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Q & A: Cell phone danger
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April 13, 2001: 7:22 a.m. ET
Are cellular phone users at serious health risk from long-term usage?
By Staff Writer Julie Vallese
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Concern is growing among consumers about the long-term safety of using cellular phones. Although there have been a number of studies examining the side effects of cell phone usage, none has conclusively established that cellular phones do pose a serious health risk for users. Should users be cautious?
Consumer safety affects us all. Unfortunately, it can be tough to track down information on product recalls, crash tests and government warnings. CNNfn is here to help. Send us your questions at mailto:consumer@cnnfn.com and we'll do our best to get them answered. The Q&A will appear weekly on this page.
Question: I recently read an article which touched on the hazards of using a mobile phone. It was alleged that electromagnetic waves of cell phones, as small and very powerful transmitters, do interact with the head tissues. The interaction, it added, does interfere with the perception and judgment of the brain. The result is the production of heat wave proteins. Now this has to do with DNA. The heat wave proteins on the other hand could lead to neoplasia where there is abnormal growth of the brain cells /tissues. Basically this is brain cancer.
My question and worry is that in Kenya, many people have rushed to subscribe to mobile phone companies to use the cell phones. Is there any evidence that the mobile phones we are using are actually harmful and do cause cancer? If not, do we have any evidence that the phones are actually harmless? What are some of the safely measures we can undertake to minimize the adverse effects of electromagnetic frequencies from the cell phones? There is also the issue of mobile phone viruses. Since we use the phones for minimal web surfing and emailing, are our phones going to be infected with viruses? What can we do to alleviate the looming danger? -- Ibrahim Wakhisi
Answer: The research on the dangers of cell phone use is inconclusive at this point. There have been a number of studies examining the possible side effects of cell phone use. The most recent was published this past February in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The study focused on 420,000 cell phone users in Denmark. It concluded callers are no more likely than anyone else to suffer from cancer. It further concluded there was no increased risk for brain or nervous systems cancers, leukemia or salivary gland tumors. There was one flaw in the report. A slow-growing brain tumor can take 10 years to develop. The majority of participants in the study only used their phones for an average of three years.
Two other reports, one published in the New England Journal of Medicine by the National Cancer Insitute and the other in the Journal of the American Medical Association, also concluded cell phone users were no more likely to suffer from brain tumors than non-users. The results were based that a user would use the phone for an hour a day or more for five or more years.
But two studies do raise questions about the long-term effects of cellular phones. The World Health Organization in 1997 found an increased risk of lymphoma in mice after exposed to the radiation level of cell phones.
In 1999 researchers at the Integrated laboratory Systems in North Carolina found under certain conditions radiation found in cell phones changes human blood cells.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Institutes of Health are looking into the possible health problems resulting from cell phone use.
For now the Food and Drug Administration suggests if customers are concerned about possible side effects from cell phones, use an earphone device that keeps the phone's antenna away from the head.
As for the chance of viruses attacking your phone, we contacted the Cellular Telephone and Internet Association (CTIA), and the answer had three levels.
E-mail bugs or viruses work by exploiting weaknesses in large feature-rich operating systems. Viruses are usually embedded in file attachments or launchable codes. Most wireless devices don't download executable code that include any kind of attachment or launchable code. Cell phones are mostly limited to text-only information. Therefore consumers can be pretty sure they won't be infected with e-mail viruses.
When you are talking about more advanced wireless systems like Palm Pilots, they can download load executable code. Therefore, there is a chance of infecting your device with a virus.
In the third possible scenario, if a consumer is using wireless phones to connect to the Internet, his or her PC is just as vulnerable. The wireless phone can act as the transporter of the virus but the phone itself will not be infected by the virus.
We also talked to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, and while it does not regulate the Internet, it does have a division for wireless communication. The FCC's office of engineering and technology told us that viruses usually invade through either software operating systems or applications. Cell phones usually operate of different systems, so it is unlikely that a virus intended for a PC would invade a wireless phone.
However, FCC spokespeople did add while it is unlikely, it is not impossible, and there may come a time when someone figures out how to infect both PCs and wireless phones. 
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