we describe it in this book, and the advice is very simple. the world is not dangerous because of those who do harm. but because of those who look at it without doing anything. now i will read just one final passage. on one of the last mornings i was finishing up the right of this book only three young men phone in on a conference call, excited about what they had admitted that they are not brain scientist but businessmen. one has a fresh doctorate in mathematics. another is an attorney. one is the first person in his family to go to college. they have from my hometown region in western pennsylvania. i imagine some very proud parents. when asked in my doctorate research at mit i figured out there's got to be a way to reduce the amount of radiation by choosing some secretly to is that i can't tell you about. jeff the mathematician and for

me. he played football for major ivy league school. before he got out and getting badly hurt. he had developed headaches that wouldn't go away with his cell phone until he started to use an earpiece. could be a coincidence, but he doesn't think so. he began talking to the others about how to make a better, safer phone. we figure it can't be good for you told and microwave radio next to your brain. we know that cell phones are revolutionary. and that they are here to stay. we're going to make them safer. our invention will reduce radiation in to the head and increase the amount going out. others already working on redesigning phones. with different antennas. despite our growing dependency on phones for many functions of our daily lives, it makes no sense to continue assuming that today's phones are safe based on standards that were created for big guys who didn't use them very much when current technologies did not exist. one thing is clear at this point.

cell phones have become as essential to modern life as cars and trucks and jet planes. we spend billions to make vehicles safer for us to drive or fly. we need to do the same thing with cell phones. rather than parroting assurances of safety based on old science, outmoded theories of physics, and bullied scientists, we need to invest in cell phone safety as we do with other modern technologies. of course, more research is needed, on that we all agree. and the need for research should not be allowed to become an excuse to carry on as though everything is fine until we have incontrovertible proof that it is not. yes, we do not have an epidemic of brain tumors. but 10 years after cigarettes began to be heavily smoked, we also did not have an epidemic of lung cancer. years from now our grandchildren

will look back and ask, did we do the right thing and act to protect them, or did we harmed them needlessly, and irresponsibly, and permanently blinded idea take the delights of our technological age? i have to say i'm very grateful to doctor herberman who brought me to pittsburgh to set up the center for. is no longer there, no my. we're working on environmental health because we think we face a potential global public health catastrophe that can be averted by taking simple steps. if the science tells us of those problems and we would be foolish to ignore that science.?

he is a very distinct cancer researcher who is now working in immunology and biotech and should to make a few remarks now to expand on what we have done their and what he's doing a. thank you. [applause] >> she told me about to have years or so ago when we are both at the university of pittsburgh cancer institute that she was concerned about the health effects of cell phones. when she did that i was really very skeptical and i said, aren't there more things that we need to be concerned about than cell phones? but she said, you really should look into it. and i had the opportunity to be one of the leaders from the national institute of environmental health sciences who told me that he had looked into it and was involved in a panel to examine some of the

data. that propelled me to begin to examine the information. the more i read, the more concern that i had. not not that there was compelling or conclusive evidence, but there were a number of hints that were disturbing. the ability of this range of radiation to damage dna is still a bit perplexing as to how that happens, although the free radical possbility is perhaps the best one that's been put forward so far. but that is not clear. and then the decrease in sperm counts, just to make it clear, the reason it was focused on an

men is these were people who were keeping their cell phones in their front pants pocket, and, therefore, fairly close to where sperm production goes on. the epidemiological data which i reviewed very carefully and talk to various experts in the field, overall don't give a very positive signal. but what has really struck me is that in virtually every study that had a significant number of subjects that were examined that had been using cell phones frequently for more than 10 years, there is a signal about an increased risk. that led me, about two years ago, when i was a director of the universe to pittsburgh cancer institute to send out an advisory memo to our faculty and staff saying i agree to these data recently. i've become concerned.

and although it's still unclear, i advise them to follow what i think is a very important principle, namely the precautionary principle. that if you don't know and there's some concern, do something to prevent rather than wait until there is conclusive evidence. so i sent out an adviser to a staff with 10 points, nicely summarized by devra in her talk and in her book, basically to keep his cell phone away from your head. and particularly i was concerned because of this increased absorption in kids to really avoid, limit the use of cell phone by children. since i put out that advisory there was a publication from a very distinguished epidemiologist in sweden that followed teenagers who started using cell phones in sweden, and

had used them for 10 years or more. and for that group, there was a fivefold increase in risk for brain tumors compared to those that didn't use it. and that particularly just increased my level of concern. so i really applaud devra for sounding the alarm, writing the book, and doing what she can in a variety of ways to help prevent a potential calamity. i'm a clinical oncologist by training, and i feel very strongly that this is a terrible disease, particularly with malignant brain tumors. and should we wait another 10 or 20 years before becomes conclusive to send the alarms out about how it should be used, or rather to take simple precautions.

i strongly believe that what he did a couple years ago was the right thing. and i feel even more so now. i also applaud andrea bolan for taking this to the legislative arena, and i hope you get it passed soon. [applause] >> she is fierce independent. and really has been a anomaly effective in taking on this issue. we met a few years ago, and i think i can safely say at this point that she's done more to bring this issue forward in the political arena so that people in jackson hole, wyoming, philadelphia, burlingame, california and san francisco are all looking to the concerned that she first place.

i will ask her to tell you about what she did and then we will have an opportunity for some questions. >> thank you, deborah. thank you ever from georgetown university. this is a wonderful day because this book, when you read it, you will see is absolutely remarkable. we have here a scientist who is willing to risk issues of her own career to speak out on subjects that others have not had the strength to do so. she tells the story for both scientists and average people so that we read the stories of some of these, the people have been important in this whole research and issue, raising realm. she tells it in such an interesting way, such a compelling way, and delivers a lot of information.

so i think, i think she's really done a wonderful, wonderful service for all of us. because most of the folks that i associate with like myself are not scientists. we're not experts. i am a legislator from maine. and i've been concerned about health and wellness and prevention, and what can we do to not have problems. so when i got onto this issue and started realizing all the information that was out there, i was astonished. i started talking to people whose names were actually on these materials, and i felt like i stepped into another world. because most of the folks i knew, knew nothing about this whole issue. and yet here were these stellar scientists and intelligentsia who understood it down to the

last electron, so i wasn't going to understand things to that degree. but i represent the people of the town in maine, name of sanford. it's an average town, working people, some upper class people, some people that we have to help alone. it's just a regular town, former milltown. and there are good people there. they care about their families. they turn out for all the events for their children. these are the people who have elected me to office to represent them. when i discovered the kind of information that was available from the work that these scientists had done, it just was, so surprising to me that it had not been on the public radar screen at all. and beyond that, that government had not taken any steps at all to tell us, to warn us.

so it became apparent to me that it would be very good to just put a warning label on these devices that everyone is using and this is the warning label that we came up with. it's pretty simple. it says what the case is, that they emit electromagnetic radiation, exposure may cause brain cancer. and it's smart to keep it away your head and body. that really astounded people when they saw that. what? this can't be. certainly we would know. and that wasn't the case. but i brought this warning label and i asked for it to be passed by our legislature. we had a short session and it didn't get past. but the amount of information that got out as a result of that, it was covered in all the states of the union and in other

countries, they were contacting me. the bottom line to me is as a representative, of anyone, of anyone, that we can't go on not having our people about this terrible danger that they are inviting, by putting cell phones to their heads. and young people planning to have children, not understanding that if they hold that cell phone close to the area where the fetus is growing could damage that child before it's even born. and this is the kind of study that we are seeing. now, in maine it's rather a small population state. we've got 1.3 million. you can fit them in a corner of d.c. any day of the week i'm sure. but that's still a lot of people. out of the population, about 950,000 or more have cell

phones. i venture to say that probably not 5% of them have really focus on this issue. until i brought it forward with the help of all of these wonderful scientists that appeared at the doorstep, and really with stunning testimony to give. but 750,000 people, 950,000 people using cell phones without knowing that they could be damaging their own brains and those of the children and their other loved ones. we have 15,000 live births a year in maine. that's a small place. 15,000 babies being born, and their parents not knowing they could be damaging them by holding them in their arms and holding a cell phone at the same time. these are the things that concern me. when this legislation was brought to maine, i conferred with the attorney general's office to see if the bill was written in proper way. and they found that it was.

we had some discussion. what i was told at the time was the industry had already been to see them and had let them know that the state of maine would be sued if this legislation passed. this is a multi-trillion dollar industry threatening one of the smallest states of the union. that didn't affect the thinking of the attorney general's office. they went back and they would defend it. but that's what we face. perhaps for that reason it's not surprising that the bill didn't pass in its first pass. the governor let it be don't right off he did wanted to pass. the director of the cdc let it be known she didn't see there was anything to do. after all, she had studied it for three weeks. you know, what problem could

their be there? but this is a problem we have today. good people not speaking when they see that there's a problem or not being willing to accept the fact that we need to exercise a precautionary principle, and use our brains to figure out that maybe it's a sensible to get the information out there and let people be cautious when they use their cell phones. thank you very much for permitting me to speak. [applause] >> we are ready to start our question and answer period and will have about 15 minutes. and then as we mentioned, the books are available for purchase and dr. davis will be available uninsured resort conversation following the talk. the procedure we're going to as i have a mic here because this is being taped.

if you will raise your hand and we will recognize you. we would like you to please state your name and your affiliation before you ask a question of dr. davis. i saw a hand over here. >> my affiliation is i'm a concerned that. i've only recently unwise to the danger of cell phones. the first thing i want to say is thank you, god bless you for what you're doing. i'm a very, very concerned father. here's the thing i wanted to ask you. your work is incredibly

important. i'm sure you agree is one of the tip of the iceberg. cell phones and all the tidbits that were just on the screen, we are being bombarded this very second with radiation all over d.c., all over georgetown. every school in fairfax agenda, wifi. it doesn't matter that i found a school that doesn't have wifi for my daughter. all over virginia will be wifi. if you take all the safety tips, program into your life, how do we deal with this much, much larger, much more pervasive issue cell towers, wifi, wimax, et cetera. where do we start? >> you know, i have to say i'm

not as informed on this issue as i will become. okay? i think we start with the realization that we don't need to have all of the world made safe for wifi. there are some people who believe they may be sensitive to this. this is proven to be very difficult thing to study. it really has. and i think that as i'm sure you're in touch as a future star getting into this issue there are groups that have developed information on this. they can provide you with better information than i can. i think it gets down to a basic right to know. the presumptive there's no biological effect i think is questionable. margaret mead once said the only thing that affects the democracy is when conservative a get together to work on issue. i think this is an example of one.

there is nobody would tell me it's a good idea to only make rule and radio next to my granddaughter's head. if someone wants to tell me that, i'd like to see that person. it's not a good idea. moreover, there's a whole set of social emotional and spiritual issues that are being raised about what the shortened and tension span of electronic occasion of our lives is doing to the dinner table. you've all gone out to restaurants, where the fast food ones or nice ones, and everybody is sitting there like this. what's considered civil behavior is totally transform. people will think nothing of talking to you and working on the phone at the same time. eye contact, empathy, all of those things are kind of on the table. i appreciate your concern. i think you're doing the right thing to become informed, i'm focusing on this issue because this one is clear. it's clear and it's something

you can do something about. wireless has radically improved our ability to do things in medicine. in terms of transmitting x-rays long distances in terms of a lot of good things. so what i'm betting on, i've had conversations with electrical engineers, is that there are safer designs for towers. there are safer ways to transmit information. fiber-optic would be what i would be betting on over wireless in many cases. and i think we need to work together. and, frankly, there needs to be a level playing field of getting this information. and there isn't. thank you. >> my name is kevin. [inaudible]

>> my question is the advocacy has been somewhat fragmented. are there any champions on the hill now, are there any sort of coalescence of efforts out there now that on a national basis become some of the concerns? >> in my book, i document this sort of pattern that's going on now for about 20 years of congressional hearings, gao report, they call for more research and other getting. and there's a proposal that i may. i testified before the u.s. senate before arlen specter and tom harkin. and i joked that it actually the bipartisan in because i started talking to specter when he was a republican and testified before when he became a democrat. although he's going to be leaving the senate soon.

and at that hearing, we talked about the fact that there needed to be massive funding and training in research for this area. i know alfred pong is a very distinguished engineer. and i understand that this is an example of what i write about in the last segment of my book. i think there will be some opportunities for breakthroughs. on the other hand, maybe into my three year old grandchild. so we need to think about how we handle these things in a very broad way. i have no doubt that it can be done. in congress, where i testified was that we need a dollar a phone fee on every phone for five years. that will provide us with the amount of money that we need to train engineers and scientists to do the work that has to be done, and that is why i'm excited talking about it here at

the school of foreign service because i think this issue cuts across every nation. it really does. it's one that gets to the core of what we are as a people in terms of how we use science for public policy. and do we wait until we have definitive proof like we do with tobacco or do we act? i think we need massive funding for training and research. there are some champions champions on the hill. at fort hood from my point of view senator specter will not be the. senator harkin remains quite interested in this. i think all of you know there are a few other priorities in the congress right now. for most people it's getting elected and after that i think will will have an opportunity to revisit this issue. my name is angela and i am one of the many people who am veryc