Write a letter to the editor of a newspaper highlighting the negative effects of execessive use of use of mobile phones and the Internet by students
Answers
Dear Editor,
Recently, a paper was published
describing the effects of electromagnetic fields from a mobile phone on
testicular functions in New Zealand White rabbits. We have a
number of concerns; the two most important ones deal with the exposure
conditions and the biological effects respectively. Exposure was carried
out by a GSM mobile phone at 800 MHz in ‘standby position’. In standby
mode (we assume that this is meant by ‘standby position’), a GSM mobile
phone does not transmit RF electromagnetic fields, as in talk mode,
except for short signals once in a while (every 0.5 h up to several
hours, depending on the network operator) indicating its presence to the
base station. Therefore, the animals were not exposed to high-frequency
electromagnetic fields for eight hours per day, but only for a few
seconds! The reported whole-body SAR values of 0.43 W/kg are therefore
probably wrong because we expect they were calculated for the transmit
frequency. Besides, GSM 800 is not the standard for mobile communication
in Japan (where the experiments were performed). Although the authors
did not give any details of how they measured the electric fields, it
appears very likely that they used a broadband probe which picks up
fields usually between 100 kHz and some GHz. Actually, a measurement of
several GSM mobile phones fields in the laboratory of IMST revealed
electrical field strengths of approximately 3 V/m directly at the
phones’ display. A frequency analysis showed, however, that the
emissions were mainly in the kHz range and they originate from the
phones’ internal electronics