Mobile Communications Safety [antikvár]

Preface The beginning of 1993 saw intense press and television coverage of a lawsuit filed in Tampa, Florida by a husband for the death of his wife. In the lawsuit the husband, David Reynard, alleged that his wife died of a brain tumor which was caused or accelerated by her use of a portable cellular phone, approximately one and a half years before her death. Because of the widespread use of portable cellular phones, there was substantial public concern about a possible connection between the radio frequency energy emitted by the phone and the growth of brain tumors. The media coverage caused a briefing session by the Telecommunications Subcommittee in the House of the United States Congress during February, 1993 and a similar proceeding in the Bundestag of Germany in May, 1993. The use of portable cellular phones had become a matter of public health concern in several industrialized countries. During the peak of media interest, the Food and Drug Administration of the United States issued a 'talk paper' which gave a summary of the specific available scientific evidence. In the 'talk paper' was stated, 'How much evidence is there that handheld cellular phones might be haxm-ful? Briefly, there is not enough evidence to know for sure, either way. Although it is known that high levels of radiofrequency energy that are absorbed by the body can be harmful, the effect of lower levels, such as those emitted by handheld cellular phones, is far less clear. A few studies suggest that these levels can accelerate the development of cancer in laboratory animals, but there is much uncertainty among scientists about whether these results apply to the use of cellular phones.' Since then, research has been conducted in the United States and Europe on the dosimetry and biological effects of RF at the power levels of the signals from cellular phones, in order to build up the scientific basis for analysis. The results have been slowly accumulating, as happens when a scientific task of this complexity is tackled by researchers. The present book summarizes the available scientific evidence up to early 1996. This book is a compendium of the knowledge of well recognized and renowned experts in the research of RF energy bioeffects in the frequency band of cellular phone communications. The book is divided into four parts. In the first part, there is a summary of the present and future technologies of mobile cellular telephony. In the second part, the dosimetry, interference, biological effects and epidemiological studies