Convenient, affordable and what some call necessary, cellular phones keep college students in touch and in close contact with radiation.
Swedish physicists said Thursday cell phones' electromagnetic energy might increase the forces red blood cells exert on each other. The physicists used a mathematical theory to measure the cell phones' effects, according to New Scientist magazine.
Though the Food and Drug Administration concluded after 11 years of research that cell phones do not emit enough radio frequency energy to cause cancer or other negative effects on health, those results are not 100 percent certain. The FDA's Web site, www.fda.gov/cellphones, said these results do not reflect long-term use, because each study lasted an average of three years.
Cell phones, like radios and microwaves, send out signals made of radio frequency energy (RF), a form of electromagnetic radiation. People absorb a fraction of this energy, and the amount depends on where the phone is and how long it's in use, Natural Resources and Environmental Management professor Thad Godish said.
"You have it right up against your ear," Godish said. "The amount of radiation decreases as you increase the distance."
Godish said the greatest cell phone user population seems to be college students.
"As I travel and walk, I don't see grandma using them," Godish said.
Godish said the hypothesis that cell phones can cause cancer is difficult to prove or disprove because many different factors affect a person's specific absorption rate, the amount of radiation the body absorbs.
"Whether it's heat or microwaves starting the biochemical process to cause abnormal effects, the science just isn't there," Godish said.
Contradicting studies still appear in scientific journals and other publications, Marvin Ziskin, chairman of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers' Committee on Man and Radiation, said. The issue has quieted down since 2000, Ziskin said, but it hasn't died.
Ziskin said his committee evaluated over 1,000 studies that concluded cell phones have no harmful side effects.
"I looked at it all very closely," Ziskin said. "It's an important question, and the scientific evidence and the statistics said no."
Godish said cell phones do not emit strong enough levels of radiation to alter cells.
"My sense is that it's unlikely because every level of this kind of radiation is so low," Godish said.
In 2000, the FDA mandated cell phones' specific absorption rates to fall at or below 1.6 watts per kilogram. Then, CTIA required cellular companies to place labels or ID numbers on phones, allowing customers to see their absorption rates.
However, most students, such as freshman Jennifer Pritchard, said they wouldn't look up those numbers or base their phone purchases on them.
"It doesn't seem like that much of a problem," Pritchard said.
Sophomore Travis Belt, an employee at Cellular Connections in Muncie Mall, said customers who ask about radiation typically have never used cell phones.
A majority of them are elderly, Belt said.
"The only place to read about radiation is consumer reports," Belt said. "A lot of college students don't read consumer reports."
Freshman Monique Parks said despite her father's concerns, she's not worried about her phone causing cancer.
"If you're going to get it, you're going to get it," Parks said. "If I say I have a headache, he'll say 'It's because you were talking on the phone.'"
Freshman Lindsay Miller said whatever claims scientists publish, she's skeptical that radiation from her phone would hospitalize her.
"It's too much of a necessity," Miller said. "It's not an immediate threat. I'm not worried about getting brain cancer or anything like that."
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