When Moms Clean Air Force started, our focus was, of course, on clean air. And it still is. But what does it mean, to keep our air clean? It is an interesting and provocative question. The obvious answer is air pollution, of the traditional kind. Less obvious are greenhouse gases. We think of them as pollution — because too much CO2 or methane throws off the balance of our atmosphere, keeping in the sun’s radiation, and warming the globe. Climate change was added to our clean air fight. Then came toxic chemicals: many of them “off gas” — send molecules into the air, so that we breathe them, or end up in dust so that babies ingest them. We added the toxic chemical fight to our concerns.
And now, cell phone radiation…
Cell Phones and Your Kids
Today, we were shocked to learn that, according to a $25 million dollar study, conducted over two-and-a-half years by the National Toxicology Program (NTP), cell phone radiation can cause cancer. (Tweet this)
Did you know there are currently more cell phones in use in the US than there are people? What does that mean for our children with developing nervous systems? Are they more vulnerable to exposure of radio-frequency (RF) radiation, the type emitted by cell phones? With children accumulating more years of cell phone exposure than their parents, what will this mean for their health?
Please read “Game-Changing” Study Links Cell Phone Radiation to Cancer” from our friends at Mother Jones.
That radiation travels through the air. Our children are being affected in ways we don’t even understand — after all, it has only been in the past decade, even less, that kids have cell phones, that they work all day in rooms with wi-fi, etc. So we are now going to be following cell phone radiation exposure.
Within minutes of reading the Mother Jones article, our Moms Clean Air Force team sent it to our friends and family, our own children at the top of the list. I’ll bet there will be thousands parents who do the same thing. When Chris Portier, a highly regarded scientist, and now a consultant at Environmental Defense Fund, highlights a study that says “worry,” we pay attention.
“THE FINDINGS SHOULD BE A WAKE-UP CALL FOR THE SCIENTIFIC ESTABLISHMENT.
I THINK THIS IS A GAME CHANGER.”– Chris Portier
What can parents do?
Our first question was, What can we do? After all, cell phones are everywhere. Clearly, we need to be wary until we know more. Portier agrees, “That is good advice. I would also say that using hands-free or a headphone is good advice. We need a dedicated research program in this area. And don’t give a child a cell phone.”
Here are a few more tips for safer cell phone use.
Once again, we’re in a situation where the consumer is on her own trying to fix a problem that is actually way beyond her control. So what else do we have to do? We have to ask the manufacturers of our devices why they aren’t designing into their phones every possible way to cut radiation — if that can be done. We have to ask politicians to take this seriously, to see if there are regulatory or legislative issues that need to be tackled. We have to demand that deeper, broader studies be done.
There’s serious stuff in the air. We cannot take care of this individually, though we can try to be more careful to avoid exposure.
Editorial note: There are some caveats to the report that can be found HERE and HERE. We’ll be keeping a close eye on cell phone hazards as the science comes in.