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UK Report Suggests Dangers In Cell Phone Use
The next shot has been fired in the battle over whether cell phone use is harmful: yorktimsson writes "The Times Online is reporting (along with most UK press) that 'Professor Sir William Stewart, chairman of the National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB), said that evidence of potentially harmful effects had become more persuasive over the past five years.'" In particular, the NRPB's report lists four studies suggesting negative consequences of cell phone use, from tumors to reduced cognitive function.
People will keep phoning, then, they'll sue the phone manufacturers in order to force them to build more secure devices.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
If it's true and mobile phones really do fry your eggs, (and that's in doubt) I wonder if it would really change anyone's behavior.
Mobile phones have become a lifestyle thing, and plenty of people I know are addicted to the ability to be reached and reach anybody else at any time. I have actually seen people get quite nervous at the prospect that their US mobile phone wasn't going to work overseas on vacation. Trying to talk them out of taking the phone to the airport for the last 20 minutes of possible usability is like talking to a hoarder during riots.
Anyway, if there's anybody out there that actually has the information on HOW mobile phones are supposedly harming people, I'd be interested in hearing it. (i.e. what about the electromagnetic radiation is harmful? Does it detach too many bogons from people's neurons?)
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
Non-ionising electromagnetic radiation (that's light , infra red and radio waves) is dangerous when it is neither too strongly nor too weakly absorbed by our bodies. Radio waves basically go straight through us. Light basically gets absorbed in the top fraction of mm of skin (but strong IR or light will damage you: its called 'a burn' i.e. cells are killed by heating). Microwaves used by mobile phones(about 1 GHz are potentially dangerous because they are totally absorbed by our bodies within a few cm of the surface. Thus exposing yourself to this radiation you are heating the inside of your brain. There are two key safety questions 1. How much is this heating effect (the SAR figure) and 2. Are there any other non-thermal effects of the radiation.
The answer to 1. is provided by the SAR figure of the phone. Typically a phone will have 1 W/kg. i.e. on average it dumps one watt of power into 1 kg of nearby brain matter. This is not alot (think of holding a small torch by your ear and think about the heating effect of that) but one the other hand brains are uniquely sensitive organs. Temperature rises are probably hundredths of a degree celsius, but its hard to measure.
The answer to 2. is that no non-thermal effects have survived double blind testing.
The SAR dose from Masts is many orders of magnitude lower than that from handsets.
All the best
Michael
Where in the HELL do you hold your phone when you talk man?!?
Show me something SUBSTANTIVE (this study is not)before you make chicken little claims. It's the responsible thing to do.
It's not quite as easy as that. If you're a government scientific advisor, you need to give warnings before absolute proof is known, because if it later turns out that there really is harm, you could have prevented a catastrophe. If there is any chance of harm, it will be happening right now to kids - should we take that chance? This guy has to make that call, which is not an easy decision either way when there is so little evidence.
Smoking might be a good example of this - the arguments I'm hearing now remind me of similar arguments made 50 years ago about smoking "Oh, the studies aren't conclusive so it's all just scaremongering" etc.. However it's clear that if smoking had been banned a long time ago, fewer people would have died as a result.
If you read the article, this guy is saying that he thought the same as you 5 years ago, in that there were no conclusive studies and he saw no need for alarm. He's saying that the fact there are now 4 studies which appear to show some harm implies that he needs to make it clear to people that we could indeed have a problem, and the sensible thing to do is to restrict usage for those people most vulnerable (under-8s) until we can prove it conclusively one way or the other.
This seems to me to be a far more responsible approach than to stick your head in the sand and say "Nope, not proved 100% conclusively, can't be true.. come back when you know for certain". How responsible would it be to let a whole generation of kids grow up with an increased risk of brain tumours?
Q.
>You can find this article at:
>http://www.alternativemedicine.com/ and search for cell phone.
Here's my "alternative" article:
Seven warning signs of bogus science and Distinguishing science and pseudoscience".
> Why, then, can't we make these technological marvels safe?
"Pseudoscience begins with a hypothesis -- usually one which is appealing emotionally, and spectacularly implausible -- and then looks only for items which appear to support it."
> Of course, according to the cell phone industry, cell phones are perfectly harmless:
"2. The discoverer says that a powerful establishment is trying to suppress his or her work."
> "I have a list of about 600 research papers from the past ten years alone, 70 percent of which show definite effects from exposure to this kind of radiation," says Lai, "but the industry continues to say that there is nothing to worry about."
"2. The discoverer says that a powerful establishment is trying to suppress his or her work."
> What about cell phones and cancer, the most publicized concern? "Studies have been conducted to determine whether there is an association between cellular telephone use and an increased risk of certain types of cancer," according to the National Cancer Institute (NCI). "Although the majority of these studies have not supported any such association, scientists caution that more research needs to be done before conclusions can be drawn about the risk of cancer from cellular telephones."
OK, the only factual information here is that most studies do not support the alleged link.
> "Already there are at least 15,000 scientific reports on the subject. I am afraid the truth is that we don't want to know."
"2. The discoverer says that a powerful establishment is trying to suppress his or her work."
and a little bit of
"Pseudoscience attempts to persuade with rhetoric, propaganda, and misrepresentation rather than valid evidence (which presumably does not exist)."
> What has been shown in numerous studies, however, is that the radiation coming from cell phones does have measurable effects on brain cells that can lead to cancer, as well as neurological diseases.
3. The scientific effect involved is always at the very limit of detection.
> Says Lai, "Cumulative damages in DNA may in turn affect cell functions. DNA damage that accumulates in cells over a period of time may be the cause of slow onset diseases, such as cancer."
3. The scientific effect involved is always at the very limit of detection.
> However, the researcher explains, because nerve cells do not divide, they are less likely than other cells to become cancerous, which is typified by uncontrolled replication. Instead, if a brain cell accumulates too much DNA damage, it would more likely die. "Cumulative damage in DNA in cells also has been shown during aging," notes Lai. "Particularly, cumulative DNA damage in nerve cells of the brain has been associated with neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's, Huntington's, and Parkinson's diseases."
Pseudoscience makes extraordinary claims and advances fantastic theories that contradict what is known about nature.
Pseudoscientific "explanations" tend to be by scenario.
(If he can't prove cancer, he'll make up a scenario and a completely new hypothesis for the causes of these other diseases that existed before cell phones!)
> [ ... ] This study is especially significant because Hardell is a key witness in an $800 million lawsuit brought by Peter Angelos against the mobile phone industry. (Angelos is the la