Studies the U.S. industries quote and the ones they ignore

            Magda Havas, Ph.D., of Trent University in Ontario, Canada, gives little credence to the studies the wireless industry leans on to pronounce its products safe. Noting most are done by the companies themselves, she discounts them for allowing subjects who use cell phones merely once a week, and cites that the short term studies are insufficient to detect the long term results (results which have been found and studied by others, including herself). Cancers usually take a minimum of ten years to develop, so any study using subjects who use the technology less than ten years could not possibly disprove a link.

            Christopher Ketcham’s article, “Warning: Your Cell Phone May Be Hazardous to Your Health,” in GQ last February uncovered another reason the U.S. studies are “inconclusive.” Henry Lai, a biophysicist at the University of Washington, found in the 1990s that typical modulated radiation (the kind emitted by wireless information technology) was capable of causing breaks in DNA strands and even creating mutations that could be potentially passed on for generations. In his review of 350 studies used by the industry to bolster its position, nearly half showed bioeffects from EMF radiation. (Remember, we are told all is “OK” because only half showed problems.) Futhermore, when Lai grouped the studies according to where the money came from to fund them, he found a trend that threw the whole lot into question. While 75% of the studies funded outside the wireless technology industry found harmful EMF effects, only 25% of those funded by the industry uncovered any caution. The difference does not demonstrate what controlled scientific studies should reveal; if the studies were all unbiased, the two groups should have gathered similar results. Lai believes something in the results is inherently invalid.

Lai’s findings about DNA damage from wireless radiation were attacked and discredited, which leads Ketcham to wonder if the reason so few U.S. industry-funded studies match the results of those conducted in other countries is because those who were on the trail were shuttled off, as Lai was. Ketcham reveals a trail of scientists, before and after Lai, whose negative findings were squelched rather than published. The U.S. has remained so insulated that even when other countries’ conclusive studies pointed again and again to wireless EMF consequences on health, the climate in U.S. research has not changed.