Devra Davis is the Director of the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Environmental Oncology recently put out recommendations that we should be using a speakerphone or ear piece. The report says children, who have thinner skulls and developing brains, should use cell phones only in case of emergency. And heaven forbid anyone should carry a cell phone in a pocket or clipped to a belt. "You're just roasting your bone marrow," Davis said. Cell phones have been wildly popular for only a matter of years, and it can take at least a decade for cancers to show up. Studies contradict each other, and scientists bicker: Some will tell you with great conviction that there's nothing to worry about. Others will tell you with equal conviction that an epidemic of brain tumors may be just around the corner. The cell phone industry itself says "the overwhelming majority of studies that have been published in scientific journals around the globe show that wireless phones do not pose a health risk. Below are a few tips to limit your cell phone risk.
1. Use the Speakerphone
Nothing is near your head. "Hold it away from a minimum of a few inches. A foot or two is ideal," said Magda Havas, an associate professor with the Institute for Health Studies at Trent University in Ontario, Canada. Every inch you can get away from your body, the radiation reduces very quickly. "Hold it out two inches, and the radiation drops by a factor of four. Hold it out four inches, and it drops by a factor of 16," she says.
2. Use a wired headset with a ferrite bead
A ferrite bead is a clip you put on the wire of a headset. The concern is that the wire itself emits radiation into your ear. The bead is designed to absorb the radiation so you don't. They're inexpensive and available at stores or online. Of course, if the phone is in your pocket or clipped to your belt, all bets are off, because the phone itself will be radiating into your body. So if you're worried about radiation, keep the phone as far away as possible.
3. Use a Bluetooth earpiece
A Bluetooth earpiece still has radiation, but it's at least 100 times less than the radiation you get when you hold a cell phone to your head.
4. Use a "hollow tube" earpiece
It's just like a regular wired earpiece, except the last six inches or so -- the part next to your ear -- is a hollow tube. There's no wire under the plastic.
5. Get a phone with less radiation
Phone radiation is measured in specific absorption rate, or SAR. To look up the SAR for your phone, check this list on CNET.com.
You might think the experts mentioned above all use earpieces or a speakerphone. Not so. Several said they hold it right up to their heads because they use their cells so infrequently, they're not worried about radiation. "I use it maybe once or twice a week, no more than 10 minutes," said Challis, the former head of the British committee that studied cell phones and radiation. "I use a land line whenever I can." It's the exposure, day after day, year after year, that matters. As Challis, who's retired, puts it, "If I were younger, I'd take this much more seriously.
Source: CNN.com
