symbian's newest release with enhanced DB + Lotus Notes ).  See also MIT Technology Review and awarded Offline Applications . Why do mobile portal software and mobile web servers require continuous connection to the network/server? Can this piece of software be designed to support timed, scheduled data transfer?

- Think about synchronisation and replication.  Where are those good practices gone with PDAs and their synchronisation / docking stations? Can replication be used between devices and base stations?

 

Prediction:

The first mobile device manufacturer and the first carrier opening the discussion about radiation risks and changing it's innovation and design policy will most likely be the biggest winners in the business in the future.

Why? That move would be advantageous for their brand and sustainability counts among consumers.

End note: According to philosopher John Mackie: "Within ethics there are no objective values. Morality can not be discovered, it must be made."

Question: Do you have a recommendation to share?

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.