2. Epidemiology

Aside from the Moscow study of the US Embassy staff, early epidemiological data were gathered from technically trained US naval officers routinely exposed to radar by Robinette et al. [15]. Radar transmission generates electromagnetic waves in the microwave domain. Interestingly, both these groups showed an elevated incidence of leukemia. In another large Polish study, military personnel exposed to radiofrequency microwave radiation from radio and radar showed very significant elevations in leukemia and other cancers [16].

The first epidemiological studies on populations living near cell base stations focused mainly on cognitive changes and neurobehavioral effects and started being conducted in 2002 [17]. However, an early Egyptian cellphone tower study in the Algharbia governate area (1999–2002) suggested an increase in the overall cancer rate of the local population by 7.5% [18]. Later, a German study found elevated cancer incidence in patients who had lived 5–10 years within 400 meters of a cell installation [19]. Another Israeli study indicated an association between increased cancer incidence and living in proximity to a cell base station [20].

There also appears to be a significant body of evidence suggesting that cell phones, which use EMR in the microwave range, can cause brain tumors and disturb brain function [21, 22]. One Swedish study reported that cellphone radiation increases the human brain tumor rate by 2.5 times [23]. In fact, in his extensive review on the subject, Cherry concludes that over 40 studies have revealed adverse biological or human health effects specifically from cellphone radiation and that there is extremely strong evidence that cell sites are risk factors for brain tumors and leukemia [24].

It should be noted that children may be more susceptible to damage from cellphone radiation since their bodies are still developing. There is epidemiological evidence to suggest that children are susceptible to leukemia from high power voltage (HPV) lines which emit lowfrequency radio waves [25, 26]. Although no epidemiological data seem to have been collected in children regarding exposure to high-frequency radio waves, there are reports that cellphone radiation penetrates deeper into the head of children and that certain tissues of the head like the bone marrow and eye absorb more radiation than in adults [27–29]. Specific absorption rate (SAR) is the term used to describe the absorption of RFR in the body and represents the rate of energy absorbed by a unit of tissue.
