Despite the reams of research and comment that I have read, written and posted on our website about the possible health hazards of mobile telephony, along with most of those who worry about what man-made magnetic radiation is doing to human health, I recognise that mobile phones have brought huge benefits to every sector of society.
From a farmer in rural Africa or India who can now access weather and crop information that enables him to farm hugely more efficiently, to a child walking safely home from school, to an Arab spring revolutionary accessing the internet and thereby both fellow rebels and the outside world, to homeless teenagers who value their phones (according to a fascinating article on forbes.com) more than eating or a drug habit – every aspect of everyone’s life has been significantly impacted by mobile phones. There is no way back – nor should there be. But…
If you accept the ever-growing body of research (see the FM site and many others) linking mobile telephony not only to brain tumours but to autoimmune conditions, autism, other cancers and hundreds of less devastating but still debilitating conditions, then – if we are to continue to use mobile phones – we must make them safer.
I do not doubt that there are ways (see Dr Andrew Goldsworthy’s suggestions below) – they just need to be found. But until the financial imperative is strong enough (eg mobile telephony is seen to pose a great enough threat to human health for mobile phone companies to face class actions that would make tobacco and asbestos payouts look like small change) the scientific effort and investment will not be applied. In fact, I am moderately optimistic that some of this work is already being undertaken (mobile phone companies may not be concerned about human health but they are not stupid) but that it will continue to be cloaked in the greatest secrecy until it is ready to be launched – and when that may be is another matter.
Meanwhile, for those of you who are technically minded, here are Dr Goldsworthy’s suggestions:
There are two ways that we could modify a mobile phone signal to make it less damaging. Most, but not all, of the damage is due to the way in which the signal is pulsed and modulated to carry the digital information.
One way that I thought of is to use what I have called Balanced Signal Technology. That is to transmit two mirror image signals from the handset on different carrier frequencies so that where one had a pulse, the other had a gap.
As far as the base station is concerned, they are two separate phone calls and there would be no problem in decoding them. However, a living cell would probably not be able to distinguish between the two so that the opposing signals would cancel each other out and the signal would appear to be unmodulated and relatively harmless.
Another way was discovered, and patented, by the late Theodore (Ted) Litovitz in the 1990s. This is to superimpose a low frequency random magnetic field (random noise) on the handset signal. He found that many of the biological effects of electromagnetic radiation could be reversed by this procedure; furthermore, it seems to work even with unmodulated signals, so a combination of the two procedures may be better than either alone.
Perhaps they do not want to recognise that EHS exists; perhaps they do not want to admit that their own technology is unsafe, which could open the floodgates to a whole raft of litigation, who knows?
Dr Goldsworthy set this out in a correspondence with our webmaster so, for those who might have similar queries, here is the rest of the exchange:
Dear Dr Goldsworthy,
I did have a couple of questions about the methods of modifying mobile phone signals.
- I presume balanced signal technology would apply equally to mobile phones and base stations? In your email you refer to ‘phones, but ES sufferers like Michelle don’t use a mobile ‘phone but are sensitive to the radiation from base stations.
- If I understand it correctly, for the technology to work there would need to be two ‘mirrored’ data streams. Would this doubling of the data stream effect base station call handling capacity, and have an adverse effect on cell phone battery usage? This might – in part – explain the lack of enthusiasm of the network operators?
- Presumably the Litovitz technology might also negatively effect handset battery usage. Apparently battery usage is a hot topic at the moment!
Dear Webmaster,
In theory, Balanced Signal Technology could apply to base stations too.
I take the point that there is an issue with reduced handset battery life with both systems. Although battery capacity is improving all the time, it may still be necessary to have a slightly larger handset to accommodate a larger battery.
However, it can be argued that handsets are already too small and thin because with a modern phone the antennas are too close to the head and you have to hold it at least a half an inch from your head to keep the SAR within the legal limit. This fact can normally be found in the instruction manual, but buried in small print where few people are likely to read it. On balance, I think I might opt for a slightly larger phone and no EHS or cancer.