The mobile phone in its current, second-generation, digital cellular form is a boom market. The progression to a third generation of mobile wireless terminal is being touted as a driver of the electronics industry in the next decade. But the industry is sitting on a potential time bomb, because the debate about alleged health risks from prolonged exposure to microwaves just will not go away.
The latest furor in Europe surrounds reports that certain patent applications for components associated with mobile telephony have included such phrases as "with reduced health risks" and "to prevent the health of the user being injured." That's being interpreted by some as saying that if patented innovations can reduce health risks in mobile telephony, there must be a risk to health without them.
Of course, the nature of the debate puts electronics companies in an unen-viable position, because it's almost impossible to prove the negative assertion that long-term exposure to microwaves at the levels used in mobile telephony does not harm users.
For now this writer and user of a mobile phone is prepared to take equipment makers at their word-that throughout extensive tests conducted both internally and externally, there is, so far, nothing that points to any health dangers.
Yet, debate lingers about the ability of cavities in the head, which are essentially water-filled, to act as lenses and focus microwave energy to produce local heating. There are legitimate questions, which should be answered. Does that heating happen? Can we quantify the temperature rise? What is the biological effect of such heating repeated over years?
It's easy for large equipment makers to fall into the trap of holding multiple positions: On the one hand, there's no danger; on the other, because of a fear of exposure to electromagnetic fields among some sectors of the population, companies should work to reduce exposure.
The latest argument is that the mobile terminal will in any case evolve into something distributed over the body and that the wireless transceiver will not be something users are expected to hold against the side of their heads for much longer.
But it's too easy for equipment makers to keep a low profile when it comes to a debate on the health aspects of mobile telephones and terminals, perhaps because they genuinely believe there is no health issue, or on the grounds that such a debate could hurt sales. For a set of electronic technologies that promise to hold a key position in the provision of 21st-century services, it is important that their fitness for use is demonstrated, again and again and again.
