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

Well...

[DanielNS84]

They should add warning labels...those work great on smokers. ;)

Re:What about Wi-Fi networks?

[spune]

Microwave ovens use 2.45GHz; I say, that's close enough to 2.40GHz to reckon that you're cooking yourself alive. That's why I ran away from home and started my life in Montana, away from the scourges of technology.

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:What about Wi-Fi networks?

[fembots]

Should I be worried?

Yes! You should at least switch your home network to 802.11g, so that damages are done on different part of your body at night, similar to load balancing.

WTF??

[Anonymous Coward]

And whether you think that cell phones can damage our eyes or not, feel free to post your comments below.

Whew, thanks. I don't think I can sit in silence any longer!

Personally the thought of holding a microwave transmitter next to my head freaks me out. My powerbook's wifi is as far as I'll go. At least that's only bathing my testicles in rich creamy radiofrequency energy, not my brain. Given a choice between lower earning potential at work, and my future kids being deformed and shriveled, I'll go with the special olympians.

Re:feel the burn

[PygmySurfer]

one more excuse not to pick up the phone when my mom calls me.
--
She blinded me with science.

Even your .sig is on-topic!

That attitude is pretty stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not saying cell phones are dangerous, or that they're safe. I don;t know. I have one so I hope they're safe.

But taking that attitude towards any potential bad news is just self reassuring stupidity.

Cell phones do vary widly in the amount of radiation they emit. They all emit quite a lot at the point of the antenna, and some emit far more than others.

The decay of the radiation is obviously cubic over distance, but where most are held, right next to the eyes and brain, the radiation is quite strong. At certain times such as call initialization it's very strong, strong enough to light batteryless LED accessories popular on some phones.

The notion that holding these close to our eyes and brains without worry of damage is pretty stupid, especially the sorts of damage which may take a decade or more to materialize in a serious manner, when cell phones have only been really popular for about a decade or less.

People should be concerned and not take for granted that new technologies are just automagically safe. Environmental effects of new technologies are increasing exponentially and we have absolutly no experience in human history to compare it with or assume it will be safe.

To do so is simply an unproven and rather stupid assumption.

Re:That attitude is pretty stupid

[steelfood]

Don't forget that cellphones operate in an area of the electromagnetic spectrum that's in between radio waves that go through human skin but do not have enough energy to do anything to our molecules, and infrared/visible light, waves that have enough energy to affect our molecules, but cannot penetrate our skin due to the reflective property of melanin. Effectively, it's in the same range as microwaves, which do in fact penetrate our skin and do have enough power to mess with out molecules.

The only reason why cellphones haven't been literally cooking our brains is because they aren't powerful enough to produce any immediate noticeable effects, even after a prolonged period of use. Basically, they don't have enough power to boil the water molecules in our body. This we know for sure, and is the basis of most studies claiming no link between cell phones and physiological maladies. However, what we don't know is what the long-term effects are, and these results I wouldn't expect for at least another hundred years (massively overdosing a few rats like we do with medicine and industrial chemicals won't work in this case).

I pretty much agree with you. What we don't know we shouldn't ignore, but attempt to find out. Nor should we be afraid of technology, but we certainly should exercise reasonable caution. The exact meaning of "reasonable" will vary from person to person, and should be debated.

Re:Everybody hurts

[magarity]

because I might just get run over by a car while trying to use that public phone booth across the street
 
Fortunately for you, there aren't many public phones any more because if you were to cross the street to use one, you'd get hit by a car driven by someone yakking on a cell phone.

Re:What about Wi-Fi networks?

[danielrose]

but not so far as to be out of reach of slashdot?

The Law of "They're Not Usually That Stupid"

[loqi]

Hello. You are representative of a subset of Slashdot users I would like to address this post to.

In addition, they did this experiment on lenses taken from dead cows. Of course they're not going to heal, they're from dead animals!

Let me start by saying that the article itself says the lenses were incubated in an organ culture. But that's somewhat beside the point. The point is this: You assumed that the study contained an incredibly obvious oversight. When you made that assumption, you clearly failed to ask yourself... "Are they really that stupid?"

Unfortunately, sometimes the answer to that question is "Yep". But in general, when some eager beaver such as yourself gets carried away with how supremely stupid someone (presumably) much more qualified than their humble self did, they can overlook simple things (such as the actual article).

At any rate, your offhand invocation of the "1/3 of all studies" line is complete fluff, and makes your relevant biases crystal clear. May your positive moderators burn in metamod hell.