Understanding fears
The main effect on a human of radio frequency (RF) waves is heating of body tissues.
Compliance with guidelines ensures that these effects are sufficiently small not to be harmful.
However, we want to better understand people's attitudes towards mobiles and health - and to share our own understanding with others.
Electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS) has had a lot of attention over the past couple of years and the UK MTHR programme, which O2 helps to fund, is carrying out studies on the alleged effects.
“The distrust of mobile phones is ridiculous from a scientific point of view, but is entirely explicable in the context of widespread cynicism, distrust and profound expectation of the worst.”
Stuart Derbyshire, Senior Lecturer, University of Birmingham School of Psychology, (as quoted at the O2-sponsored spiked-online debate: 'Mobile phones and health - what are we scared of?')
A recent WHO fact sheet (No. 296, December 2005), states 'EHS has no clear diagnostic criteria and there is no scientific basis to link EHS symptoms to EMF exposure.'
During the year, we staged an open discussion through our series of online debates: 'Mobile Phones and Health – What are we scared of?' Read more about the debate at www.spiked-online.com/mobilehealth
“The mobile phone scare is a lesson in how journalists and policymakers should not react to concerns about a new technology.”
Adam Burgess, author of Cellular Phones, Public Fears, and a Culture of Precaution. (as quoted at the O2-sponsored Spiked-online debate: 'Mobile phones and health - what are we scared of?')
For more information visit the following pages in our extensive online resource
