Cellphones On Our Minds: UW’s Henry Lai in The New York Times

In January, Seattle magazine contributor Naomi Ishisaka told the story of UW professor Henry Lai, a bionengineering scientist whose research has placed him at the center of a persistent global debate around the effect cellphones have on brain activity.

Check out this New York Times blog post elaborating on this connection, following the results of a new study published in the The Journal of the American Medical Association, one of the largest to document that radio-frequency signals from cells phones might have the potential to alter brain activity. Lai is quoted in the piece saying:

“…Lai, a University of Washington professor of bioengineering who has long raised concerns about cellphone safety, said he hoped the data would broaden the focus of cellphone research and health.

The bottom line is that it adds to the concern that cellphone use could be a health hazard,” said Dr. Lai. “Everybody is worried about brain cancer, and the jury is still out on that question. There are actually quite a lot of studies showing cellphone radiation associated with other events, like sleep disturbances. But people have not been paying a lot of attention to these other types of studies.”