Dear friend,

Please take a moment today and sent a brief email message to Peter Goodhand, CEO of the Canadian Cancer Society (CCS), and CCS Chair Jimm Simon, urging that they publicly oppose a $58 million subsidy to the asbestos industry that would increase exports of deadly asbestos to the developing world.

If the CCS puts out a strong, clear statement calling on the Quebec government to NOT give the asbestos Industry the $58 million subsidy, it could make a BIG difference and might actually stop the deadly scheme. It would be very tragic if they failed to speak up publicly at this critical moment on this critical issue.

Below is a sample letter for you to adapt followed by some background information.

Thanks for acting today!

–The Prevent Cancer Now Team
 

BACKGROUND

• The Québec government is planning to give the Asbestos industry a $58 million dollar subsidy to open a new asbestos mine.
• The asbestos is destined for export to the developing world.
• Organizations and doctors from around the world have publicly opposed Canada’s deadly asbestos exports to developing countries. It is immoral to export cancer and disease to those countries with the least ability to provide protection to their citizens.
• The asbestos mine says its must get a positive answer from the Quebec government by July 1 or it will declare bankruptcy. The Minister of Economic Development, Innovation & Export has stated publicy that he is optimistic that the subsidy will be approved.
• Visit the Prevent Cancer Now website for more information on deadly asbestos.

The Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment is working to close Ontario’s dirty coal-fired electricity plants… and we need a minute of your time to assist us!

Coal plants kill an estimated 250 Canadians and make over 100,000 ill every year.

Coal plants produce the greenhouse gas emissions of almost 7 million cars!

But the good news is the province has more than enough electricity and doesn’t need the coal plants.

Could you please take a minute to e-mail Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty the following message:

The Premier’s e-mail is: Dmcguinty.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org

It doesn’t matter if you don’t live in Ontario. Please write the Premier anyway. Smog hurts all of us.

Thank you,

Gideon Forman, Executive Director
Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment

Henry Lai: Radiation from wireless signals and cell phones is harmful

Dr. Henry Lai, whose research is noted as part of the report on the Interphone Study, reported that he has changed his mind about whether radiation from wireless signals and cell phones was harmful. He has found that, while using a cell phone, 80 per cent of the high intensity radiation is absorbed into the hand and head. Also, transmissions from wireless routers or broadcast towers expose people to low intensity and long-term radiation.

“It’s involuntary,” Lai said of the radiation being transmitted through the open environment. “No matter where you go you’re exposed.”

Lai said new research is showing that exposure to frequencies emitted by these technologies leads to enhanced free radical activity in the body’s cells which leads to cell damage and even cell death. DNA strands break when exposed to radiation. And when DNA reforms, it can make “mistakes” which lead to mutations.
Lai’s research has also shown that the effects of radiation on health depend largely on where the funding for research comes from (see also Follow the Money in our report on Incineration). He feels that governments should increase their funding into wireless technologies and its biological effects. Currently Canada is funding very little research while the United States has funded virtually no studies on wireless technology.

Magda Havas: Electrosmog induces electrohypersensitivity

Trent University’s Dr. Magda Havas – well known to readers of An Ounce - has been studying the biological effects of electromagnetic pollution or “electrosmog” in the environment caused by everything from cordless phones to televisions in the home. She strongly recommends removing cordless phones from our home, since these can emit as much radiation as a cell phone tower.
She estimates over one million Canadians have some form of electrohypersensitivity caused by “dirty electricity” in the environment. She cites physical symptoms people may experience following long-term exposure to EMF, including dizziness, headaches, nausea, rashes, shortness of breath, heart palpitations, fluctuations in blood sugar and, in severe cases, seizure and stroke.

Lakehead refuses wireless technology

Lakehead University has refused to install wireless technology on campus, citing health concerns. This has, not surprisingly, become a hot-topic issue, garnering international attention, and angering some students and staff who want the convenience of wireless access.

Most of the bad news about the dark side to the techno-magic of wireless devices that depend on electromagnetic (EM) microwave radiation to function comes from major labs and research institutions in Europe. What they’re reporting is that using cell phones and Wi-Fi transmitters — which operate using similar frequencies — can have biological effects on the brain and body.

Chilling possibilities

The scientific debate remains heated and far from resolved, but the research to date suggests a number of chilling possibilities as to what EM radiation may be doing to us.

For example, in 2008, neuroscientists at Swinburne University of Technology in Australia strapped Nokia phones to subjects’ heads, then turned the phones on and off. On — the brain’s alpha waves spiked. Off — the brain settled. The researchers speculated that the effect was the result of the brain “concentrating to overcome the electrical interference in brain circuits caused by the pulsed microwave radiation.”

Swedish neuro-oncologist Leif Salford, chairman of the department of neurosurgery at Lund University, has found that cell phone radiation kills brain cells in rats, especially those cells associated with memory and learning. The damage occurred after an exposure of just two hours. In duplicating earlier research, Salford also found that cell phone microwaves produce holes in the barrier between the circulatory system and the brain in rats. One potential outcome, according to Salford, is dementia.

Meanwhile, Austrian researchers reported in 2004 that cell phone radiation can induce double-strand breaks in DNA, one of the undisputed causes of cancer.

More locally, collectif SEMO (Sauvons nos Enfants des Micro-Ondes) is calling attention to the need to protect children from electromagnetic radiation. They are circulating a petition and asking for a report from Quebec public health authorities on relay towers and their effects on children’s health.

So why isn’t this a bigger issue?

Partly because there are countervailing studies and other scientists telling us not to be worried, that the risks are low or that we just don’t know enough to say that the risks are real.

We’ll continue to keep you posted on this issue – it’s a big one and only likely to get bigger.

For more information:

Interphone study reports on mobile phone use and brain cancer risk, International Agency for Research on Cancer, Press Release 200, May 10, 2010
Electrosmog can be bad for health by Doug Diaczuk 02/23/2010
Wireless concerns by Jamie Smith
Lab rats with cellphones? By Christopher Ketcham, February 23, 2010
Sauvons nos Enfants des Micro-Ondes (SEMO), 23 février 2010
Could electronics be what’s causing runaway cars? By Jayne O’Donnell
Video DECT phone affects the heart by Magda Havas
W.E.E.P. (The Canadian initiative to stop Wireless Electrical and Electromagnetic Pollution)
Children and Cell Phones: Time to Start Talking Sense, by Louis Slesin, May 3, 2010, Microwave News,
Cellphones and Cancer: The Real Story by Devra Lee Davis, June 4, 2010, The Huffington Post,

 
Also in this issue on An Ounce …

• An Ounce: Introduction to the June 2010 Issue
• President’s Panel Report: “Grievous harm not adequately addressed”
• Waste-to-energy doesn’t deal with the root problem
• The “waste circus” has arrived in Canada
• Interphone study on mobile phone use and brain cancer risk: No clear answers
• The Radiation App That iPhone Has Banned
• Electrosmog and our health
• Alyssa Blondon – A Teenage Survivor’s Account
• KF-C is for cynical
• The Big Test for BPA
• Worth Reading: Cancer Under the Radar – Young Adults Tell Their Stories
• Ongoing resources to keep in mind!
• What’s New?

A STANDING O FOR LIVING DOWNSTREAM

Tuesday, May 18th was an exciting night for cancer prevention activists in this country when close to 700 people flocked to the Bloor Cinema in Toronto for the Canadian premiere of the new film Living Downstream. Eighty-four minutes later, they were all on their feet offering a standing ovation.

Without a doubt, it was a proud moment for Chanda Chevannes, the young Toronto-based director-producer who read the book Living Downstream in high school 13 years ago, and knew even then it would make a visually powerful and meaningful documentary. Her high school vision is now reality.

It was also a proud moment for Sandra Steingraber, author of that acclaimed 1997 book, whose passion as a writer and cancer survivor helps make the case that clean air, pure water and healthy food should be a basic human right for everyone. This film will help carry the message far and wide. (By the way, if you want to experience first-hand why Dr. Steingraber is such an celebrated environmental-health writer, check out her series of weekly essays at this link.

The second edition of Living Downstream, the book, released in March to coincide with the film’s debut, goes a big step beyond the original by making connections between the thousands of fossil fuel-based chemicals, climate change and cancer. Timely and terrific.

TRICLOSAN: CAN WAL-MART HELP BANISH IT?

It is literally in almost every type of product – in most soaps, toothpastes, hand sanitizers, cosmetics, clothes and toys. It’s triclosan, and finally, after many years of standing back, the US Food and Drug Administration acknowledged in early April that recent scientific studies raise questions about whether triclosan disrupts the body’s endocrine system and whether it helps create bacteria resistant to antibiotics.

Since triclosan is in thousands of different products, of course, it’s also in our drinking water, our rivers, lakes and oceans, and – as a result – it’s in the bodies of most humans and wildlife. It has been banned by several European Union countries. Canada has limited triclosan’s use through Health Canada’s Cosmetic Ingredient Hotlist to 0.03 per cent in mouthwashes and 0.3 per cent in other cosmetics. But, as the David Suzuki Foundation points out: “The problem is that triclosan is used in so many products that the small amounts found in each product add up — particularly since the chemical does not readily degrade. Moreover, some anti-bacterial hand sanitizers containing triclosan may not classify as “cosmetics” as per the Food and Drug Act. Products classified as ‘drugs’ on the basis of a therapeutic claim or function are not subject to the Cosmetic Regulations or the Hotlist restriction.”

While North American government agencies hesitate, The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics in the US has another idea – appeal directly to the mammoth retail giant Wal-Mart to get triclosan out of products it sells. If you saw the film documentary, Food Inc., you’ll know that consumer demand triggered Wal-Mart to stock organic,foods and milk products free of the hormone rBST, which in turn, influenced many other retailers to follow suit.

To help move Wal-Mart to get the triclosan out, send your message from website and printed newsletter, The Ribbon. Thankfully, as Dr. Suzanne Snedeker, head of this excellent program notes, information from the site will be archived at BCERF’s present site. As its days may be numbered, pay heed to Dr. Snedeker’s good advice, and download the documents you are most interested in and store them on your own computer in a format you can access yourself.

To understand what a wonderful resource BCERF has been, we suggest you follow the link to just one example of clear, relevant information so typical to the site: Bisphenol A: Researchers Question Sources of Exposure. So very sorry to see you go, BCERF, and thank you for many years of excellence.

DISCONNECT, NEW BOOK FROM DEVRA LEE DAVIS

Watch for more about cell phones in Disconnect, Devra Lee Davis’s new book expected in the fall.

Devra Lee Davis has a longstanding relationship with PCN. She is a leading epidemiologist and researcher on the environmental causes of breast cancer and chronic disease, and she was a lead speaker at our (date) conference. We’re sure you remember her earlier books, When Smoke Ran Like Water (2002) and The Secret History of the War on Cancer (2007).

Her new book, Disconnect - an expose of cell phone science and politics – will be out in the fall. This time, she documents the scientific basis for concerns about cell phones, and efforts made to suppress and manipulate science. It includes lay summaries of growing experimental evidence on the capacity of radiofrequency signals from cell phones to damage DNA, disrupt normal cell communication, induce reactive oxygen species, and produce other well established markers of biological damage, along with the little known manipulation of science by the (3 trillion dollar global)

 
Also in this issue on An Ounce …

• An Ounce: Introduction to the June 2010 Issue
• President’s Panel Report: “Grievous harm not adequately addressed”
• Waste-to-energy doesn’t deal with the root problem
• The “waste circus” has arrived in Canada
• Interphone study on mobile phone use and brain cancer risk: No clear answers
• The Radiation App That iPhone Has Banned
• Electrosmog and our health
• Alyssa Blondon – A Teenage Survivor’s Account
• KF-C is for cynical
• The Big Test for BPA
• Worth Reading: Cancer Under the Radar – Young Adults Tell Their Stories
• Ongoing resources to keep in mind!
• What’s New?

Other stories included the mixed and somewhat confusing results of the huge Interphone Study on cell phone use, and the May 19 release of the 2010 Canadian Cancer Statistics, which showed, no surprise here, that more people will be diagnosed with and die from cancer than ever before. We also offer a profile of Alyssa - a teen born with cancer, a report on the Canadian premiere of Living Downstream The Film, plus more on incineration, asbestos and KFC proffering pink buckets of its (in)famous fried chicken as a breast cancer fundraiser. Kentucky Fried Chicken as a good guy? Read on…

The report noted that environmental carcinogens “do not represent a new front in the ongoing war on cancer” but, as the panel of three top US experts emphasized: “The grievous harm from this group of carcinogens has not been addressed adequately by the US National Cancer Program. The American people {Canadians too, we hasten to add} – even before they are born – are bombarded continually with myriad combinations of these dangerous exposures.”

American Cancer Society Push-Back
Among many others, New York Times’ columnist Nicholas Kristoff jumped on concerns expressed in the report immediately (New Alarm Bells About Chemicals and Cancer, May 6, 2010), but it wasn’t long before the American Cancer Society (ACS) pushed back, saying, in effect, Hey, wait a minute. Don’t forget that pollution and occupational hazards account for only about 6% of all cancers, while the majority are linked to smoking, obesity, alcohol consumption, and so on.

But, please take note: the ACS is still basing public statements and policy decisions on the nearly three-decades-old and now widely discredited 1981 study by the ‘two Richards’, Sir Richard Doll & Sir Richard Peto. That famous paper, The causes of cancer: quantitative estimates of avoidable risks of cancer in the United States today has since been ably deconstructed by many critics and scientists, including Dr. Devra Davis, author of The Secret History of the War on Cancer. The Doll & Peto controversy is well explained in a Health Beat Blog entry by Maggie Mahar – a useful critique. It is also fundamental for readers to know that Dr. Doll, a world-renowned epidemiologist, was finally ‘outed’ shortly after his death in 2005 as the covert recipient of generous funding from Monsanto, Dow Chemical and the American Chemical Council, to name just a few who may have skewed his judgment about the trivialities of environmental toxins. In this context, readers might also appreciate a reminder about Dr. Samuel Epstein, author of 1978 blockbuster, The Politics of Cancer (as well as a Revisited version in 1998), who for many decades has taken aim at what he calls The Cancer Establishment, including ACS, for its numerous conflicts of interest and other mortal sins, duly noted in this May 12 submission to The Huffington Post.

Useful Consumer Advice

As for useful advice for everyday consumers from the President’s Cancer Panel report, here are seven good tips:

1) Filter home tap water and do not store water in plastic bottles
2) Do not use plastic plates to heat food in a microwave oven
3) Eat food grown without pesticides or chemical fertilizers
4) Avoid processed, charred and well-done meats
5) Reduce cell phone usage
6) Reduce exposure to radiation from medical sources by discussing with healthcare providers whether medical tests or procedures (such as CT-scans) that use radiation are really necessary
7) Check home radon levels.

 
Also in this issue on An Ounce …

• An Ounce: Introduction to the June 2010 Issue
• President’s Panel Report: “Grievous harm not adequately addressed”
• Waste-to-energy doesn’t deal with the root problem
• The “waste circus” has arrived in Canada
• Interphone study on mobile phone use and brain cancer risk: No clear answers
• The Radiation App That iPhone Has Banned
• Electrosmog and our health
• Alyssa Blondon – A Teenage Survivor’s Account
• KF-C is for cynical
• The Big Test for BPA
• Worth Reading: Cancer Under the Radar – Young Adults Tell Their Stories
• Ongoing resources to keep in mind!
• What’s New?

Waste-to-energy doesn’t deal with the root problem: As a society, we’re still creating too much garbage
By Lesley Evans Ogden, Coquitlam NOW (June 2, 2010)

Port Moody’s mayor, Joe Trasolini, recently voted in support of Metro Vancouver’s draft solid waste management strategy, which includes expansion of the region’s waste-to-energy (incineration) infrastructure.

Twice in recent months I attempted to contact the mayor to ask him why he supports waste-to-energy, and twice I received no reply. If waste-to-energy is so clearly beneficial to our region, why is the mayor so sheepish about explaining his decision to support it?

Mayor Trasolini’s position is particularly puzzling given that the volunteers of Port Moody’s environmental protection committee summarized their arduous meetings through the summer of 2009 in a report that strongly opposed Plasco’s waste-to-energy.

The mind boggles further considering that the Cache Creek landfill has recently been given an extension to receive waste for another 25 years, thus alleviating our so-called “garbage crisis.” Landfills are not perfect. They slowly release the powerful greenhouse gas methane as organic material buried underground decomposes anaerobically (without oxygen).

However, Port Moody and Port Coquitlam are taking a leadership role as municipalities piloting the removal of organic material from the waste stream, diverting it to composting programs, which drastically reduces landfill methane production. And while we need to move aggressively towards a society where industries are not permitted to produce non-recyclable plastics, in the meantime, those plastics buried in landfill at least represent a stable, solid form of the fossil fuels that created them. Plastics in our landfills will remain unchanged for hundreds, if not thousands of years. When we take those same plastics and incinerate them, that stored carbon is immediately released as carbon dioxide gas that may persist in our Earth’s atmosphere for centuries. By converting our waste from solid to gas through incineration, (ignoring for now the other solid toxic byproducts of waste-to-energy), we are further contributing to a legacy of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide that will not only affect the Earth’s climate for our children, it will affect our grandchildren’s great-grandchildren.

Throughout Metro’s public consultation process, we have been told to look to Scandinavia as a shining example of countries where waste-to-energy is used and accepted. But comparing our waste system to Sweden’s is like comparing apples with rambutans. Sweden has a highly sophisticated waste-sorting system in which people must separate out at least 12 types of recyclables. Citizens receive hefty fines if they trash recyclable materials.

We’re nowhere near this level of recycling sophistication, so incineration of our unsorted waste would introduce all sorts of harmful products, like electronics and batteries, into the resulting solid and gaseous stew. In addition, Sweden is way ahead of us on extended producer responsibility legislation — requiring companies to take post-consumer responsibility for their products and packaging by means of take-back programs.

The most worrying aspect of this solid waste management planning process has been the lack of a balanced consideration of alternative viewpoints. Metro Vancouver has failed to provide an equal hearing for scientific evidence that opposes the use of waste-to-energy. If waste-to-energy is so solidly supported by science, why was it necessary to bring in experts that clearly had a vested interest in promoting waste-to-energy, rather than unbiased scientists that could take a truly balanced look at the technology?

Take Bettina Kamuk, for example. As market director of the Danish company Ramboll Denmark AS — a company that, according to its website, has spent the past 30 years involved in the planning, procurement and commissioning of waste-to-energy plants — Kamuk is paid to promote waste-to-energy, and her company has a clear financial interest in doing so.

Metro aided the self-destruction of their credibility with the use of “expert” toxicologist Dr. Jim Bridges, who assured us all that waste-to-energy posed no risks to human health. It was later revealed that in the 1990s, when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency took tobacco giants to task on the adverse health impacts of cigarettes, Bridges was an expert witness testifying for Phillip Morris.

As you can read in court transcripts. Bridges held the position that there was insufficient evidence linking tobacco smoke, either direct or second-hand, to cancer and cardiovascular disease.

And in Metro’s recent decision to deny UBC’s atmospheric scientist Dr. Douw Steyn renewed funding for air quality research because of his outspoken opposition to incineration, they have perpetuated a long chain of historical precedents of politicians and religious leaders shooting the scientific messenger.

After all, if our scientists aren’t telling us what we want to hear, isn’t ignorance and denial so much better? Waste-to-energy is not a sustainable or ecologically responsible energy source, nor is it a wise long-term investment for a society truly committed to the elimination of waste.

Our current overproduction of waste is like a severed artery, and ramping up waste-to-energy is the equivalent of getting faster and faster at bringing trays to catch the spurting blood, instead of applying pressure to stop the flow. Committing to waste-to-energy doesn’t deal with the root problem: that our society has become unwittingly locked into a culture of too much waste. Let’s see some solid commitment to waste reduction, not another Band-Aid.

- - -

Lesley Evans Ogden is a freelance writer, ecologist and lecturer in environmental biology who is based in Port Moody.

This article is archived online here

 
Also in this issue on An Ounce …

• An Ounce: Introduction to the June 2010 Issue
• President’s Panel Report: “Grievous harm not adequately addressed”
• Waste-to-energy doesn’t deal with the root problem
• The “waste circus” has arrived in Canada
• Interphone study on mobile phone use and brain cancer risk: No clear answers
• The Radiation App That iPhone Has Banned
• Electrosmog and our health
• Alyssa Blondon – A Teenage Survivor’s Account
• KF-C is for cynical
• The Big Test for BPA
• Worth Reading: Cancer Under the Radar – Young Adults Tell Their Stories
• Ongoing resources to keep in mind!
• What’s New?

A related article by the same author for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives describes how closely the industry is watching the proposed incinerator in Durham Region (East of Toronto) and York Region (north of Toronto), which, if approved, could pave the way for other such projects in Ontario. The article states that: “As one speaker put it at the November industry conference: “The inability to manage public perception issues is what stops [WTE incineration] projects, not the government approvals process.”

Literature searches conducted by consultants for Halton Region which was considering incinerator in 2007 and for the Durham-York Region project, could find no evidence that “modern” incinerators are safe, though it appears some improvements have been achieved. Ontario’s Minister of the Environment is expected to make his decision on the Durham-York Environmental Assessment (EA) by early July 2010.

Plasco Energy in Ottawa had long touted their plasma arc gasification process as having no emissions, claiming gasification is not “incineration”. A recent news article describes the poor operating performance of Plasco, which has received both federal and provincial dollars. Gasification, pyrolysis (starved air) and plasma arc technologies – so-called “incinerators in disguise” – heat or convert waste materials at high temperatures to create gas (syngas), liquids and solid residues of ash (char) or slag. However, the waste gases are then burned, releasing hazardous pollutants.

The Good News File

On the good news front, this past spring, the citizens of Christina Lake and Kamloops, in British Columbia, helped beat back two proposals. Citizens informed themselves about the health and other risks and engaged their communities and political representatives. They linked up with other groups and individuals opposing incineration and mobilized to convince their decision-makers to reject burning. Proponents in both cases withdrew their proposals and while they may move on to other communities, we now have the information and the approach to defeat these ill-advised garbage burners.

Another positive development has residents in New Brunswick and Quebec awaiting the sale of the Bennett Environmental hazardous waste incinerator site in Belledune. The persistence and vigilance of citizen groups Environnement Vie and the Belledune Citizens Committee have been essential in helping to stop this controversial and risky project.

Elsewhere the Battle Continues

Metro Vancouver residents are in a heated waste battle as Metro staff and some politicians promote incineration as their preferred option. Seasoned activists have joined forces and formed Zero Waste B.C. to help inform and mobilize residents across Vancouver and the Lower Mainland. See the details of Metro Vancouver’s public consultation schedule on their proposed waste plan, which goes until June 17th. Listen to the song penned by several talented B.C. incineration campaigners and sung by Canadian Idol contender Shane Wiebe and his wife Angela – known as “The Wiebes”

Burning garbage is once again being discussed in the City of Hamilton, Ontario, as well as a possible city-owned sewage sludge incineration plant. Liberty Energy received EA approval for their sewage incineration plant in 2008. Construction has not yet begun.

In Brant County, Ontario, residents are struggling to get clear information from their municipal officials about possible incineration projects for their community and the Six Nations Reserve.

The “waste circus” has indeed come to Canada. The industry likes to limit the debate to a simplistic “burn or bury” option. Citizens can prepare themselves to productively counter the “clowns” who promote burning garbage and generally fail to acknowledge and/or fairly assess the range of health risks associated with burning waste, which includes exposures to carcinogens in air emissions and ash residues. Environment Ministries and air pollution monitoring are not doing a good job of telling us what industry is already spewing into our air sheds.

The Role of Government

Governments often talk a good story about sustainable waste management policy: however they have been slow to implement legislation requiring producers to be responsible for their products over the entire life cycle, cradle to cradle. Governments across Canada continue their flirtation with the incinerator industry, which relies on large waste volumes, and is thus inconsistent with waste reduction and recycling programs. Will the federal government provide leadership through their Canada-wide action plan and require the provinces and territories to enact and implement Extended Producer Responsibility legislation sooner rather than later?

Ontarians anticipate a major announcement soon from the Minister of the Environment as to how the province will proceed with the Waste Diversion Act review. Will Minister Gerretsen, who asked Ontarians to work Towards a Zero Waste Future enact sustainable waste policies? Or will the Minister who, in a recent speech to Waste Diversion Ontario, sounds as if he may have drunk the “kool aid” and bought the sales pitch that “modern” incinerators are safe, go ahead and approve the Durham incinerator?

Prevent Cancer Now’s Incineration Tool Kit continues to be updated as we add information on the risks of burning waste. There are safer and more sustainable alternatives to incineration. We urge you to mobilize your community and lobby your political representatives at all levels to move your community towards safer and sustainable options.

– By Linda Gasser, PCN Incineration Campaign Coordinator

 
Also in this issue on An Ounce …

• An Ounce: Introduction to the June 2010 Issue
• President’s Panel Report: “Grievous harm not adequately addressed”
• Waste-to-energy doesn’t deal with the root problem
• The “waste circus” has arrived in Canada
• Interphone study on mobile phone use and brain cancer risk: No clear answers
• The Radiation App That iPhone Has Banned
• Electrosmog and our health
• Alyssa Blondon – A Teenage Survivor’s Account
• KF-C is for cynical
• The Big Test for BPA
• Worth Reading: Cancer Under the Radar – Young Adults Tell Their Stories
• Ongoing resources to keep in mind!
• What’s New?

The Interphone study looked at cancer patients and worked backward to establish cell phone habits. It is the largest study of cell phones and cancer ever done and included 2,708 cases of glioma and 2,409 of meningioma, another type of brain tumor, with a total of over 5,634 controls —from 13 countries. Eligible cases were patients diagnosed between 2000 and 2004. (Meningioma was not linked to cell phone use.) The total budget of the study, which got underway in 2000, was €19.2 million (~US$25 million). Funding came from the European Commission (€3.74 million) and the cell phone industry (€5.5 million), as well as other sources.

Everyone anticipated that Interphone wouldn’t offer any definitive findings, and they were right. “An increased risk of brain cancer [has not been] established,” said Christopher Wild, the director of the IARC.

But, there are “suggestions of an increased risk” at “the highest exposure levels,” according to the abstract of the paper published by the International Journal of Epidemiology.

How should those “suggestions” be interpreted?

At the very least, the risks are greater than many believed only a few years ago. In a series of interviews, a number of the members of the Interphone project told Microwave News that they now see the risk among long-term users as being larger than when the study began. Some think the risk warrants serious attention.

“To me, there’s certainly smoke there,” said Elisabeth Cardis, who leads the Interphone project. “Overall, my opinion is that the results show a real effect.” Cardis is with the Center for Research in Environmental Epidemiology (CREAL) in Barcelona. She moved there two years ago after working on Interphone at IARC for close to a decade.

“There is evidence that there may be a risk; Interphone has made that a little stronger,” said Bruce Armstrong of the University of Sydney, another member of Interphone. “It shows some indication of an increased risk of gliomas, but I cannot say this with certainty.” (A glioma is a type of brain tumor.)

Sigal Sadetzki, the Israeli member of Interphone, goes further. She pointed out that while the risks are inconclusive, a number of the results show some consistency. These include increased risks among the heaviest users, the fact that the risks were highest on the side of the head the phone was usually used and that the tumors were in the temporal lobe of the brain, which is closest to the ear. Sadetzki is with the Gertner Institute outside Tel-Aviv. “The data are not strong enough for a causal interpretation, but they are sufficient to support precautionary policies,” she said.

There are, of course, dissenting voices saying that the use of mobile phones for over ten years shows no increased risk of brain tumors.

One of the major criticisms leveled at the study is that it mostly collected data on cell phone usage between years 2000 and 2004, when people didn’t use their cell phones as much as they do today. An average study participant talked on the phone for two to 2-1/2 hours a month (not more than 30 minutes a week).
Today, though, the average cell phone user in Canada and the U.S. talks that much in a week, with cumulative totals more like 10 hours a month.

So, who to believe and what to do?
First, consider research done by Henry Lai, a biologist at the University of Washington: Only 25% of studies funded by the wireless industry show some type of biological effect from microwave radiation. Independently funded studies, however, are far more damning: 75% of those studies — free of industry influence — show a bioeffect. Some 30% of funding for the Interphone research was provided by industry, which critics say has resulted in a favorable skewing of some Interphone data.

Obviously, we need to demand more independent research into microwave radiation. In the meantime, we should also treat cellphones and other wireless gadgets with less adoration and more suspicion, and as individuals we may want to follow the lead of many nations and regulate the way we use them for ourselves.

For example, Belgium, France, Finland, Germany, Russia and Israel have publicly discouraged use of cellphones by children. (Independent research in Sweden last year concluded there was an astonishing 420% increased chance of getting brain cancer for cellphone users who were teenagers or younger when they first started using their phones.) France has gone so far as to issue a generalized national cellphone health warning, banned cellphones in elementary schools and considered outlawing marketing the phones to children.

The personal equivalent? For starters, don’t get rid of your land line. Buy a hands-free device; keep your cellphone away from your head, face and neck. Don’t carry it in your pocket for hours on end (there’s some evidence cellphones aren’t good for your sperm count).

And when it comes to children, don’t forget that their skulls are way thinner and the brain smaller so radiation absorption is much higher. It’s best to not allow small children the use of a mobile phone; encourage them to text instead of talking on the handset.

It’s only common sense to do what you can to take yourself out of the guinea pig pool.

For more information:

Interphone study reports on mobile phone use and brain cancer risk
International Agency for Research on Cancer (May 10, 2010)

 
Also in this issue on An Ounce …

• An Ounce: Introduction to the June 2010 Issue
• President’s Panel Report: “Grievous harm not adequately addressed”
• Waste-to-energy doesn’t deal with the root problem
• The “waste circus” has arrived in Canada
• Interphone study on mobile phone use and brain cancer risk: No clear answers
• The Radiation App That iPhone Has Banned
• Electrosmog and our health
• Alyssa Blondon – A Teenage Survivor’s Account
• KF-C is for cynical
• The Big Test for BPA
• Worth Reading: Cancer Under the Radar – Young Adults Tell Their Stories
• Ongoing resources to keep in mind!
• What’s New?

The inexpensive application for the iPhone warns users when radiation levels are too high and provides advice on how to counter the potentially negative effects. The app also lets mobile phone users map their homes or offices to know where they’re exposed to significant levels of mobile phone radiation. But the rub? Apple has banned it.

Tawkon works like infrared goggles: “We give users the ability to see and feel non-ionizing radiation. Once you know whether you’re in a red, orange or green zone, you have the information you need to take action.”

What kind of actions to take?

- Move to a different location where radiation levels are lower
- Switch to a headset or speakerphone
- Use phones in urban areas
- Turn off when mobile (on the train, when driving)
- Keep handset away from your body or phone
- Limit the use of cell phones by children

Tawkon is not able to actually measure the phone’s radiation. It processes an array of factors such as weather, location of your phone to cell phone tower, Bluetooth functioning, GPS, how close it is to your body, and the phone’s compass. It causes the phone to vibrate when radiation levels are perceived as too high.

According to the article some of the worst places to use your phone are in rooms with thick concrete walls, and in moving vehicles such as cars and trains where the phone needs to switch between towers to communicate.

Meanwhile, Israel’s health ministry has recommended that children under the age of 18 shouldn’t use mobile phones at all – young people’s brain tissue is still developing. To stay on the safe side, if your child is spoiled enough to own an iPhone, consider the $10 download which could also be educational.

We’re assuming you’ll need a program like Jailbreak to make it work on iPhone. It may invalidate your warranty, so be warned.

For more information:

- Tawkon
- The Radiation App That iPhone Has Banned

 
Also in this issue on An Ounce …

• An Ounce: Introduction to the June 2010 Issue
• President’s Panel Report: “Grievous harm not adequately addressed”
• Waste-to-energy doesn’t deal with the root problem
• The “waste circus” has arrived in Canada
• Interphone study on mobile phone use and brain cancer risk: No clear answers
• The Radiation App That iPhone Has Banned
• Electrosmog and our health
• Alyssa Blondon – A Teenage Survivor’s Account
• KF-C is for cynical
• The Big Test for BPA
• Worth Reading: Cancer Under the Radar – Young Adults Tell Their Stories
• Ongoing resources to keep in mind!
• What’s New?