Cell Phones, Cell Towers

Well, good evening. I would like to thank the Cancer Control Society.

They seem to be insistent upon seeing on the res razor's edge, and this is yet another one of those issues. I'm here to raise concerns about the health effects of radiofrequency radiation, whether it's from your cell phone or a nearby antenna.

But I'd like to start by asking you a question. How many people here own a cell phone? How many people will here have it with them here tonight in this room? How many people have it on right now? OK. Do me a favor if it's on and there's only a handful of you.

Would you please turn it off and pay attention to me? Because tonight, just for a few minutes, I'd like to have your attention about this subject. I know there's a lot of denial out there and there are wonderful things, but this is a major health problem that is only going to grow worse. And it's better if you start protecting yourself.

Now. It may be a plague.

You're about to see interviews with people who claim their use of a cell phone was the culprit in at least triggering their tumor. The ITN aired these segments and they're a little bit repetitive. But I think it's worth getting some repetition here because psychologists say takes one or two times before people learn something new. Well, with about 20 billion dollars of talk claims in class action suits waiting in the wings right now in state court in Maryland. There'll be one woman judge is going to make a decision any day now about whether there's a scientific merit, enough to enough merit to refer this case for a jury trial.

The case brought by Dr. Chris Newman, a Maryland neurologist, claims that his use of a cell phone may have triggered his brain tumor. There's a Swedish study just published this month in the European Journal of Cancer Prevention by Lennart Hardell, Hardell reports that first generation analog cell phones is associated with up to an 80 percent risk of developing brain tumors over a person that either doesn't use a cell phone or has not used a cell phone as long as up to eight to 10 years.

This is a longitudinal study looking at humans who use cell phones. There is no finding as of yet on the digital cell phones, which are third generation or on the cordless phones, because, quite frankly, there is still too new to have this kind of research base. But we do now know this.

There were studies published at least a year ago which found no effect from use