Such drastic bio-effects are logically as devastating to the human auditory system as they are to other biological systems of the body. Both the membranes and DNA of inner ear cells are critical to robust hearing. The human hearing apparatus is exquisitely sensitive to changes in the blood supply. When inner ear cells communicate with other cells, they depend on proper calcium balance to get the job done.  

 

   Microwave radiation from wireless phones is a confirmed cause of acoustic neuroma, a type of tumor which forms on the nerve leading to the brain. Cell phones, cordless phones, wireless headsets and Bluetooth devices are all mentioned in risk statistics for this type of tumor, a common cause of deafness. Using microwave devices on the ear for several years at least doubles the risk for acoustic neuroma. [8]  Surgery is necessary for these tumors and the surgery itself causes varying degrees of permanent deafness.

    Adequate research on critical audiological issues related to wireless technology has not been undertaken in the United States since the wireless revolution began. As confirmed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), most of the scant wireless bio-research conducted in the United States is undertaken by the Wireless Radiation Industry itself. [9] This situation is akin to tobacco companies conducting research on the health effects of cigarettes.

   The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has neither manpower nor political will to scientifically review the safety of radiation-emitting consumer products. The FDA has never issued adequate health warnings based on the latest medical science related to wireless technologies. Therefore, no wireless device on the market has ever been U.S. government-certified for hearing safety. Information about ludicrous levels of wireless radiation permitted by U.S. regulators  is provided by Louis Slesin, editor of Microwave News:

 

    

 

♦  In 2005, a Spanish medical study conducted at the University of Valencia reported hearing loss among 323 healthy volunteers who were followed during three years of cell phone use. [11]

♦  In 2007, medical research presented by the American Academy of Otolaryngology found that microwave phone radiation incrementally damages the inner ear, causing high frequency hearing loss. This study, conducted by a research institute in New Delhi, India, followed 100 people who used mobile phones for over one year and who incrementally suffered hearing loss as a result. Researchers found that those who kept a microwave-emitting device on their ear for an hour a day or more, sustained the most inner ear damage. [14]

♦  In 2010, doctors in India reported a 50% hearing loss among some cell phone users in a case-control study which compared the hearing of 112 cell phone users compared to 50 controls who had never used a mobile phone. Employing a battery of audiological investigations, the study concluded: "High frequency loss and absent distortion product otoacoustic emissions [sounds generated by the inner ear] were observed with an increase in the duration of mobile phone use, excessive use of mobile phones, and age more than 30. Additionally, users with some complaints during mobile phone use demonstrated...abnormalities in auditory brainstem response. Long-term and intensive mobile phone use may cause inner ear damage." [15]

♦  In 2011, a follow-up case-control study on a different group of subjects by the same Indian research group again found numerous audiological problems in cell phone users compared to the control group. The study reported: "More than three years of mobile phone usage emerged as a risk fact. The damage done was bilateral, with the quantum of damage being the same for both GSM and CDMA [modulation technologies]." The report concluded: "Long-term and intensive GSM and CDMA mobile phone use may cause damage to the cochlea as well as the auditory cortex." [16]

♦  In 2013, researchers with the Department of Otolaryngology at King Saud University in Saudi Arabia published a study which concluded that test subjects who used a 3G mobile phone for sixty minutes at a time [a fraction of the time American youth spend talking on wireless phones] suffered an immediate effect on their hearing threshold levels and they suffered other negative otological symptoms. [17]

♦  In 2013, an epidemiological study published in Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine tabulated data from a medical questionnaire given to 350 Turkish cell phone users. Many users reported hearing loss and tinnitus along with headaches and vertigo/dizziness related to their wireless exposure. [18]

    

 

 

   Microwave damage to the human cochlea, an inner ear structure, as discussed in the radiation studies cited above, is bad news. The majority of people with hearing loss have suffered some degree of damage to the cochlea. Below are pictures under magnification from the House Ear Institute showing the miraculous and fragile “hair” cells lining the cochlea. These fantastic little microprocessors have everything to do with either hearing well-- or going deaf. They are organized into three rows of outer hair cells, and one row of inner hair cells.  Inner hair cells send auditory information to the brain, while outer hair cells act to stabilize or intensify the vibrations transmitted throughout the cochlea.

   And there is more: "Research by NASA in the 1970s showed that this effect occurs as a result of thermal expansion of parts of the human ear around the cochlea, even at low power density. Later, signal modulation was found to produce sounds or words that appeared to originate intracranially. It was studied for its possible use in communications, but has not been developed due to the possible hazardous biological effects of microwave radiation." [23]

  North American babies and children have long been encouraged by their culture to begin wireless phone use at a very early age. By 2010, a study on adolescent hearing had been conducted at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.  Published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the study reported that one in five US adolescents were suffering some level of hearing impairment. It also found that 31 percent more of today's microwave-addicted teenagers had some level of hearing loss compared to their peers of the late 80s and early 90s when wireless exposure was not an issue. Dr. Lawrence Lustig, director of otology and neurotology at the University of California San Francisco, noted that national statistics on hearing impaired youngsters reveal  a "huge jump in hearing loss." [27]  During the last decade, as smart technologies have exponentially increased microwave exposure, researchers in the USA have dropped the ball.  How much worse might the situation be today when young people are even more addicted to powerful, multi-antenna smart devices than youth studied a decade ago?

  There have been numerous media reports about young Americans suffering tinnitus and other symptoms of  hearing damage from media players, such as iPods and MP3 players with Wi-Fi capabilities. Unless the wireless component is disabled, these addictive devices can emit continuous microwave energy spikes into the ear canal. This radiation also freely travels through unshielded ear wires and Bluetooth headphones commonly used for hands-free application. Could the combination of continuous, too-loud volume along with pulsed microwave signals be a root cause of hearing damage epidemic among America's young? The medical studies cited above indicate that successive armies of young digital cyborgs, always plugged in for their daily "dose" of wireless carcinogen, are destined to join in waves (pun intended) the forty-eight million Americans who suffer hearing disabilities.

 

  An additional tragedy concerns the auditory damage that ubiquitous microwave assault is likely inflicting upon fetuses and infants caught in the Wireless Age. It may be a long time before medical science understands the full extent of the damage to hearing and brain function being suffered by these vulnerable populations, forced to swim in a sea of carcinogenic wave radiation long before their auditory systems are fully developed. What we do know is that microwave radiation, with its affinity for water, easily travels through the amniotic fluids of the uterus where this toxic energy is then amplified. [28] And we know that RF/microwave radiation is a gross teratogen (causes birth defects) by virtue of its ability to destroy DNA and alter genes. [29]

 

   For those who wish to AVOID further microwave ear damage for young and old, good advice from the latest science is to keep all wireless devices off the body and to keep living and working spaces free of toxic RF/microwave radiation. People who attempt to mitigate brain and ear damage with a wired headset plugged into a wireless device should know that unshielded wires, and even some air tube headsets, transmit plenty of information-carrying radio waves into the inner ear. In addition, wired headsets cause device users to hold a microwave transceiver right next to the body, thereby blasting wave carcinogen into the hand, gut and reproductive organs.