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| Ring! Ring! You're dead… |
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| Thursday, 20 January 2005 | |
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Your mobile telephone might kill
you, sooner or later. Who cares? Caveat emptor. It might also kill your
children. That really is serious…
Although barely a month goes by without the release of new research into the potential hazards of mobile telephone usage, it seems like a long time since anybody has made a truly significant, let alone definitive, contribution to the debate. While this article brings no new research to the table, it does look at the implications of what we know today for the industry and its customers. Sitting on the fence From the growing canon of studies and reports into the subject, there are a few areas of consensus that have emerged. For instance, there is widespread advice to avoid ‘overuse’ of mobiles (try defining that!) and the promotion of the questionable benefits of finding ways to keep the handset away from the user’s head. These strictures are often redoubled when it comes to children who use mobiles, as they do in growing numbers in much of the world. If you take a step back and consider ’safe’ mobile usage guidelines such as these, they are completely illogical. There is one school of thought that says these things are either safe or they are not. For obvious commercial reasons, the mobile industry will not back the belief that its products and services are dangerous; for defensive reasons, and with an eye to the prospect of future litigation, it advises caution and discretion. This is not just a case of the industry sitting on the fence; rather, it’s impaling itself upon it. The problem is clear. Nobody can prove that mobiles are safe; they can only show that there is no concrete evidence that they are unsafe. That is not a tautology and the distinction is hugely important. Likewise, nobody can prove that mobiles are dangerous and researchers and lawyers are hard-pressed to demonstrate that they are even potentially dangerous. Indeed, a handful of legal cases which have sought to prove a direct link between mobile radiation and ill-health have failed. Added to this confusing mix, of course, is the question of the mobile masts needed to support base station antennas. These have the extra threat of introducing a ‘passive’ risk of radiation—affecting mobile users and non-users alike. The situation becomes worse when mobile operators find school playgrounds to be ideal locations for such masts in urban areas, not least because of the increased radiation risk to young people suggested by some research, as mentioned above. Policy, piety and personal responsibility We are faced with a ticking timebomb; we do not know when, if ever, it will turn out to be a dud. Nor do we know when it might explode. Sporadic scare stories up the tempo in the press, while detractors insist that the scare stories are no more than scaremongering. The surge in mobile ownership and usage cannot be ignored in the context of the threat, however remote one deems it to be, that mobile technologies pose risks to health. This ought to create concerns not just for the wireless industry, which one would like to imagine has a duty of care to its customers, but also to governments and policy-makers (which one would like to believe have a duty of care to its citizens) and to individuals (who one would like to believe have a duty of care to themselves). In the absence of any conclusive evidence, this suggests just three possible resolutions to the issue of potential health hazards. Firstly, all mobile phones could be banned on health grounds. This is not plausible, not least because governments as well as mobile operators and handset manufacturers make lots of money out of this trade. Secondly, the use of mobiles by under-10s, or under-12s, or under-16s, could be banned. This is plausible and, given the weight of existing evidence, perhaps logical. Plausibility and logic would, however, be enough to strike it from most political agendas. It’s hard to see the industry abandoning the fertile furrow of the youth market: much of its marketing — in terms of ringtones, video and so on — is specifically aimed at the youth market. The third option is to let users take their chances. Using a mobile may be dangerous. Adults could weigh up the risks and, with regard to their children, weigh up their parental responsibilities. The latter is the argument of civil libertarians. Put bluntly, this maintains that parents have the right to subject themselves and their children to life-threatening technology. Puff of smoke… This takes us into the often uncomfortable territory which holds that mobile telephones are the cigarettes of the 21st century. The analogy between smoking and cellular is overworked, but it throws up a series of uncanny resemblances, despite the fact that it’s hard to dream up any good reasons to smoke cigarettes, while you can see how mobile usage is a sometime-positive development. Unless mobiles, too, can and will kill you. Most of the early research into the effects of smoking was funded by the tobacco industry (much of today's wireless research continues to be funded in this way). The tobacco research was only undertaken in any serious form from the 1950s, prior to which smoking was thought to be at the very least ‘neutral’ in health terms or, by some, within and without the tobacco industry, as positively beneficial to the wellbeing of cigarette users. This should forewarn us that any in-house scientist who finds a direct and causal link between mobile usage and cancer would be sacked with immediate effect. And if the experts don't find out about it, nobody will. Added to which, mobile telephones are clearly addictive. It would be an interesting experiment to deprive users of their mobiles and gauge the extent of withdrawal symptoms that resulted. The idea that people can minimise the usage of their mobile phones is akin to suggesting that addicted smokers will have but two cigarettes per day or only smoke half of each one. Then there is the broader social imperative. Children are denied access to cigarettes although we have already noted that some of the same concerns surround mobile usage, too. Yet children are provided with mobile telephones in abundance — thanks to fashion, peer group pressure, pester power and the uniquely modern need to flaunt wealth across one’s family, whatever the (financial or health) cost. Bad vibes Only a fool would compare the tobacco industry — which follows a straightforward 'commodity to manufacturing to wholesale to packaging to retail' chain of value creation — aided and abetted by heavyweight marketing, with the quite literally ethereal world of mobile telephony take-up (also aided and abetted by superweight marketing). But this difference puts the mobile industry at a disadvantage which it might struggle to overcome. The billion-dollar class action lawsuits which the tobacco industry has settled to exonerate itself from the decades of systematic assault on public health is as nothing compared to what mobile manufacturers, network operators, service providers and infrastructure suppliers may be forced to pay in future. The shareholders of such companies could and should justifiably ask what provision is being made against this inevitability. Like the tobacco companies, such provisions will be dwarfed by the immense profits being generated by the wireless giants — so that shareholders, like company directors and the users themselves, will remain silent. Ow! That fence hurts! The mobile industry has a handful of last chances to avoid falling into the same heinous category as the tobacco companies at some point in the future. The first is to spend more — far, far more — on educating users as to the potential risks of mobile use. This is not marketing in a conventional sense, but it is social responsibility in a morally conventional sense. The second is to spend more — far, far more — on conducting conclusive research into the effects of radiation from handsets and masts on the general public, whether they use cellphones or not. (On this point, it’s worth noting that before a new headache pill is launched, it goes through extensive clinical trials; the mobile industry is less worried about headaches than clinics and critics). The third is to spend more – so very, very, very much more — on researching the impact of radiation on children and on educating them as to the best and safest way of utilising a mobile (perhaps the best and safest way is not to use one at all?). This expense should be far greater than that dedicated to selling services to minors and surely, if this entreaty is ignored, represents a commercial strategy that is tantamount, on today's evidence, to attempted murder. Of the innocents. The fourth factor is that adult users of mobiles should undertake a pact with the operators — slightly Faustian, admitteddly — that they accept the risks, albeit unproven, of using a mobile. The only caveat here is that if it can ever be proven, in a court of law, that the mobile industry had discovered a causal link between the use of their products or services and side-effects that were injurious to health, and had suppressed that evidence, they should be hung out to dry. The mobile industry is massively impressed by its own success, which is indeed remarkable. If for one moment it neglects its duty as to the trustworthiness of its ever-burgeoning range of products, it deserves all that will come in its direction. Jim Chalmers |
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