- Childhood Brain Cancer And EMFs
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- A surprising story on tonight's "A Current Affair"
had a prominent (and brave) Australian neurosurgeon actually admitting
on national TV that an alarming increase in children's brain cancers may
be connected with mobile phone use (and exposure to other sources of EMF).
Lets hope he does not become a target for the Telcos as others have, such
as Stan Barnett and Peter French. With Motorola effectively controlling
cell phone research in Australia it will be interesting to watch their
unholy spin as a result of the following.
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- With the current population of Australia running at about
85% cell phone ownership watch those brain tumour rates increase in direct
proportion to cell phone profits!
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- Don Maisch
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- Brain Tumours - The Silent Killer
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- Reported by Ray Martin
- A Current Affair - Australia
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- Dr Charlie Teo - a pre-eminent neurosurgeon is at the
cutting edge - literally - of a 21 per cent increase in children's brain
tumours. He's curious about the effect mobile phones and Electro Magnetic
Radiation [EMR] may be having on these statistics, and has issued a warning
to parents to be aware...
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- So cautious is Dr Teo, the subject of his 12-year-old
daughter having a mobile phone in their family, he confesses, is a sore
point. "The argument for her having a mobile phone was there are some
benefits of it and that is in emergency situations, but she has promised
me - she is a very sensible girl - she will use a loudspeaker facility
all the time," he says.
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- Dr Teo has every right to be nervous; it is his personal
belief that there may be an association between EMR and the development
of brain cancer. And while he is not seeking to be alarmist, he does want
people to be more aware, especially with children.
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- It's a belief backed up by Senator Lyn Allison, who spent
a year listening to the scientists to find out what the risks are. She
discovered there is very good reason to worry. "We're all a bit awash
now in radio frequency and radio waves generally and we are not altogether
sure what effect that has on us,' she says. Senator Allison says that the
fact that brain tumour is now the number one life-threatening disease for
children - above leukaemia - is consistent with studies in Europe and the
UK.
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- "[These studies show] there has been a 40 per cent
across-the-board increase in the number of brain tumours in the past 20
years," she explains, "now that 20 years has coincided with the
use of mobile phone and many other radio frequencies..." And the thickness
of a person's skull, according to scientific studies read by Senator Allison,
can also distinguish levels of vulnerability. "Scientists say that
the thickness of the skull in children makes a difference, it is quite
thin compared with adults and there is more brain fluid - which means that
the radiofrequencies can travel through the brain more easily," she
says.
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- Dr Teo offers more specific evidence of patients whose
tumours correspond with their use of mobile phones."When patients
come in with a brain cancer, I often say to them, "your cancer was
on the right side of the brain, it is in the area just above your ear,
can you tell me if you feel that you have had more exposure than most people
to mobile phones," and I am surprised that most people say, "yes
I have used my phone continuously for the last seven years and it is always
stuck to my ear on this side..." well, that is where the cancer is.
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- Canberra parents Geoff and Denise O'Connell have had
their own personal experience of these statistics. They lost their seven-year-old
daughter Kessia to a brain tumour. Their own research has made them aware
of the risks associated with exposure to EMR. "I wouldn't move in
next to a telecom tower or mobile phone tower and certainly if there were
heavy duty electrical wires I would be very uncomfortable," says Geoff.
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- Links
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- KessiaCare Foundation Ltd.
- http://www.kessiacare.org.au/
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- Brain Tumour Australia
- http://www.ozbraintumour.org/BTA/btamain.htm
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