Cell Phone Users Will Begin Receiving Weather Warnings

 Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) System goes live next week

For more information contact: Tod Pritchard  Office: 608-242-3324, Cell: 608-219-4008

June 14, 2012

(MADISON) Some cell phone users will begin receiving tornado warnings and other weather emergency notifications on their cell phones beginning next week as part of a national program to expand public warning capabilities. 

Under the Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) system, the National Weather Services will send warnings for tornadoes, blizzards, ice storms and flash flooding to cell phone towers. These emergency alerts will be sent to the newer version of cell phones in affected areas. Alerts will continue to be issued or available on other sources including radio/TV stations, on NOAA weather radios and local sirens. 

"The Wireless Emergency Alert system is the first part of a national program to alert the public by text messaging," said Wisconsin Emergency Management Administrator Brian Satula. "Later this year, state, tribal and local emergency officials will be able to issue other types of alerts on cell phones such as Amber Alerts for child abduction or evacuation orders during local emergencies." 

The alerts will include a unique ring tone and vibration. They will not interrupt any phone calls or downloads in progress. In addition, cell phone users will not be charged for the emergency messaging. 

The WEA system is part of the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Integrated Public Alert and Warning System known as IPAWS. The warnings will go automatically to any newer-model cell phones within range of the cell phone towers. The wireless industry estimates by 2014, most all cell phones on the market will be WEA-capable.

For more information on the WEA system, go to the ReadyWisconsin website at http://ready.wi.gov/cell/default.asp

Mobile Phone Use Does Not Raise Cancer Risk in Children and Adolescents

August 9, 2011

The first-ever study of mobile phone use by children and adolescents carried out in four European countries found no increased risk of brain cancer, according to a report published online July 27 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (JNCI).

Investigators in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Switzerland conducted a multicenter case-control study involving children and adolescents 7 to 19 years of age who were diagnosed with a brain tumor between 2004 and 2008. The investigators, led by Dr. Denis Aydin of the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute in Basel, conducted interviews with 352 brain tumor case patients, 646 healthy control subjects, and their parents.

The children who regularly used mobile phones were not statistically significantly more likely to have been diagnosed with brain tumors than nonusers, the researchers reported. In addition, those who used mobile phones for at least 5 years did not have a statistically significantly higher risk of developing brain tumors. Moreover, the investigators found no increased risk of brain tumors in the parts of the brain that typically receive the highest levels of mobile-phone radiation exposure.

For some of the children, the investigators were also able to obtain data from mobile phone service providers. In these children, brain tumor risk rose with the amount of time since the family began its mobile phone subscription but not with the amount of mobile phone use as recorded by the service providers, the researchers added.

Previous epidemiologic studies among adult users have found no overall increased risk of brain cancer from mobile phone use. This study addressed concerns that the developing brains and nervous systems of children and adolescents might be more vulnerable to the potential adverse health effects of mobile phone use.

“Researchers continue to monitor trends in brain cancer and mobile phone use,” commented Dr. Martha Linet, chief of the Radiation Epidemiology Branch in NCI’s Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics. “Other ongoing research includes a large study of rodents exposed to mobile phone frequencies that is being conducted by the National Toxicology Program; a prospective study recruiting 250,000 mobile phone users in five European countries; and a case-control study comparing 2,000 young people between the ages of 10 and 24 who were diagnosed with brain tumors and an equal number of control subjects from 13 countries.”

Further reading: “A Conversation with Dr. Martha Linet on Cell Phone Use and Cancer Risk”