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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?
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.
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.
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
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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.
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.
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..."
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*
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 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.