Study Links Cell Phones to DNA Damage

Amit Malhotra was one of several readers to point out a story running on numerous sites about a study linking cell phone use to DNA Damage. Of course, a recent gammaworld campaign has served to remind me that mutations are almost always beneficial, so there is nothign to fear.

Comments

Look, the tobacco industry is milked...

[Shivetya]

They // lawyers // need a new cow.

The pharmaceuticals, fastfood, and cell phone companies have money. They are nice big cows waiting for the right amount of scaremongering to generate up public concern. The big lie works well here, keep repeating it, getting it into newspapers, internet chain letters, and voila!

So what if there are any possible beneifts, if there is a negative its a horror! Think of the children, the elderly, the dienfranchiesed. These huge evil corporations slowing killing us for a profit.

So, who files the class-action suit first?

* NO I did not RTFA - it died already.

News Flash: The Sun Emits Radio Waves

[phlegmofdiscontent]

It's interesting that they don't offer up an explanation for the cellular damage. Last time I checked, microwaves were non-ionizing. The worst you should experience from a cell phone might be a little heat. I'm skeptical, as usual. Remember the scare about power lines? About alar? Remember a couple years back when there was a study that showed that heated carbohydrates can produce a cancer-causing chemical (I forget the name)? Wine was bad for you, then it was good, then it was bad, and now it's good again. There's a new study every year that shows something from the modern world kills us. Well, last time I checked, living in a modern society generally means you're going to live 40 years or more beyond what someone in a primitive society could expect. So even if everything is bad for you, it's more than balanced out by the things that are good.

Another cleverly disguised press release

[Emperor Shaddam IV]

In a separate announcement in Hong Kong, where consumers tend to spend more time talking on a mobile phone than in Europe, a German company called G-Hanz introduced a new type of mobile phone which it claimed had no harmful radiation, as a result of shorter bursts of the radio signal.

(Additional reporting by Doug Young in Hong Kong)


Everyone seems to have an agenda in the news these days. Is there no such thing anymore as a news release not trying to sell something or push an agenda?

Re:Study links cell phone

[stupidfoo]

actually - this study seems to be anything but conclusive. The researchers of course need 4-5 more years to figure out if they really actually figured out anything to begin with.

Another case of people reading the headline and news blurb and not the underlying information.

Re:What about Bluetooth?

[grahamsz]

Bluetooth has a far lower transmission power.

IIRC GSM permits up to a 2W transmission (if you are far from a base station), bluetooth is nearer 1mW, so it should cause less damage.

Of course people forget the whole inverse cubed relationship between power and distance, so the same people that complain about the effects of base stations near their house expose themselves to thousands of times more radation by using cellphones themselves.

Publishing by press release

[nucal]

Here is yet another example of releasing findings by press release. This is amazingly irresponsible, since it looks like the study involved irradiating cells in a dish. Not applicable to human exposure at all ...

Here are my favorite quotes:

Because of the lab set-up, the researchers said the study did not prove any health risks.

and

"We don't want to create a panic, but it is good to take precautions," he said, adding that additional research could take another four or five years.

In other words, I need more funding to support my sketchy research that may or may not be applicable to human exposure - sheesh.

Re:I don't see a problem

[Enigma_Man]

I hate the word "natural" when used describing what something is made of... What does it mean exactly? Especially hair products that are "all natural". Does that mean they didn't refine the crap they put in it at all? They just dumped leaves and shit into the shampoo? Or did they have to extract certain chemicals, like you do with just about everything else. Where is the line between "natural" and not, in both marketspeak and some sort of sane opinion?

A lightning bolt is natural, and is pretty damn dangerous, as is arsenic, and bears.

-Jesse

Re:Why is talking on a cellphone considered rude?

[pauljlucas]

While in the movie theatre? Yes.

Again, the phone is irrelevant. It's equally rude/annoying if a person is talking to another person sitting in the theater (in which there should be no talking by any means).

While in a shared office? Yes.

How is talking on a cellphone more rude/annoying than talking using a landline in a shared office? I've been in plenty of shared office spaces and had people talking way too loudly on their landline.

While driving a car? Yes.

Assuming you're not in that car, I fail to see how this is rude or annoying since you can't hear the conversation. It's more dangerous, perhaps, but not more rude/annoying.