April 30, 2013
Dear Mayor and Members of the Board,
Since
December, 2010, I have served as a consultant to the San Francisco City
Attorney's Office regarding the health research related to cell phone
radiation. I have done this work pro bono in support of San Francisco's
"cell phone right to know" ordinance because the public needs to know.
Although
the U.S. has been in denial about the health effects of cell phone
radiation, fifteen nations and the European Union have issued
precautionary health warnings about mobile phone use, especially among
children. Two states, Maine and Pennsylvania, will soon try to adopt a
Children's Wireless Protection Act.
In my opinion, the public
needs ample warnings and other protections from what is likely to be a
major public health problem resulting in substantial costs to our health
care system, lost productivity, needless suffering, and preventable
deaths.
Three years ago, I published an op-ed piece in the San
Francisco Chronicle which called for precautionary health warnings about
cell phone use (1). This article was based upon a review of the
research about mobile phone use and tumor risk that my colleagues and I
published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology (2).
Today, the
evidence is considerably stronger. The evidence is also stronger than
two years ago when 30 experts convened by the World Health
Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer categorized
mobile phone radiation "possibly carcinogenic" in humans (Group 2B).
(BTW, almost all substances listed in Group 2B are covered by
Proposition 65 health warnings in California.) In fact, many experts now
believe we have sufficient evidence to upgrade the classification of
mobile phone radiation to "probably carcinogenic" (Group 2A). Also, we
now have evidence that cell phone radiation damages human sperm and is
associated with male infertility. Moreover, prenatal exposure is
associated with increased risk of neurological disorders in children,
especially attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
For
more information about the health risks of cell phone radiation, see my
news releases and social media web sites (links below). Two of my news
releases document that San Francisco's cell phone radiation fact sheet
that was approved by District Court Judge Alsup is indeed factual and
non-controversial (3, 4).
Please feel free to contact me if I can be of assistance.
Sincerely,
Joel M. Moskowitz, Ph.D.
School of Public Health
University of California, Berkeley
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(1) Moskowitz JM. Government must inform us of cell phone risk (Open Forum), San Francisco Chronicle, April 28, 2010. URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/04/28/EDMB1D58TC.DTL
(2)
Myung SK, Ju W, McDonnell DD, Lee YJ, Kazinets G, Cheng CT, Moskowitz
JM. Mobile phone use and risk of tumors: a meta-analysis. Journal of
Clinical Oncology. 2009 Nov 20; 27(33):5565-5572. Epub 2009 Oct 13. URL:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19826127
(3) Moskowitz JM. San Francisco’s Cell Phone Fact Sheet is Factual. Sep 12, 2012. URL: http://www.prlog.org/11973342-san-franciscos-cell-phone-fact-sheet-is-factual.html
(4) Moskowitz JM. The San Francisco Cell Phone Fact Sheet Suppressed by the CTIA. Apr 17, 2013. URL: http://saferemr.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-san-francisco-cell-phone-fact-sheet.html
