The Minister of Health and Humanitarian Services targeted Robert F. Kennedy Junior is a new target this week as part of the “Make America Healthy Again” agenda: mobile phones in schools.
in Interview with “Fox & Friends” On Thursday, Kennedy praised the restrictions of mobile phones in schools and was included in the list of health risks that he said was linked to the phone use between children and adolescents – some of which are supported by scientific research, while others are less.
Kennedy cited fixed links between the use of social media, depression and poor school performance. But he also suggested that mobile phones “produce electromagnetic radiation, which has been proven to cause nervous damage to children when they are around them all day, and to cause cellular damage and even cancer.”
Studies have found that excessive use of social media via smartphones can It negatively affects the mental health of the teenagersAnd raising the risk of depression and anxiety. Scientists have long understood that the use of a mobile phone in school It can lead to weak academic performanceIt includes Low grades.
However, the largest part of the research has not yet found any connection between the use of mobile phones and cancer, and there is no evidence that mobile phones harm the DNA. Mobile phones are emitted from radio radiation, which has much lower energy than ionized radiation, such as those issued by the X -ray.
Kennedy follows his style, mixing wrong information with a scientific fact. Some of the issues most prominent during the first five weeks in his position, such as reducing chronic diseases in children and warning about the risk of highly treated food, have wide support between the public and many scientists. But some of Kennedy blames for these problems, and some of his proposed solutions – such as replacing the fat of beef for seed oils in fast food – are not supported by research.
Therefore, also, for mobile phones in schools. Restricting their use is an issue that has embraced leaders on both sides of the corridor. Last year, Vivek Mourthi, then the General Surgeon in the Biden Administration, He called schools to get rid of phones in the semester. Sent nine states already like Prohibition15 states and Washington, the capital, submitted legislation to do so, according to KFF, a non -profit health research center.
“In the red states and blue states, there is a lot of concern about children and mobile phones, so I think there is support from the two parties on this,” said Annette Campbell Anderson, Deputy Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Safe and Health Schools.
However, there is no reason to fear the risk of cancer of the use of your mobile phone at this time, said Gereold Bushabg, a clinical professor of radiology at the University of California, Davis.
He said: “There is a lot of low -quality research in the literature that, if you want to collect all of this and put it together, it will look very comfortable.” “There are many active groups that enhance these studies and say this is the truth.”
A HHS spokesman did not respond to the comment request.
What Kennedy says and what studies say
Kennedy has made unfounded recurring claims for the use of a mobile phone in the past, including On Podcast Joe Rogan last year.
In his confirmation session in January, Kennedy also told Senator Andi Kim, DN.J. He stood by his previous statements that Wi-Fi was causing cancer, saying that he “won a case before the Court of Appeal against the Federal Communications Committee (FCC) on this particular case.”
The Kennedy -established Al -Qazi Group, founded by Kennedy, challenged the children’s health defense, the decision of the Federal Communications Committee not to review health and safety guidelines for the year 1996 for wireless technologies. court Judgment in favor of the plaintiffs The Federal Communications Committee (FCC) has ordered an explanation of how to protect its guidelines from the health effects that are likely to be harmful. However, this case was about healthy cases that had nothing to do with cancer, and the court did not take a position on the possible health effects of mobile radiation.
Bushburg said that research has so far been “very reassuring” about the safety of the mobile phone.
Most studies have studied whether exposure to radiation from mobile phones can increase the risk of brain tumors, given that people often hold their phone through their heads while speaking. But brain cancer rates in general did not rise as mobile phones have become widely used. and Great study Among the children, no correlation was found between the use of a wireless phone and brain tumors.
the National Institute of Cancer and Food and Drug Administration – Agencies that Kennedy is now supervised – as well Environmental Protection Agency They all said that there is not enough scientific evidence to connect the use of a mobile phone to cancer. However, the International Research Agency on Cancer has classified radiation radiation as a possible carcinogenic, which means that it cannot exclude a causal association.
David McC Corc Chamic, a professor of biology at the Illinois Institute of Technology, said many questions are still in place.
“I think it is somewhat clear that Mr. Kennedy does not necessarily pay much attention to the largest part of the scientific data there. However, it is not impossible for there are health effects of people who use mobile phones,” he said.
in 2017 studyMcCurkmik and his colleagues formed rodents Radio radiation And found a possible increase in the rate of some tumors. However, the results in laboratory animals do not necessarily apply to humans, given many biological differences, and studies included restrictions that prevented researchers from extracting conclusions.
A decade ago, a The study looked at the use of a mobile phone Of more than 5,000 people suffering from brain tumors and have found a growing risk of tumors in 10 % who used their phones more than others. But the search relied on people’s memories about the use of the previous phone, which is always unreliable, so it is difficult to explain its results (such as the results of similar studies).
McCromic said that the use of mobile phones has also changed in recent years, which may affect exposure. While studies have so far been considered mainly in the effects of 2G or 3G signals, high -frequency 5G networks are common today. People now send the text as much as they are more than them, so there is likely to be less radiation near the brain.
The pros and cons of mobile phone ban
Although the two parties supported mobile phone restrictions in schools, a lot of disagreement is still precisely what these rules should look like.
Phones can have benefits to save life – for example, by allowing children to call 911 – so some parents are concerned that the explicit ban may endanger their child’s safety. Anderson said that policy makers should weigh those concerns against the risks to the mental health of children and their ability to focus in the semester.
She said: “Part of what schools are trying to do is to know how to control what happened in their school’s climates because of the phone – everything from using the phone to the tape battles and accidents that occur in schools for children who use them to make Tiktoks.”
She added that the correct approach is most likely from school to school. For example, in schools where mobile phones are the only escalating device on the Internet, the ban may be less logical.
In his meeting on Thursday, Virginia Governor Glenn Yongen, who issued an executive order last year directed to the state’s Ministry of Education Project instructions for public schools to restrict or eliminate the use of the phone And allocate $ 500,000 to finance these efforts. On Monday, Kennedy visited the Virginia Secondary School that adopted the change, who said that students and teachers there welcomed him.
Kennedy said: “I have found the countries that do this as a healthier environment when children do not use mobile phones in schools,” Kennedy said.
However, before the Secretary of HHS became, Kennedy suggested that although he personally supports phones from schools, parents and teachers must make their own decisions.
“Do we really want the government to decide when, where and how do we communicate?” he Books on x In 2023.