Can Cell Phones Damage Our Eyes?

Roland Piquepaille writes "I'm sure you've read dozens of stories about how our cell phones could be dangerous to our health, causing brain tumors for example. But so far, there is not a definitive answer. But now, according to IsraCast, a team of Israeli researchers has discovered that the microwave radiation used by our cell phones could destroy our eyes by causing two kinds of damages to our visual system, including an irreversible one. If the researchers are right, and even if you only occasionally use your cell phone, the lenses in your eyes can suffer from microscopic damages that won't heal themselves over time. As this study has not been not done -- yet -- on humans, I guess the controversy can begin and that another scientific team will soon tell us that this study is not correct. In the mean time, read more for other details and references. And whether you think that cell phones can damage our eyes or not, feel free to post your comments below."

Comments

Scientists at the U. Washington have shown similar

[ReformedExCon]

I believe that the UW study was on the affects of cellular radiation on mice, and the results were equally disturbing. The exposed mice were invariably stricken with cancer while the unexposed mice remained at the norm.

But that study also showed that such effects were only engendered when the amount of radiation was both high and prolonged. The bovine lenses in this article were exposed to cellular radiation for 22 hours a day. If the exposure intensity is to be believed, then the transmitting antennas were placed right against the eyeball.

Neither of those situations is remotely near what normal cellular phone usage patterns resemble (unless you are a teenage girl, I suppose, but even then you aren't sticking the phone in your eye) (are you?).

So more study is necessary. The edge cases like the ones in the article and the UW study are very important to know, but the results of real-world testing ought to be examined as well. If we see a huge increase in the number of cancer and scratched lens cases in the coming years, there may be some validity to these studies.

I'll continue using my cellular phone, though. The convenience is just too great to pass up.

Re:Cell Phones are not new

[cagle_.25]

Not exactly. The FDA limit was fixed in 2000; most phones fall within 25% to 100% of that limit, with digital phones lower than analog by a rough factor of 2.

Here is an exhaustive list of radiation exposures.

Re:Everybody hurts

[modecx]

The thing is, 2.4GHz isn't anywhere close to the resonant frequency of the bonds in water, which IIRC is around 8-10GHz, but is almost unmeasurable because it varies rapidly, so it's a ballpark figure.

The fact is: if you put energy into a system, the stuff in the system gets hotter. It dosen't really matter if it's 10Ghz, 10Mhz or anywhere in between.

As long as it gets absorbed, it makes the object hotter. 2.4 Ghz was chosen because it's in the unliscensed band and microwaves used to leak quit a bit of RF, and also because it will penetrate food well enough to heat something largish. It's sort of a sweet spot. Higher frequency waves would be absorbed nearer the surface, and lower frequencies were in demand for communications, though they'd work about as well, apparently.

So, there you have it.