MY SAY: Mobile phone and cancer - déjà vu

Professor Tan Sri Dato' Dzulkifli Abdul Razak
Comment
The Edge Malaysia - 19-06-2011

What a coincidence! On the very day that the World No Tobacco Day was celebrated on May 31 as part of the World Health Organization's (WHO) annual reminder that "tobacco kills", an equally disturbing report was released by one of its agencies, the International  Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).The report was on the possible link between the use of mobile phones and cancer.

It evokes a strong sense of déjà vu, taking you back a few centuries — to the 1760s — when preliminary cautionary statements linking tobacco to cancer were made to smokers. But it was not until 1858, almost a century later, that a strong correlation between tobacco smoking and oral cancer was seen. This got stronger with time, as did the denials from the tobacco producers.

By 1912, a link with lung cancer was established, supported by theories and analyses that the cancer was more frequent in smokers than non-smokers. In 1957, the British Medical Research Council formally put the blame on tobacco, followed by the London Royal College of Physicians in 1962 calling for steps to curb the increasing use of tobacco.

Two years later, the US surgeon-general publicly announced that smoking was causally related to lung cancer and that smokers were more prone to be victims of the scourge. Many scientists concurred with this, but attempt to confuse the public continued through intense lobbying and advertising forays by the tobacco industry, thanks to the lax legislation then. This was despite in-house research indicating the same, which was learnt later when the internal memos of several of the companies came to light.

Meanwhile, the earnest disinformation campaign continued, including the hiring of pseudo-scientists to be spokespersons declaring that smoking was safe and that, at worse, the evidence was inconclusive. Such lies were vital to sustain the business-as-usual stance of many government policies that pronounced smoking as a "choice" that the citizens could make.

Only in the late 1980s was the tobacco industry pushed into a corner, especially in the developed countries. Numerous civil and class suits were filed by individuals and government agencies responsible for tobacco control with much success. Million, and, at times, billion-dollar fines were slapped on the tobacco industry, which became more defiant than ever. The CEOs of tobacco companies lied through their teeth despite taking the oath, denying that they were aware of the addictive nature of tobacco.

Against this background, the news report that "radiofrequency electromagnetic fields from mobile phones may cause cancer in humans", based on a review of studies, reminds us of the uphill battle against tobacco use that began in the 1760s. This is more so when the mobile phone industry, not unlike its tobacco counterpart, has been quick to point out that the review of studies "may have flawed data" and thus it did not mean that mobile phones caused cancer. The industry also highlighted the fact that "the IARC has not classified radiofrequency electromagnetic fields as definitely nor even probably carcinogenic to humans".

However, Malcolm Sperrin, the director of medical physics and clinical engineering at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading, the UK, deemed "appropriate" the categorisation that mobile phones were possibly carcinogenic to humans. "The justification for such a risk indicator respects the anecdotal evidence," he added.

It has to be, going by the tobacco control experience, because it will take many more decades before the strong correlation between mobile phones and cancer emerges. After all, cancers in general take that long to manifest themselves, by which time it would probably be too late to take any significant remedial action. In the case of the mobile phone studies, the participants had used their phones for about 10 to 15 years. Hence, the "real" effect of long-term exposure is still not definite.

Notwithstanding that, to pretend that mobile phones are no cause for concern to the five billion wireless subscribers worldwide and to lobby against the rising concerns of late that mobile phones might be harmful to the health of users, in particular children, is downright irresponsible. And to further claim, for example, that devices with a specific absorption rate — the amount of radiofrequency energy absorbed by the body — are safe is the same as saying that inhaling a limited amount of tobacco fumes is perfectly all right.

No doubt for now we have to accept the fact that the evidence is inconclusive and more research and evaluation are needed to gauge the long-term health effect. However, this should in no way give the impression that mobile phones can flood the marketplace without any form of warning, if not control. The fact that we are forced to insist on warnings and strict control over the sale and use of tobacco products today is relevant to mobile phones too — not only because of their potential association with cancer, but also, like tobacco, their addictive quality is already apparent, particularly among the youth.

To drag our feet on this issue can only mean that sooner or later we will have another set of intractable but avoidable problem in our hands, compounded by yet another form of fatal cancer — all because we failed to learn from the tragic mistake of tobacco addiction that is still claiming millions of lives.

* The writer is the Vice-Chancellor of Universiti Sains Malaysia. He can be contacted at vc@usm.my