Find out how much radiation your phone emits, compared to other models, and limit cellphone radiation exposure until scientists know the real dangers.

That hands-free device could be protecting his sperm as well as his brain.

RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—On the heels of a report released last week by the nonprofit Environmental Working Group (EWG) on cellphone radiation, a U.S. Senate Appropriations subcommittee met on Monday to discern why so little hard evidence exists on the relationship between cellphones and cancer. Scientists who spoke at the meeting said that it's premature to say that cell phones are safe to use.

THE DETAILS: The EWG report looked at 200 studies, government advisories, and industry documents from the first two decades of widespread cellphone use, and found that they all resulted in conflicting research on the relationship between cellphones and cancer and on cellphones' health risks in general. The nonprofit also analyzed the maximum radiation levels emitted by 1,200 models of phones (the levels emitted while you're talking, not when the phone's simply lying on your desk) to see if they met the Federal Communications Commission's current recommendation that cellphones emit less than 1.6 watts/kilogram, or watts of radiation energy absorbed per kilogram of body tissue. All the phones met that, but some models emitted four times more radiation than others.

During the Senate panel that convened on Monday, which coincided with the International Conference on Cell Phones and Health being held in Washington D.C. this week, scientists who'd authored many of those studies stressed the need for hard evidence, and a need for more research funding. But given the number of studies suggesting that cellphones could cause harm, the scientists said, governments need to act now to provide the means to uncover potential damages, especially for children, a growing number of whom now talk on cellphones every day. Dariusz Leszczynski, PhD, DSc, research professor at the Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority in Helsinki, Finland, has studied mobile-phone radiation for the last 10 years and said at the hearing, "In the present situation of the scientific uncertainty…the statements that the use of mobile phones is safe are premature."

Part of the problem, says Diana Zuckerman, PhD, president of the National Research Center for Women & Families, is that many studies have been funded by cellphone companies, including the INTERPHONE study, the largest to date on cellphones and health, and she says, the results of that study have been held up for years. "Another major reason is that brain cancer is very slow-growing cancer," says Zuckerman, adding that it can take up to 30 years for brain cancers to develop. People haven't had cellphones for 30 years, so it's hard to draw conclusions. But if scientists wait that long, it could potentially put a huge number of cellphone users at risk, she says. So she and others advice taking the potential damaging effects of cellphone radiation seriously, and acting to limit exposure. "We should do something now to prevent disaster in the future."