Aftonbladet, Saturday, February 8, 1997


This is a translation of an article published in the prominent 
Swedish newspaper 'Aftonbladet' on Saturday February 8th, 1997.


"How Dangerous Is Your Mobile Phone?"


The front page of the newspaper reads:

Scientists raise the alarm: How dangerous is Your mobile phone
Five ways to reduce the risk
How to protect your child

The two-page article inside the paper reads:

Do you dare call from your mobile phone?
Still more alarming scientific reports on dangerous radiation from mobile phones

Every fourth Swede owns a mobile phone.
Last year alone one million phones were sold.
At the same time alarming scientific reports start swarming:
The radiation from the phones may be dangerous.
Aftonbladet today answers the most common questions.

Is your mobile phone dangerous?

Nobody knows for sure. The scientists downplay the risk, but the cell phone
story is a thriller:

Todays knowledge could be tomorrow's nightmare, says the scientist 
lle Johansson from  Karolinska Instituttet.

It is likely that 30 years from now wonder how people in the whole world 
could place such a high frequency radiation source to the head.

Why can the mobile phone be dangerous?

The antenna radiates microwaves. The same type of radiation as in a microwave 
oven, although in much smaller doses. Like the microwave oven heats food, the 
microwaves of the phone heat human cells. Science does not know exactly what 
happens with human cells which are exposed to microwaves.

Can I get cancer from the mobile phone?

Animal studies on rats show that cells are affected and the genes (DNA) 
can be damaged by mobile phone-like radiation.
This is a plausible coupling to how tumors are initiated. More can science 
not say today, Olle Johansson explains.

What other damages can microwaves cause?

An American study mentions the following damages: Behavioral disturbances, 
nerve damages, fetal damages, cataract, changes to blood chemistry and 
impaired immune defense. 
Whether this is also true for the low doses which the mobile phones are 
emanating, nobody knows.

Are children more sensitive to microwaves?

In general, children are more sensitive to anything affecting the human 
body.  An Australian report concludes that children absorbs microwaves 
at a rate 3.3 times higher than an adult. What this means exactly, nobody 
knows.

Are different people sensitive to the radiation to different degrees?

This is probably so. Electrical hypersensitive people often complaint over 
problems in connection with mobile phones.

Is the digital phone more dangerous than the analog phone?

A substantial body of research suggests that this is true. In this case it 
is connected with the fact that the digital phone emits a pulsed signal, 
and this frequency affects people more than the analog signal.

Is it dangerous to live near a base station?

Today nobody knows for sure how it affects humans to continuously stay 
in a weak microwave field.

How clear must evidence be before the mobile phone industry admits to 
the risks? 

It is one of the worlds most successful hi-tech industries by the turn 
of the century. In Sweden alone this industry has created tens of 
thousands of jobs.

Scientist Clas Tegenfeld who is writing a book on biological effects of 
electromagnetic fields is pessimistic: 
Already now there is at least 15,000 scientific reports on the subject. 
I am afraid that the truth is that we don't want to know.


This is how you minimize the risk
Five ways to minimize the risks of the mobile phone:

Shorter conversations!
Avoid speaking for long periods on the mobile phone. Try to plan your 
calls in such a way that you use ordinary phones for long conversations.

Don't sit in the car!
Speak as little as possible inside the car because it amplifies the 
radiation. If you have to speak a lot from the car - get a roof antenna.

Protect your baby!
Don't place a turned-on mobile phone in the baby carriage. The mobile 
phone emits microwaves even if you don't speak in it.

Avoid the waist!
Don't carry the mobile phone in the belt around the waist. It is needless 
to expose the deposits of bone marrow in the hips, and the testicles to 
the microwaves.

Earlier there have been warnings against placing the phone next to the heart. 
This is now regarded as being less dangerous, unless you have a pacemaker. 

The best place to carry the phone is in a military trouser's leg pocket.

Direct the antenna!
Always pull out the antenna when you use the phone and direct it away 
from the head, not upright in parallel with the head. It may be a marginal 
difference, but it reduces the radiation into the head somewhat.


Annika become ill when the phone is turned on
Her breathing becomes difficult and she gets a headache

	Annika Fogelstr_m in Link_ping reacts directly to mobile phones. 
Her breathing becomes troublesome, she feels a pressure on the chest and 
headache if she is a couple of meters from a mobile phone. When she was 
most ill she could feel whether it was a digital or an analog phone which 
had been turned on near to her.

	The scientists are uncertain whether mobile phones have an effect 
on humans. Annika Fogelstr_m from Link_ping is not: It is beyond doubt that 
something here is affecting humans.

Established by blind testing
Annika has excellent support for her statement. The scientist Olle Johansson 
of Karolinska Instituttet in Solna performed a blind test on Annika. 

She was placed in a room in which - in a series of tests - two identical 
bags were brought in. In one of them was a turned-on mobile phone, in the 
other just papers. 

I could identify the bag with the phone nine out of nine times. Then, about 
a year ago, Annika was so sensitive that she could tell the difference between 
a digital and an analog phone. 

Annika is certain that this is related to her electrical hypersensitivity. 
When it started, she was perspiring abnormally and she got skin eruptions 
when she was sitting for several hours in front of a computer screen.

Annika 'sanitized' her home and workplace. After a while, 90 percent of 
her trouble had disappeared. However, the problem with the mobile phone 
remained.

Reacted to a phone in the room
It was enough that a mobile phone was placed in the same room, then it 
started humming in her head and tighten in her skin.

When is was worst she had trouble breathing, she felt a pressure over the 
breast and a headache. 

Maybe it is so that I react directly on something other people will become 
very ill over 20 years from now, Annika Fogelstr_m says.

Journalist: Jan Helin