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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.
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.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
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.
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?
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.
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
Nothing says "unprofessional job" like wrinkles in your duct tape.