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Mobile Phones And Danger
Trishank Karthik writes: "Have you been wondering whether those quirky, little, fashionable and convenient things are dangerous to you? Paranoid about cancer from mobile phones? Wanna know the latest findings? Cast your mobile phone aside for a while, read this, and have some coffee or tea."
More recently, there was a nice summary of research done over at Medscape which I discussed at my website. Since I'm an oncologist and an electrical engineer, I happen to have a keen interest in the issue from both sides.
If you take a look at my comments on the matter, you may find some food for thought. Basically, this sort of radiation may well pose a threat to our health, but it may do so at such a low rate and take so long to show effects that it may not even matter.
Look at smoking: if you smoke, you have a 7000% increased risk of developing some sort of aerodigestive cancer (oral cavity, larynx, esophagus, lung, etc.) as well as a much higher risk of cervical cancer in women, increased risk of skin cancers, bladder cancer, pancreatic cancer, yadda yadda yadda. That data was easy to find and tease out due to the incredible rarity of these tumors in nonsmokers.
However, now you're talking about much more rare tumors, and not a very large rate of increased risk. You don't even need statistics to see that smoking has a high association with cancer, but when you look at human tumors that only affect 1 in 100,000 people, then try to see if the rate is 2 in 100,000 among those exposed (or, as is more likely, 1.1 in 100,000 among those exposed) you are in a different world. You will need amazingly large populations in order to show a statistically significant difference of even 100% higher risk. And then, even if you do, your research is subject to criticism because you aren't going to be able to do a randomized trial. All retrospective, cohort, or other nonrandomized trials can be picked apart by either the phone manufacturers or consumer interest groups (the two sides, as I see them, in this debate).
In the end, you also have to ask yourself if it matters to you. I know lots of patients who continue to smoke because they just damn like it, and forget trying to get them to quit. They'd literally rather get another cancer than give up their favorite habit. Lots of cell phone (or insert your favorite high tech device here) users will just say to hell with it and continue to use the devices. After all, I still love to ride motorcycles, even after working in an ER. ;-)
First, microwaves (and indeed any EMR) affects ONLY those molecules that correspond to that wavelength.
Like water. Cellular phones (esp. PCS, around 1.9 GHz) are pretty close to the frequency that is proven effective for heating things- like microwave ovens (~2.4 GHz).
Secondly, the chances are that it's not an EMR effect at all. The magnetic fields of cell phones are probably much more important than microwave emissions.
Think about the acronyms you use before you use them- EMR - electro MAGNETIC radiation. They go together. Yes, different things affect the electical and magnetic fields differently, but magnetic fields are always generated by the motion of electric particles (since no one has found any magnetic monopoles yet, or evidence of them).