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Cell Phone Companies To Release Radiation Data
digitalfrustration writes: "The U.S. cellular telephone industry will start publishing information on the amount of radiation that enters users' heads when they use various wireless phones." Story by CNN. By the way, on the off-chance that the data says the equivalent of 'For The Love Of God, Stop Using This Device, We're Surprised You're Not Dead Yet,' does anyone think that people would stop using them?
Well yes, the media *always* has a field day. never let the facts get in the way of a circulation-boosting story
a couple of groups of "concerned citizens" will call for a ban
Sounds good - not for health reasons, but because they are *irritating* in cinemas, churches, anywhere really....
What I would *like* to see happen is that phone companies are forced to give free "hands free" sets with their phones; they aren't that expensive, and the number of idiots that currently would be driving at ($SPEEDLIMIT+5) with one hand attached to an ear and a piece of plastic might reduce (well, I *suppose* they are reducing now, but autodarwination doesn't really count)
and mobile phone companies will have a new number to differentiate their products with.
Saves them making something up. in any case, we will end up with some figure that is meaningless but has a very low value (like Peak Music Power but in reverse)
The funniest thing will be seeing whether lower radiation phones give poorer reception.
They will probably work around it - whenever there is a technical constraint, engineers find a way to make it work anyhow.
In a few years the media will have a new bogie man and no-one will care less.
Well, the "quality sunday broadsheets" will probably drag it back out every few years when things are slow, with a "still nothing has been done about it" piece.
--
-=DaveHowe=-
I was thinking like that as well before my employer provided me with a cell phone and I got used to using it. The point is that a cell phone provides you more freedom: you can be easily reached by phone, but you can also screen what calls (caller id) to take and when to take them.
You see, if you don't want to be disturbed, switch the damn thing to silent mode or off. When you feel like it, switch the phone back to normal mode again.
Then of course there are all these young dumbass punks who have them because they think it is "cool" and who think they're impressing people when they're talking on them.
This phase is fortunately already over in Europe where it looks like everybody from kids to grandparents have cell phones. Claiming that people try to impress other people by carrying a cell phone is rather ridiculous in this situation. It's almost like saying that people who own a PC are just trying to impress their friends.
To date there is no evidence that cell phones have any serious adverse health effects (beyond being distracting while driving). There have been studies, most recently by Hardell et al this spring, which have shown a trend towards an increased risk, in that case of brain tumor, but the study had some weaknesses which would have made that fairly weak evidence, even had it been statistically significant.
The case which is often made by anti-cell-phone debaters is that "the industry" should somehow be responsible for "proving" that cell phones are "safe". Anyone who's worked with statistics or epidemiology knows that that's not what statistics do. The studies done so far haven't shown any statistically significant increased health risks, so in the statistical sense of the word, they've helped "prove" cell-phones are "safe".
The technically inclined know that the proposed biological ground for the danger of cell phones is shaky at best. RF "radiation", aka microwaves, is not ionizing, and so won't cause cancer by the mechanism that, for example, X-rays and atom bombs will. Cell phones do output a few watts of energy through the antenna, and some of this will be absorbed by the person holding the phone, causing their scalp to warm up one or two degrees. That regional temperature differences in the scalp or even brain could cause cancer is a claim that has yet gone unproved.
Some good reading for those of you genuinely curious about the phones, radiation, and power lines:
Linet et al, Residential Exposure to Magnetic Fields and Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia in Children; NEJM 1997, 337.1
Hardell et al, Case control study...risk factors for brain tumour; Medscape Gen Med, May 4, 2000. http://www.medscape.com/Medscape/GeneralMedicine/j ournal/2000/v02.n03/mgm0504.hard/mgm0504 .hard.html requires login
Hardell et al, Use of cellular phones and the risk of brain tumours, a case-control study; Int J Oncol, 1999. Jul 15.
But go ahead and check out PubMed for more articles, there's been quite a lot of research done.
I'd like to believe that when the right woman comes along I'll have the courage to say, "no thanks, I'm married."
Right, as if health risk ever stopped a person from doing something. Please. Cel phones have permeated societies across the world, and their use will not stop just because they may have some silly little fatality issue.
And they certainly won't stop using them while driving.
See FDA Consumer Update on Mobile Phones (October 1999).
San Jose Mercury News has a story
My personal observation is that mobile-phone-dependent people tend to have a very short attention span. I don't know which causes which, though. Maybe the FDA will test that in lab.
"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." -- Tennyson
I don't think people will stop using them for anything, they make people money, and that's certainly more important then health
I can just see it now... "That's not a tumor growing out of my head. It's a genetically enhanced cellular phone holder!".
"as plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee" - Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz. (One man's humorous is another mans flamebait)
The world is full of people that are will take risks. It is like smoking, drinking and eating junk food since it has very little instant effect it will be ignored by the masses.
And they laughed at my tinfoil hat! Let's see whose brain the cell-phones take over now!
A woman with a cigerette is standing on a corner waiting for a bus. Another woman walks up. Her cell phone rings. Cigerette woman exclaims, "Don't answer that! Don't you know you can get cancer from the radiation!?".
-Antipop
If cell phone manufacturers have been cowed into releasing radiation data, then how long before the computer industry does as well since my monitor and PC are both giving off radiation (and I'd bet a significant amount more than my cell phone is). Remember all the radiation scares re: computers in the 1980s? Same thing all over again with cell phones.
Actually, I specifically stay away from electric blankets, it may be superstitious and not grounded in scientific fact but it just seems like asking for trouble to be wrapping yourself in a cosy EM field at such close distance (no help from the inverse square law there! ;) ... I'm just never that cold that an extra traditional style blanket or a notch on the thermostat won't do the trick.
My operating philosophy is that people should balance the need to stay away from EM fields and environmental toxins with the convenience of products which expose them to these things. With cell phones the balance is easy, just use a headset! With electric blankets the balance is just don't bother because they are frivolous. With TV's, it only makes sense for the population to move towards LCD. With powerlines, provably harmful or not, why choose to live near them if you have a choice?
For those interested, a very level-headed, well researched FAQ on "Cellular Phone Antennas and Human Health" can be found at http://www.mcw.edu/gcrc/ cop/cell-phone-health-FAQ/toc.html. It is very good reading for anyone concerned about this topic.
Not that I intend to drag myself into the gender debate, but the way Patricia and Lita being treated is quite uncalled for. It's also sad that any woman with intelligence who is not passive is considered a feminist.
Grow up majority-of-men, this is not the 1950s. It's time you stop feeling threatened by intelligent women. You can handle being beat by a man, but can you handle being beat for by a woman? The mentality in play here is quite sad.
Regards,
Matt Heckaman
PS: I'm not a troll, though I'm sure I'll be moderated down for my non-conformist view.
Don't take life so seriously; it isn't permanent.
By posting here I'm losing my ability to moderate in this discussion, so don't blame me for the "Troll" on the post at the top of the thread, it's not me.
In all honesty I find it hard to believe that you think it sensible to drive and speak on the phone at the same time. Admittedly there are a lot of people that do it, there are also many cases of car accidents caused by people driving and talking on the phone at the same time. A number of studies have been carried out and they indicate that even if you have a hands free kit, the attention you have to pay to the conversation you're having has a very detrimental effect on your reaction times.
So without wanting to use words like "Stupid", I still have to say that I find your point of view irresponsible - but that's just an opinion too.
Finally - being able to install Linux hardly makes you a rocket scientist, after all, even I managed to do it.
Salocin.com
Ah, but do get into cars? Your risk of injury from an auto accident is tremendous compared to the chance of cancer from a cell phone.
The fact is that people are scared of technology because they don't understand it and they don't feel like they have control. And there's no consistency here, either. Other people have mentioned electric blankets. Electric razors for men have got to be just shooting radiation right at a very important set of glands, but no one is whining on the evening news about them.
So, there are two options: actually learn enough science to make an informed decision on your very own, or keep running around like Chicken Little. Personally, I'll take the science.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
At least he didn't start giving you a hard time for exposing him to "secondhand radiation," thereby exposing him to an unacceptible health risk.
If the data can be manipulated and interpreted in such a way as to find the tiniest glimmer of a possibility of a health hazard resulting from cell-phone use, then this is the argument that will be used by the scaremongers to legislate their demise.
Scam idea: Charge $100+ for a "modification" which "reduces radiation exposure by 99%"... and just swap out the speaker. Use the above mentioned "monitor shake" test as your proof
It's amazing to me how much power people give away because they don't understand science. I think Arthur C. Clark was right when he said "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". It's not magic... but I could certainly treat it as such, and get quite a few people to believe me. (In this case, at least)
--Mike--
Well, I can't speak authoritatively on this, of course, but I used to work at the George Washington University Medical Center's Animal Research Lab (and before anyone jumps on my case, it was a very humane lab, and it was a work study position. I don't want to hear it.)
Well, I will jump on it.
Actually, this is the kind of thing that animal research should do. I'd much rather have some dogs, monkeys or mice die than watch my son or mother slowly die of cancer. (Look at the word humane versus inhumane, and pick - a pig dying in a clean lab, or a loved one dying in a hospital unable to help).
Realistically, there is no way I can glean any information from the slip of paper that comes with my new cell phone that tells me that I'm going to get 1500 bogorads of radiation across these nine spectra.
If, however, I hear that every mouse exposed to a PCS phone developed a three-ton tumor on their nads after two months, I think I might look at getting a different phone.
Oh, and didn't the research already occur in europe regarding this issue? (Good Science requires checking the study elsewhere, so it's not a useless study). I seem to remember reading about it, but a minute of browsing didn't find it. (Although there are some good scare pages on Anglefire about radiation).
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
I haven't posted to Slashdot for a while because I was getting sick of this kind of sexist abuse. I tried to share my insight with Slashdot (and I was mostly successful - I achieved a +1 bonus within a couple of weeks), and yet I was still greeted with ignorant comments like "You're just a girl, what do you know?". Some people obviously found it too challenging to see past my sex and read what I was actually saying. I'm a big girl and at first I didn't take much notice of this sort of small-minded abuse, but after a while I decided it was no longer worth the hassle to post to Slashdot. Does Slashdot really want to drive insightful posters away?
The way that Patricia has been treated today is disgusting, and I hope you're all ashamed of yourselves. She implies that she's 16, so of course she's going to make a few naive comments. But this is hardly an excuse for the sort of hostility she has received. Maybe people should have politely corrected her, rather than resorting to flames. We should be trying to nurture and encourage young female geeks, rather than treating them so badly.
Patricia: keep posting to Slashdot, and try your best to ignore the comments of some of these cavemen. The majority of Slashdot readers and moderators are decent people, but there are a few sexist neanderthals who try to spoil it for everyone.
right here - the Al Foil Deflector Beenie, altho targeted at deflecting psychotronic mind control carriers, it may also help with your cell phone problems.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
I hope someone posted this earlier.
The reason cell phone companies are releasing this data is to try and convince us all to get head sets for our phones. This isn't about health, there is, as has been pointed out, a very low risk from cancer from these things. This is about selling accessories.
Some people would scoff at a product like that then go out and put magnets in their shoes to relieve pain. It is like that joke saying: "My numerologist told me that only fools believe in astrology."
Why? Because it's DANGEROUS. You're concentrating on who someone was seen with at someone's party? While you're in control of a 1 ton vehicle doing 55 miles an hour?
Oh, and in case anyone says "ooh, Australia. Backwards. Censorship. Evil. Nasty" - Australia has the third highest uptake in the world of mobile phones, second only to two Scandinavian countries.
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
The title kinda says it all, who wants to find a pay phone these days? Thou it might spur a comeback of bag-type car phones, remote antenna plugins, things in general to keep delicate human brain tissue away from rads. I know my dad is worried enough about that kinda thing that he uses a crappy sounding speakerphone adaptor, making his PCS phone sound perfectly analog.
Summary of rambelings:
It'll cause changes, but cell phones are here to stay. But who doesn't know that?
bash: ispell: command not found
This sig left intentionally blank.
First, if you're trolling, congratulations, you got me, and in grand style.
p . Note the part about cellphones increasing the risk of an accident fourfold. Also note the bit about a hands-free phone providing no significant advantage. Even though that comes with a disclaimer (study may have been too small), you can bet that it's still around the same increase.
If not:
What's the difference between talking on the phone and talking to someone sitting next to you?
First, if you don't have a hands-free set, you've got your hand by your ear the whole time. You're obstructing your vision and giving yourself one fewer hand to keep control with.
If you do have a hands free set, your attention is diverted from your immediate surroundings. Someone else in the car is responding to the same visual cues as you are, and you are free to break off any moment with no explanation. You can also do this on the cellphone, of course, but there's pressure not to.
These are small factors that don't matter most of the time, but are crucial if you need fast reactions.
Also, I hope you don't check directions on the map on a busy freeway at 60mph or check your blind spot every 10 seconds for the duration of a typical phone call (or when the road's not safe for at least a fraction of a second into the foreseeable future). You have far less control over the timing of a phone conversation than most things you do in the car. People can call you, and people hate being ignored or hung up on. It would be nice if the social pressure against that didn't exist, but it's not going away anytime soon.
Check http://www.onhea lth.com/conditions/in-depth/item/item,2350_1_1.as
It's government, trying to protect it's citizens from anything potentially harmful; and this is wrong!
They ban drunk driving, too. What's your point? They may be different quantitatively (I'm not sure), but you're making a qualitative point here.
What's the next step? Legislation requiring homes to be one level only, so no one can hurt themselves by falling down stairs? Federally mandated safety-scissors? Restricted, liquid-only diet to reduce risk of choking?
Yeah, where do they get off requiring drivers to get licensed? Or not letting you drive without insurance?
I note your point, but then again, when you're driving, you can hurt a lot of people besides yourself very, VERY easily.
Banning a single technology or behaviour is sheer ignorance.
That's an awfully ignorant statement. Everything in moderation.
This cellphone ban may be the wrong idea, but it may not be. Is it considerably more or less dangerous than drunk driving? Than checking a map? Than talking to your friend? And then the decision needs to be made on those grounds.
I'm not too worried about the radiation but with the amount of heat this thing is giving off I think I have just fried a few gazillion sperm.
;), it should be. The testicles nominally keep producing sperm for as long as you're sexually capable. Only the female of the species has a limited number of genetic carriers. Fortunately, ovaries are better protected.
No joke -- the ideal temperature for sperm is actually several degrees cooler then the 98.6 F that most of the body runs at. That's why the testicles are swinging in the breeze, instead of tucked inside the body for protection.
I've heard it told of a primitive tribe in Africa that employed a method of birth control where the males would soak their testicles in hot water for several minutes before engaging in sexual intercourse. No word on how well it worked.
I wonder if the heat effects on balls are more than just temporary.
As long as you're not actually burning yourself (and if you keep something that hot on your balls, you don't deserve to reproduce
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
apologies for a lame attempt at a first post.
...
It sounds like a real trade-off:
signal strength vs. possible health effects.
Filters, or filterless? Chooose yer poison.
My guess is this: adaptations will be made.
Take for instance the earpiece/microphone attachments. These put the base unit in your pocket. Those components could be made wireless, only having to transmit a strong enough signal to be picked up by the base unit and amplified to hit a tower/satellite.
I'll bet that the 1st generation of TVs would cook a TV dinner in under an hour
.
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Mr. Ska
I heard on the radio the other day about a poll they did for people 95 years-old+. They were asked what they would have done differently if they started over. And the guy on the radio said that they ALL said that they would have taken more risks. just interesting to think about...
So I was watching Discovery Wings a few weeks ago, and started seeing advertisements for little oval-shaped "filters" that you put over the earpiece of your cellular phone to block the radiation. I just about fell out of my chair.
These people are serious! They actually think a patch the size of an elongated quarter placed over the earpiece of a cel phone will save you. They had it all. Everything from a generic American mother saying, in a deadpan face and a concerned voice "I'd never let my teenager use an unprotected celluar phone!" to a really scientific test where they held a cel phone up to a monitor and showed how it made the monitor shake. Then they put one of their magical filters on the phone, and showed how the monitor didn't shake anymore. Riiiiiiight. They must have that special Gauss-model phone that wasn't available when I went shopping for my PCS phone (Which doesn't, for the record, make my monitor shake)
I certainly hope nobody is taking that product seriously. As if the only radiation in a phone comes directly out the earpiece in a unidirectional fashion. They even suggested you can use their filters on standard wireless phones.
I suppose they're just feeding on the classic fear (And in many cases, paranoia) of the unknown that seems to be an all-too-constant aspect of humanity. Even if cel phones are harmful, these filter-making folks definitely don't have the solution.
Well, the power line EM field studies have shown to be blatantly flawed, so I don't see why this would be dangerous at all....
But, on the off chance that it is, there are a number of viable alternatives. You could keep the antenna on a belt unit the size of a pager, and have an IR, wire, or weak radio connecting it to a corresponding handset. Of course, I still think subdermal microphones and earphones are the best idea, with a wire running under the skin to flat antennas implanted on the shoulder blades.
Why would I want to carry around a device which would allow anyone in the world to call and bug me at any time?
In my case, it's because my employer pays me to.
Would I do so otherwise? Unlikely. Nobody I know needs to get in touch with me that badly. I've got an answering machine.
I did carry an unactivated cell phone in my glove compartment before I got this job, though. (You can still use an unactivated phone to make emergency calls).
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Dead serious, I was standing outside with a coworker one day who was taking a smoke break, I answered a cel phone call, and the smoking coworker told me how those cel phones will kill me someday.
:)
He realized, of course, of the pot and the kettle situation. But still, it happened.
They do make announcements. Those silly little fake-trailers you watch before the movie always say "Enjoy our popcorn - please silence pagers and phones."
As for I need to get a call, well, don't go to a movie then. It's that simple.
By far the most annoying place for mobile phones is the restaurant though. I find it incredibly rude to sit at a table and eat while someone else at the table yaks on the phone. At least get up and go outside, damnit.
We've now got the evidence that smoking causes lung cancer... but it's still a multi-billion dollar industry. ;-( So no, even if they do publish that the mobiles are generating dangerous levels of radiation, I seriously doubt that people will stop using them.
I wish more places would install Cellular Firewalls like this one. I think every theatre should have one - if you want to make a call, go outside dammit.
I work for an electricity distributor, and we used to have a lot of complaints from people about the "radiation" from power lines. This was, of course, due to media attention and it seemed no amount of scientific facts can appease them once it's been mentioned on the nightly news. However, as the most recent such report was a few years ago most people don't actually bring it up anymore.
The funny thing is, the same people who are concerned about power lines and mobile phones have no qualms about sitting in front of a TV or computer for hours each day being bombarded with X-rays, or being subjected to large EM fields by electric blankets, hair dryers, etc. They just saw some reporter claiming an small, unsupported study found an extremely weak link between power lines and some disease.
Unlike power lines, mobile phones may actually damage cells due to the high frequencies used, but I doubt it will be significant. I predict the media will have a field day, a couple of groups of "concerned citizens" will call for a ban and mobile phone companies will have a new number to differentiate their products with. The funniest thing will be seeing whether lower radiation phones give poorer reception. In a few years the media will have a new bogie man and no-one will care less.
If any harmful effects do exists, they will only show up as statistical deviations in cancer rates many years hence. This will be explained by the medical community as "possibly due to mobile phone usage, but could have many other causes."
It's a cruel world.
On the other hand I do wish they would put up devices in movies etc so that they would block cell phones (Mine gets turned off) as its just annoying when you are in the middle of a film and someone's phone goes off
The Cure of the ills of Democracy is more Democracy.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
.. I can just see it, mandatory labels on cellphones.. "Using this phone will kill you"
;)..
Hell, using the cell can be just as rude as smoking cigarettes, and cellphone use is higher in Europe than the US (by roughly the same percentages even?
Your Working Boy,
If the data supports the claims that have been made over the years about cell phone radiation causing increased risk of cancer--and I'm not saying it *does* in fact do so, just that many people have claimed it--then the question will become how long have they known and have they been hiding it.
Well, I can't speak authoritatively on this, of course, but I used to work at the George Washington University Medical Center's Animal Research Lab (and before anyone jumps on my case, it was a very humane lab, and it was a work study position. I don't want to hear it.) doing administrative computer stuff that included a bit of data entry for a study on the effects of cell phone radiation on mice. IIRC, this was one of the larger such stdies, and it was a multi-year project.
Since I was working there in '95 and '96, that probably would have put the project completion around '98. Give another year for chewing on the data, internal meetings and such, and you'll prolly find that they only really completed things last year. However, I also remember that the study results, to that point, were mostly inconclusive. There really wasn't a higher incidence of tumors, malignant or otherwise, in the test groups as compared to the control groups.
-Todd
---
"The details of my life are quite inconsequential..."
What sort of advertising campaign could convince people that inhaling smoke is actually good for you? Where's the common sense?
Oh, wait... This is America after all, and people get an extra large burger, and a Diet Coke to go with it! This is where people eat exorbitant amounts of beef and chicken fat, because they know that they can always have it violently vacuumed (liposuctioned) out of their ass by a surgeon. And if they're too poor for that, they can use a drug to reduce their cholesterol - hell, we can transplant a new liver for you after the drugs fry the original. This is where people buy a Ford Excursion (14MPG) to go to the grocery store; and drive the beast at 90MPH in the right lane. This is where people will buy sour-cream labelled as 'lite' to counter-act the burger (since the Coke didn't do it); and where the marketter can label a product as 'lite' because it's brighter in colour than the "leading national brand". This is where people move to the 'big city' for the higher paying job, and spend twice as much as they should for rent; where they ride a stationary bike (that doesn't go anywhere), so they can look good while baking in the sun.
Convenience-lemmings will, of course, keep on using cell-phones; even if the price is a guaranteed brain tumour by the age of 80... After all, most will die of emphysema, skin cancer, colon cancer, car accident or heart attack long before that.
And the remaining rich have good insurance.
This is a disposable society, using disposable goods, disposable resources and disposable organs. There are disposable people living in the streets. Disposable kids, the products of disposable marriages, let themselves into their empty disposable homes after school and get baby-sat by an idiot-box whose only purpose is to reinforce this mentality. They hope that, their disposable dad doesn't get disposed of by his employer and doesn't dispose of their step-mom whose disposable T&A are starting to sag again.
But hey, it's all good.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Everyone is wondering about the radiation from a device used as frequently as a cell phone.
What about putting a laptop right on top of the family jewells?!
A laptop is certainly using more power than a cell phone (unless it's using transmeta, hehehe) and while it does offer more shielding, it usually sits there for a lot longer I would guess.
Also, I hope they show comparisons to normal 900MHz/2.4GHz phones.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
If the data supports the claims that have been made over the years about cell phone radiation causing increased risk of cancer--and I'm not saying it *does* in fact do so, just that many people have claimed it--then the question will become how long have they known and have they been hiding it. That's what got the tobacco companies: that their product causes increased risk of cancer isn't very actionable in and of itself--the fact that they knew it caused cancer, and did nothing to stop it, and denied any knowledge of the risks, is what made the tobacco lawsuits so profitable. I myself smoke cigars, but have no sympathy for a cigarette industry which has lied and cheated and in effect caused more people to die than might have if they'd come clean years ago. Anyone remember those cheesy 50s and 60s cigarrette commercials which touted the "health benefits" of smoking?
But seriously, I doubt that cell phones cause cancer any more than everything else around us does these days. Face it: life causes cancer. Most modern tech increases health risks. Six inches away from a small 15" CRT that I am, I am undoubtedly increasing my risks for cancer somewhat. Sitting a couple feet from a 19" CRT probably contributes just as much. Running your computer caseless probably contributes a tiny little bit to cancer risks, as probably does using cellphones, preservatives, cultured cheese products, soy products (recent studies suggest soy is a carcinogen in mice), diet soda, and just about anything useful. Personally, I'm fed-up with the overly-health-consciousness which causes us to put so many constraints on life that it isn't as fun as it should be. Plus, most of it is bullshit--fat and cholesterol are supposedly bad for you, yet the French practically have IVs of pure butter hooked into their veins and yet they're healthier than and live longer than Americans. To hell with no drinking, no smoking, no eating greasy pork products, and no enjoying buttery sugary eggy confections. It's time we just started enjoying life and not being so concerned with radiation, dietary intake, and how many hormones are in milk: who cares if we live to a hundred carefully if we could just have sixty five really fun years? Just my opinion.
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, *The Annals*
It would be interesting to get its radiation signature, if for no other reason than to understand and compensate for these annoying "features."
But I wonder: What happened to the FCC rule that said that an item "must not cause interference, and must accept interference from other items"? Last time I checked, all electronic equipment had to be tested to meet this rule. What changed?
sulli
sulli
RTFJ.
If this lead to standard use of headsets in conjunction with cellphones, we might see two birds killed with one stone:
- lower radiation exposure (which lowers a persons IQ without actually imposing a true evolutionary penalty through hereditary defects).
and
- Lower fatalities resulting from cell-phone use while driving.
Here's to hoping for the best!
--
The real Webmaven is user ID 27463. I don't rate an imposter, because my ID is such a lame-ass high number.
- size
- weight
- battery life
- features
A lot of people say that releasing this information won't deter cell phone usage. That's not the point. What WILL happen is that manufacturers will try to develop cell phones that emit less radiation than their competitors. The above list will then become:--
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
Magnetic bracelets to get rid of arthritis, magnetic insoles (even Dr. Scholes (sp) actually sells these) to get rid of whatever affects feet, magnetic sheets to place between your mattress and box-spring to cure insomnia...
EnerX, an 'all natural' alternative to Viagra, which is most likely just a 'secret' blend of Ginseng, Ginko and St. John's Wort; sold at 10x the price of the ingredients.
Viagra, and the whole slew of 'lifestyle' drugs - while there are valid medical reasons for a few individuals, people are popping these things like M&M's. Just wait until we get to see the long-term effects of that one... Ritalin, given to every child who doesn't pay attention in class (like any of us did, right?) is the new Valium...
I suspect that mothers who took Valium while pregnant, brought forth kids who now NEED Ritalin. These same mothers are much more likely to cure their kids' problems with pills than with proper upbringing... And these are the same mothers who defer parental responsibility to the TV set and school system.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
I realize I should wait for the report.. but..
What 'radiation' do people think comes out of cellular phones?
I mean, are they worried about the 800Mhz -> 5 Ghz range?
The thing is, when Joe American (or any other Joe..) thinks Radiation, he thinks like 'nuclear bomb' and 'radioactive isotope'.)
Are we talking alpha, beta, gamma. or.. ????
No.. we aren't. We're talking about a couple of watts of 900Mhz (or perhaps 2.4Ghz or somewhere in there). It's *NOT* ionizing radiation. As far as we know, it can't break down molecular bonds.
2.4Ghz is used in microwave ovens, to shake polarized molecules (chiefly water) , but that takes a reflecting cavity to keep the microwaves in, and a 600 watt microwave emitter! And that's just to heat food up! (really.. if you stuck your hand in a microwave oven for like 3 seconds, it probably wouldn't do any permanent damage to you. Might hurt though...)
I'm not denying that cellular phones may pose some kind of health risk to do the RF.... but if they do, this wouldn't be just about cellular phones, it would be a study into the effects of RF from *all* sources. Something we keep using more and more of, and still consider harmless.
When people ask you if there's a cell phone number you can be reached at, you just say "nope" and they'll give you a quizzical look- like you just fell off the turnip truck- but nothing really bad has ever happened to be because I didn't have one.
There's a chance that I'm hamstrining my career by not making myself availible like that, but I bet that career advancement looks pretty short-sighted when you're sitting on the terminal end of a brain tumor.
I hope that didn't sound like a flame. Those are just the honest reasons why I stopped. And no, I'm not saying that I think these phones necessarily cause cancer, I'm just saying that in my opinion, some things just aren't worth risking.
I see many post along the lines of "Everything causes cancer so who cares!" I realize that's the expected viewpoint from students, but there are different types of risk. Monitor and house wiring EMF has been an on and off issue; studies aren't clear one way or the other. Other so-called risks, like peanut butter causing cancer, are also peculiar, because how much peanut butter does one really eat in a lifetime? Occasionally, though, something really bad gets out into the mainstream. For a long time it was standard medical practice to X-ray pregnant mothers to check on the state of the fetus (this was before sonograms). This went on for ten or more years before anyone questioned it. Now we're horrified. How could we have done that?
There is a possibility that the risk of cell phones is more than just background noise. We should wait and see. We we shouldn't just ignore it if the results are bad.
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Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Well, this kind of thinking worries me. Why?
There are plenty of products out on the open market that are unsafe. You see, companies work to create the highest profits. If a company can save a few dollars, or even a few cents, per product, that translates to millions of dollars if they sell enough product. And if they determine that by excluding x safety feature from y product saves them a amount of money, if a amount of money is more than it takes to deal with b amount of isolated lawsuits, guess what -- the safety feature will be left out. It's happened time and time again.
Doesn't that just give you the warm fuzzies?
I truely wonder how dangerious cell phones actually are. It seems to me that if you look hard enough you can find a report or study that claims that any [RANDOM ACTIVITY OF CHOICE] is potentially harmful to your health. More scientific proof, less hype. Anyone have a link to actual radiation numbers for existing cell phones?
Same... hands free and in car kits are perfectly okay. Strangely, though, CB's are still legal to use...
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
This regiester article tells how someone was killed by a mobile phone.
Ever since my parents bought me a sweet cel phone for my 16th birthday, it has become a HUGE factor in my life. I use it for talking to friends, finding out about parties, contacting my boyfriend when I'm away, and ordering pizza. I mean it's just way too convenient for me to give up. I guess you could use pay phones at times, but you still have to find one first, and even then I can't be bothered to carry odd amounts of coins in my purse. It's just easier to have my cel on hand.
:)
I don't see why everyone here is so uptight about cel phones. I read the article, and looks to me like it's just trying to stir up controversy about cel phones. I firmly believe that if they were truly unsafe, the big companies would not have released cel phones to the market.
You know, I've been using my cel all the time for almost a year, and guess what? I haven't died of radiation poisoning, ok! Besides, why worry yourselves with this POTENTIAL radiation damage and POSSIBLE side effects? You're forgetting how advanced and quickly moving our technology is anyway. And even if some minor radiation issue is discovered, I am fully confident that businesses will honestly address it and that medical science will immedietally find a cure for any illnesses or symptoms caused by cel phone usage.
And one more thing I want to know is why do people make such a big deal about using cel phones while driving? I never saw any huge complaints about carphones before, but when they come with cel phones it's all "OH MY GOD YOUR GOING TO CRASH IF YOU USE A CEL PHONE." Well I've been only driving for less than a year, and I can handle driving my Chevy Tahoe while talking on the cel phone quite well. If a 16 year old girl can handle it, I think the people in general are intelligent enough to be able to drive while on the phone. I know a few rare accidents occur because people drive while talking on cel phones, but I'd rather take that risk than risk missing an important call from one of my girlfriends.
I really wonder why the slashdot community has it in for cel phone users and why they're falling for all this muckracking press. Maybe some of you guys just need a life so you can see how important a cel phone actually is
I think the real question here is, will my kids be able to control the weather by mind control or shoot laser beams out from their eyes if I continue to use a cell phone? And will society fear them?
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Actually, this won't happen because these numbers won't mean shit to people.
"Buy our phone, it only has an SAR of 11.53, the competitor's phone is at 12.92 - it'll give you cancer 14% faster!"
We won't know whether the phones are actually killing us until the following has happened:
Not that I'm particularly worried about cell-phone radiation, but headsets don't necessarily help. Aside from the potential for increased risk of hip-cancer :-), a lot of phones don't properly isolate the headset from the transmission components of the phone, so the headset just acts as an antenna. I think I even remember reading that some headsets increase the amount of radiation your head gets. Of course, it is non-ionizing radiation, and is probably far less harmful than the constant onslaught of muons, gamma rays, and other high-energy radiation we're constantly bombarded with from above...
:-)
There's soon going to be a big outcry about second-hand cell phone radiation from people who wouldn't understand the inverse-square law if it bit them in the ass. This is the problem with having a general public that doesn't understand anything more complex than a channel changer (I'm probably giving too much credit--I'd bet the majority of people don't know how to use their VCR remote to get rid of the flashing 12:00). These are the people I'm going to chase down the street with my cell phone
Would be some serious, relatively objective, relatively trustable data on how much cell phone usage while driving increases the chance of an automobile accident. A possible >60mph crash seems to be a hell of a lot more of a vital concern than a 5% increased chance of cancer in the next 30 years, no matter how statistically or scientifically likely either one is.
there was some study or other in canada a few years ago that wound up with data suggesting that the increase in probability of accident caused by using a cell phone was equal to the increase in probability of accident caused by being drunk. I don't remember who held this survey, so i can't testify as to its validity, but if it's real that's pretty damn scary. We were handed a copy of a summary in drivers ed, and it's buried somewhere in the piles of paper in my room. During drivers ed we spent several days doing nothing but watching videos talking about how if we are caught drinking while driving, our liscences are taken away forever and we have trouble getting jobs. That piece of paper was the only thing they gave us telling us not to talk on cell phones while driving, and i was given no indication that the law would be particularly harsh on me were i to cause an accident through careless driving because i was busy with a cell phone, or that the law was taking any steps whatsoever to prevent cell phone usage from causing accidents.
I believe some federal agency recently held a study of cell phone accident statistics that indicated cell phones or other driver-distracting electronics were a factor in 25% of all automobile accidents, or some such horrifying number. I would like to request that anyone who has some actual real information on this post it.
[insert unfocused, offtopic rant here about how last time i checked Houston had the highest auto accident death rate in america, and how the bit of the 610 loop between I-10 and I-59 is pure hell and i have to drive it every day and i'm constantly having my life put in danger by people talking on cell phones who fail to notice even the most basic of things about the very dangerous environment they are in blah blah blah]
The major difference between this kind of thing and cancer from cell phone overuse is that with cell phone cancer, you the user are the only person likely to die as a result..
Anyone with any kind of further information more real than my vague recollections of statistics, please reply.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Regardless, everyone can use a headset.
Here's a good summary (with more links) on mobile phone safety
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God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ --1Thes5:9
*sigh* this isn't my week, thank you for the insight into the blindingly obvious :)
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
a portable handsfree kit that's actually COMFORTABLE. Most of the ones I've tried so far are horrible. A cordless BlueTooth handsfree kit will be even better. No, I am not worried about the BlueTooth RF - it's several orders of magnitude weaker than the signal the cellular phone is transmitting.
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Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
What about the old cell phones? What about pagers? What about those new Palm VII (which ever one buildin a phone)? What about those 900 MHz home use cordless phone?
Here are some links to related materials found on the web...
Cellular Phone Antennas and Human Health by Medical Collage of Wisconsin
How a Cell Phone Works by How Stuff Works.
How a Digital Cell Phone Works by How Stuff Works.
Is your cell phone killing you? from ZDNet November 30, 1999.
Cell Phone Antennas & Health FAQs from Institute of Information and Computing Sciences.
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Mathematics will always come back to hunt you down, in so many ways
Face it: life causes cancer.
That to me seems the key - it's kind of a Uncertainty Principle of life. You can't live without being affected by the world. If you are affected by the world, your chances of getting cancer increase, because there is some probabiliy, however slight, that just about anything can disrupt a little genetic code here or there.
The real question is, what ARE the probabilities, and who's lying to who about it?
sig fault
I don't really care what that study says. Actually I want my cell phone implanted in my head. And I want a targeting cross in my vision. And a Nerf Gun inside my right arm, so I can Nerf-shoot my lusers, when they did something stupid again. And I want a holographic projection unit to let me appear as Tyrael with a vengeance, when they were really stupid (see DiabloII Act 3 intro movie). Gosh, I'm born too early.
I was just as skeptic as most of the posters here about how a tiny oval patch could possibly act as a shield against radiation. So I looked a little more deeply into it I am not so sure it's a total scam, there might actually be something there.
First of all, they don't claim to block radiation. It would be impossible for a one inch patch to block a signal with a wavelength of about 1ft. What this device claims to do is generate low frequency magnetic fields that somehow reduce the damage to biological systems. They have some research done on chicken embryos to back this up.
Proceedings of first World Congress on the Bioeffects of Electricity and Magnetism. (note that it's sponsored by Tecno-AO)
Tecno-AO "science"
See also here and here.
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Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
Here I am sitting on the couch reading slashdot and I find out that my laptop could be a health hazard. I'll give my cellphone before my laptop. That is until I can read slashdot from my cell.
Kate
_________________________ Visit me at http://pornforcomputers.com
> Hell, without my cel, no one would ever be able to get a hold of me.
Some of us like it that way. I'll get a mobile phone when they cram one in my cold, dead fingers.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Who cares about the danger caused by radiation. These people are going to be dead a lot sooner by another cause: Using the damn things while they're driving, swerving all over the road, going either 30 under or 30 over... argh.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
Well, yes, if they want to be seen as a professional scientist and not a greedy bastard.
I mail free copies of my publications to anyone who asks (and people ask) and wouldn't even consider charging anything for it. A few times I've also asked for a copy and every time people have been happy to oblige.
Personally, I'd consider charging money for a copy of your article extremely rude and unprofessional.
Nowadays, everyone is so worried about these fancy schmancy cell phones causing a little problem in their head when they should be thankful that cell phones are so damn small and efficient.
When I was younger, cell phones were huge, heavy, and lasted about 5 minutes before the batteries needed charging. Each month the phone company didn't need to keep track of our minutes, they just measured how much the tumor on the side of our head grew since the previous month. My friend Eddy 'Lumpy' talked on his cell phone so much that he didn't need a pillow at night, he just slept on the side with his tumor. His tumor was huge and squishy, all the pillow that anyone needs.
-vax computer, vi, lynx. 'nuf said
Not wanting to be _too_ imflammatory, but:
You are talking utter crap.
If you check out the following link: Olive Oil and the Mediterranean Diet at the International Taskforce for Prevention of Coronary Heart Disease, then you might learn something. Consensus of opinion is now
"that there is strong evidence that a Mediterranean-style diet, in which olive oil is the principal source of fat, contributes to the prevention of cardio-vascular risk factors"
Try doing some googling before spouting off.