In denial over mobile phones
This is London
March 17, 1999
by Quentin Letts
We all raged about mad cow disease, and most of us
agree that GM foods look dodgy. But the mobile phones
cancer story is the health scare that London is too
frightened to discuss. It is heads-in-the-sand, taboo time.
Mobiles? Those natty little indispensables used by
everyone from plumbers' mates to City traders? Brain
cancer? Mention it in the pub or at a party and suddenly
the chattiest people fall silent. Mobiles are such a huge
part of late Nineties life that the West, to use an American
psychiatrist term, is "in denial". After all, "You can get me
on my mobile" is one of the expressions of our age. We
cannot face up to the possibility we might soon be saying:
"My mobile got me."
Every week brings fresh
evidence that mobiles could be
as bad for you as a trip to a
Pacific atoll at nuclear bomb
testing time. Every time you
take that throbbing little gizmo
from your handbag and say
"Hello" you could be frying
your mind.
We give them to our children
for safety reasons. Is this really
so wise? The children might be
better off chain-smoking
untipped Camels.
The latest development came
at the weekend when a former
BT engineer claimed he had
been left mentally punch-drunk
by heavy use of mobiles.
The implications for
telecommunications shares are
dire. Martin Dawes, the
mobile phone entrepreneur
who sold his business for £70
million to Cellnet last week,
may have got out just in time.
If there was anything like doubt about a drug or foodstuff,
the agencies of the state and the consumer rights cadres
would be in full swing. There would be questions in the
House. Television specials would be fronted by sombre
presenters, pressing manufacturers for answers and
demanding an inquiry. The word scandal would be flung
around. Senior executives would be expected to resign.
None of this is happening in the mobile phones scare
because the ramifications are too immense. If you ask
people what they think, they mumble that yeah, there's
probably something in this brain cancer theory.
But should mobiles be banned?
We all raged about mad cow disease, and most of us
agree that GM foods look dodgy. But the mobile phones
cancer story is the health scare that London is too
frightened to discuss. It is heads-in-the-sand, taboo time.
Mobiles? Those natty little indispensables used by
everyone from plumbers' mates to City traders? Brain
cancer? Mention it in the pub or at a party and suddenly
the chattiest people fall silent. Mobiles are such a huge
Beef on the bone has been. Asda and others are ruling out
GM foods. So should there be a mobiles moratorium? We
dare not say so. It is not as though the theories are new.
Three summers ago an acquaintance of mine, the
international financier Michael von Clemm, 61, developed
a brain tumour near his telephone ear. Von Clemm, a
billionaire so careful of his health that he had a high-altitude
anti-radiation blanket made for his frequent Concorde
trips, had long been a mobile phone addict.
In 1996 I got an article into the papers which reported:
"Von Clemm's friends wonder whether the tumour has
anything to do with his long-term use of mobile phones."
When von Clemm died last autumn, his friend Richard
Branson disclosed that the doctors - and Michael could
afford the very best - were "convinced" mobiles were to
blame for his death. There are signs that a few people may
at last be taking notice. In offices there are the beginnings
of a rumble as employees seek assurances and ask for
remote headset devices (though if the phones are clipped
on to your belt, you may be giving yourself cancer of the
kidneys). But the questions are too few, and may be too
late.
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