wireless, cell phones and health questions

These first two posts to my new blog have turned out to be about some concerns I've had about the internet (keeping it free and open) and wireless (does it effect health?).

I was very excited when the library where I work got wireless capabilities. People came in with their laptops and - voila - they could access the internet. It was like magic! My library whose building is over 100 years old had entered the 21st century. We only have 5 public computers, so this increased our ability to serve patrons by quite a lot. I was excited to see more and more places besides the library provide wireless in my area, including local coffee shops.

But then I started to read in newspapers and hear on the radio about health concerns related to exposure to wireless, cell phone use, and cordless phone use. I began to wonder if these new and wonderful technologies had been studied for effects on health or if they had grown like topsy and we are all the guinea pigs.

My local newspaper, The Daily Hampshire Gazette, even had an article on this recently. It quoted the director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute Dr. Ronald Herberman. He warned his faculty and staff to limit cell phone use due to possible cancer risk. He said we should "err on the side of being safe rather than sorry later." (Also in News & Opinion, August 8, 2008).

I also checked out a website I heard mentioned on a radio show - http://www.safewireless.org.

I brought this subject up with my son, who is an electrical engineer, to see if he'd heard of any of this. This was before the Pittsburgh professor's remarks made the mainstream press. My son didn't think there was much to any of this. Then I asked him again after Dr. Herberman's news splash. My son said maybe kids shouldn't use cell phones so much because their brains were developing, but he thought this technology was safe enough for adults. He figured it was vetted by some government agency and declared safe or it wouldn't be in use. I didn't want to start an argument and let this one go.

So I wonder. I love the new wireless technology, the internet, cell phones. Are the health concerns voiced by a small group of people unfounded, fringe thinking, really out there? Should we be thinking of precautions we could be taking to protect ourselves from exposure to "electromagnetic radiation"? I'm not sure what to think as I go on using my cell phone to call my 89 year old mother who lives in a state across the country, and work in a library that has wireless and cordless phones.