Cell phone fears hit close to home

By Jean Sonmor Copyright 1999 Toronto Sun March 1, 1999

Squirming on a hard steel-and-vinyl chair in the car dealership, I stare intently at the man I married, willing him to get off his cellphone.

I'm hoping my look communicates that I'm bored and befuddled. As anybody knows who's tried to buy a car lately, you have to be a genius -- or at least fanatically interested in the process -- to figure all the angles, make an informed decision and negotiate like hell. This is the kind of challenge the man on the phone has always loved. Going in, my plan was to pick the colour, make the promised pitch for the kids about the CD player and coast for the rest of the time.

That's what happened last time we bought a car, a few years ago -- before the cellphone.

Now, when he does finally hang up, he's distracted and, dare I say it, lethargic. The process doesn't interest him. He wants to go, put it off, do the tough mental slogging another time.

Fine by me. But as we drive away, I ask something about the test drive. He doesn't seem to remember.

Good grief. I feel a little chill Maybe that British physiologist is right.

Colin Blakemore, a highly respected physiology prof at Oxford University, has recently gone public with his fear that cellphones are affecting our brain functions.

He bases his opinion on his own experience and an as-yet-unpublished study done on human volunteers at the Bristol Royal Infirmary. Results will be published next month in the International Journal of Radiation Biology.

Blakemore says the government study is the first to show that cellphones can cause short-term memory loss in humans. There's strong evidence, he says, that they can have negative effects on "cognitive function, memory and attention." He's seen it in himself, he says .

He likens the effect to "shutting the brain off" and cautions that it's particularly worrisome if people use cells while driving.

No kidding!

Cellphones are used by an estimated five million Canadians -- two million of whom must live in Toronto -- and they all emit "minuscule" amounts of microwave radiation, says Jim Woodgett, professor of cancer biology at U of T. The problem is that we put them so close to our brains.

"If you put them farther away, the effect drops off exponentially," he explains. "The trouble is then you can't hear."

But, he points out, it is not beyond the abilities of the big cellphone companies to design sets that would be less potentially hazardous.

Since it's the transmitting device -- especially in analogue phones -- that emits the radiation, earpieces and hands-free sets are ways to avoid the radiation.

"These are huge companies," says Woodgett.

"It's incumbent on them to spend some of their profits into studying the effects of their products. But the silence that meets some scientific studies is deafening."

The emissions are very small but the theory is they can distort the delicate synaptic activity in the brain.

This is where both chemical and electrical transmissions occur and even a slight interference could cause problems.

"Mucking about with the chemistry of the brain is not a good thing," Woodgett says with cool British understatement.

Especially when, as Woodgett points out, using cellphones is turning into a national addiction, a "fashion statement."

I remember laughing two years ago when the only occupied table in a hyper-trendy Japanese restaurant contained two guys both talking volubly on cellphones. At the time it seemed like a quirky scene from a movie.

Today I bet I wouldn't notice it. Cellphones are wallpaper.

Woodgett says he'd be hesitant to scare people off the handy devices, and admits he feels safer when his wife carries one.

Still his kids -- like all kids -- overuse it, and although so far the memory loss is considered to be temporary, who knows about the cumulative effects of hours and hours of tiny microwaves beaming into our brains?

"Neurons, once dead, stay dead,"Woodgett says.

And although the brain is "massively redundant" and can rewire around most problems, nobody knows whether this is "critical wiring" that can't be replaced.

One concern, he says, is that it can take so long for the effects to become visible, as is the case with Alzheimer's patients. "It's possible the effects would not become apparent for 10 or 15 years."

Here in Canada, our federal health authorities have quietly convened a panel of the Royal Society to study the health effects of cells. They'll report this month. The government is also planning lab studies.

One good thing. My husband hasn't mentioned buying the new car lately ... maybe he's forgot.

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