CASES Cellular Phones and Cancer
This case will seem different from many of the other cases we will study, since there is no disaster or wrongdoing that has to be analyzed after the fact. Rather, this is a case about the experimental nature of engineering and deals with issues of what engineers should do early in the design cycle for a new product or system in order to avoid possible harm to customers or the public in general. It also deals with what engineers should do after a product has been released when possible dangers are brought up.
Concerns about potential adverse health effects of cell phones began in 1992 with a lawsuit fi led in Florida. In this suit, David Reynard claimed that his wife’s fatal brain cancer had been caused by her use of a cell phone. Although the suit was dis- missed in 1995 due to a lack of scientifi c evidence to support Reynard’s claim, this and other similar suits received a great deal of media attention and caused some concern among frequent cell phone users.
The possible problems with cell phones are clear. In using a cell phone, you are placing a source of electromagnetic radiation in close proximity to your brain. It doesn’t take much imagination to see the potential for problems: Microwave ovens use electromagnetic radiation to cook food. Of course, cell phones operate at a different frequency and at much lower power levels than do microwave ovens, but the analogy is clear. The human body evolved in an environment that did not contain signifi cant levels of radiofrequency (rf) radiation, so it is plausible that the ubiquity of rf fi elds in our modern industrial world might cause some adverse health effects.