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Testing Cell Phone Radiation on Humans
Palm Addict writes "News.com reports that Finland's radiation watchdog is to study the effects of mobile phones on human proteins by direct tests on people's skin. From the article: 'A pilot study, to be conducted next week, will expose a small area of skin on volunteers' arms to cell phone radiation for the duration of a long phone call, or for one hour, research professor Dariusz Leszczynski said on Friday.'"
The Finns should be disqualified for this study, they have hardened their tissues by life-long use of saunas.
Why not test it on living human cells separated from living humans? That way no one would catch cancer as a result of this research, and it may even be easier to study (at least some of) the effects.
1's and 0's should be free.
Remember this?
"Many students, and other young people, have little in the way of cooking skills but can usually get their hands on a couple of mobile phones. So, this week, we show you how to use two mobile phones to cook an egg which will make a change from phoning out for a pizza. Please note that this will not work with cordless phones."n
http://www.wymsey.co.uk/wymchron/cooking.htm
I suppose cooking a human face is similar enough.
They'll discover that the phones have a small heating effect, 1 C, as required by a)basic phystics and b)regulations. They will conclude whatever they have already assumed, i.e. that this is dangerous/not dangerous, without any actual experimentation having been done on that particular question.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
CNET has another article showing the radiation levels of certain cell phones.
Within the US models listed, Motorola has the highest with its Motorola V120c, and the lowest goes to the Audiovox PPC66001.
Maybe people will want to check this chart before buying a new cell phone? Maybe not.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Testing arm skin isn't all that practical, who keeps a cell phone there?
They should find out how the radiation affects the two bodily areas my phone is usually found, which coincidentally are the two areas I'm most worried about irradiating.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
I thought the whole concern over radiation from cell phones was that it would cause some kind of internal cancer, notably in your brain (or maybe your hip if that's where you keep your phone?). Is a skin-surface test going to be indicative of the kinds of sub-surface damage we're really concerned about?
At any rate, it will be good to have another study on this subject, to add weight either that the radiation is mostly harmless, or that we need to start wearing a layer of tin foil...
It's non-ionizing radiation.... people have been putting these things by their heads for hours on a daily basis... show me one potential case of burn via cell signal.
...would be the reaction of the world if these things really do cause cancer. Would we just deal with the risk? Rebuild all the towers to use frequencies that don't penetrate human skin? Give up cell phones altogether? Would insurance companies hike your rates if you use a cellphone?
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Considering the findings recently that soft drinks in the UK contain cancer causing Benzene - I haven't heard of the drinks being pulled off of the shelves yet.
...the scary part is, if they do cause ill effects...we're giving mobile communications devices to children younger and younger.
What if cell phones are lnked to cancer? Are they going to expose the cells to triple the duration? Too much of anything can be dangerous. The electromagnetic fields that we live in daily are possibly harmful - will they stop microwave communications?
... to me as a physicist the EM intensity levels of a cellphone are benign (far below maximum alowance in most countries). Still there is much that can happen without us being able to reasonably meaure it that every new approach to test safety of electronic devices so commonly used has sense.
I hope this research isn't used to regulate or litigate cell phones out of existence. Life is risky and it should be up to individuals to make their own informed decisions about how they live their lives. People should be able to make personal trade-offs regarding safety, productivity, life-activity, and life-span.
Of course if "second-hand cell radiation" gets cell phones banned from public places, then I could see more demand for regulation just to force people to shut-up.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
just using the word "radiation" presents bias -- people assume this equals the same kind of radiation they've been told to fear from nuc plants and atom bombs. Nothing could be further from the truth unless it came from the U.S. Government.
Still, using the word (which has as little meaning by itself as the word Server does) presents a set of expectations which are inaccurate for most people.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
It's a well documented fact that smoking cigarettes causes cancer.
We don't ban the purchase of these itmes. We just tax it ($3.50 a pack in Michigan BTW). Then prohibit where a person may smoke.
I have an idea create a new section in resturants for cell phone users.
Better yet a Surgeon General Warning on the back of the cell phone
Warning... According to the surgeon general using a cellular phone may expose you to harmful radiation.
Reason #32767 not to use VB6: Integers are 2 bytes... Think about it!
First, if you try to measure RF field levels you get hit by a terrifying array of hard-to-control variables. Everything on your lab bench is either reflecting or absorbing the output of the phone. Each reflection will either add to or subtract from the signal at your field strength meter.
Second, if phones still do automatic power control, then all the field strength tells you is whether the base station told that particular phone "speak up!" at that particular time.
"A long phone call?" - What about the people wearing Bluetooth headsets all day, imparting 2.4 Ghz of energy into their ear and hip? Your shoulders and pelvis make a lot of your red blood cells. Your next phone call could be from Lymphoma...
kulakovich
There has never been a study to my knowledge that has shown that cell phones cause cancer. I understand the need to throughly test Cell phone radiation, but IMO it's been throughly tested for years.
I just hope this study shows no effect like all the other ones, or we will have another good old fashion panic on our hands.
I have been using cellphones for years and never had any kind of a problem, I find them most useful, for example the third eye above my right ear helps get a better view when driving and the second head sprouting off my hip gives me someone to talk to. Heh radiation altering cells what a load of rubbish and my talking second head agrees.
GeekServ Unix Consulting Services (http://www.geekserv.com)
In a report from Finland's radiation watchdog, a new study shows that the radiation from normal cell phone usage cures acne of all forms. The study shows that in all test subjects, acne was ruduced from 20 to 90 percent. Further, the studies show that continued cell phone use, keeps more acne from returning. This is followed up by other studies showing a reduction of acne in teenage girls in the past six years. This clearly ties cell phone use to reduction in skin disease.
Athiesm is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
I want to be the first person to sue the phone companies for giving me cancer. It was so annoying to be born a few years too late to get on the "Sue the Tobacco Industry" bandwagon
You have moved your mouse. You must restart Windows for these changes to take effect.
Verizon's network is different from T-mobile, etc. From my understanding, CDMA requires a lot more power than GSM. Therefore, I'd like to see some results clearly pointing out these differences. I'm sure the RAZR for Cingular has less radiation power than the one for Verizon.
Granted I could try to figure this out using the data in CNETs article, but that won't help educate others.
Ah, vibrate mode. That's much better than the gamma ray burst mode I use now.
Is anyone else picturing the Verizon guy in a lab coat standing over test subjects and repeating "Do you have cancer now? Good!"?
After Conan O'Brian visited Finland, it was obvious that some sort of mutations had occurred, as what is
the chance that an American TV personality looks just like the president of Finland?
2.4 Ghz of energy
What the hell is "2.4 GHz of energy"? That makes no sense. 2.4 GHz is merely the frequency, not the intensity. The unit you're looking for is "watts". Your crappy little bluetooth transmitter is very low wattage, but your cellphone transmits at a much higher wattage because it has to talk to towers that are friggin kilometers away.
Cellphones transmit in the microwave band, which is known to definitely heat biological tissue. It is known and not disputed that using a cellphone causes a minor amount of heating in your cells (e.g. in your brain while talking); what's in question is whether or not this has long-term harmful effects. The higher the wattage, the more the heating effect (and other effects on human tissues).
OK so I did an experiment using a scintillation counter in my physics lab. When you turn the machine on you got lots of hits (dozens per second) from background radiation. Then I stuck my phone up against it... nothing happened. The radiation from a phone is too weak to register. So if you are even remotely worried by cell phones, you should find yourself a big dirt hole way underground then line it with aluminum foil.
Seriously though, this is a reply that I made the the last rediculous artlice about cell-phone cancer:
*Rolling Eyes* The people who study these things I think just make up dumb studies so that they can get grant money. There are three ways in which EM radiation (what cell phones use) can be dangerous, in order of severity: 1. Radiation that has the resonant frequency of molecular bonds can give a LOT of energy to the molecules that make us up. That's how a microwave oven works. The EM waves have the same frequency as the resonant frequency for water molecules.
2. Radiation can kick off electrons (beta particles) or protons (alpha particles). If an element loses an electron it becomes more volatile. If an element in our DNA loses a proton it can change the DNA. That's why strong radiation can cause cancer.
3. Radiation can generally heat us up.
Cell phone radiation is not even strong enough to kick off an electron unless it is VERY loosely bound. It has no chance of kicking off a proton.
Bottom line: Unless you feel your brain start cooking (the sun is WAY more likely to cook your brain), don't worry.
If I understand Dirac correctly, his meaning is this: there is no God, and Dirac is his Prophet. -Pauli
IAPS and it's indeed very unlikely that cellular phone radiation can cause cancer. At least, it can not work on the same principles as is normal with ionizing radiation (as it's not). But what many people seem to forget, that any free electric charge does interact with radiation. Water is strongly polarized molecule, and many physiological reactions are ion-based. So any electromagnetic wave can indeed have a very small effect on the biology. I'm _not_ implying that it is enough to cause cancer, or any disease whatsoever. But indeed such an effect can exist, although it may be very hard to find in any simple studies. That's what makes studying complex interactions difficult -- anything can change the results, temperature for example.
All the above does not make such studies unwarranted. If ever it is possible to learn something new, it's worth studying. The bad thing with these cellular phone radiation studies is the panic they may cause. But, I hope that people keep their heads cool (no pun intended).
RTA, cells separate from humans = cell cultures.
;)
and the mutant spawn that resulted wrote the new test protocol
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
cell phones can now cook eggs....... No - Realy
Because we have to
Yikes! This is Stupid Bull Sh*t (TM)!
Why to we have to put our children in automobiles?
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
And after the hour has passed, the 'volunteers' will be made to promise that they'll never use their phones in cinemas again, unless they wish to be brought in for a second round of 'testing'.
Strength through redundancy and over-design
Is cancer now the only negative effect on health from cigarette smoke? Gee, I didn't know that.
They're "nazis" you say? Well then I guess I better not listen to them, because "nazis" are really bad things, oooooh. They must be really evil murderers! Gosh, nazis! I never knew.
I hate to break it to you, but there is TONNES of literature and peer-reviewed studies on the harmful effects of both first and second hand smoke, and if you follow, more appearing all the time. Tonnes of peer-reviewed publications. A few studies funded by tobacco groups are unable to disprove these or hold back the tide of information these days, even despite the fact that the tobacco groups have far more money to throw at fake publications than the anti-smoking, uh, "nazis".
What is the agenda of these "nazis" btw? Is there huge amounts of money to be made by the "nazis" in reducing smoking? Or are they just people with nothing better to do with their time? Or were they "brought up to hate smokers"? Are they planning on rounding smokers into concentration camps and killing them? Do you even realise how ridiculous you sound? I know it's an attempt at "poisoning the well" but honestly it's so childishly done ("nazis"!) I'd be surprised if 6-yr olds fall for it.
Especially at work, when I have my own cell phone + the two-way radio cell phone provided for my duties
This study will conclusively show that there is no evidence of damage.
Do you think the Finnish gov't would let any of its agencies jeopardise its biggest, possibly its *only* major, high-tech export company (Nokia)?
So I'm absolutely sure that the terms of the study have been set to make sure it brings in the right verdict. In this case, if they're only studying the skin, anything that happens in the more interesting area under the skin will, of course, be outside their terms of reference.
And this, boys and girls, is how "pure" science is manipulated to commercial or political ends.
Sorry, this is a resend with better formatting:
Not quite true, the following show a statistically significant evidence of an increase in risk of cancer:
Further aspects on cellular and cordless phones and brain tumours.
Lennart Hardell, Kjell Hansson Mild and M Carlberg
International Journal of Oncology, 22:399-407, 2003.
Pooled analysis of two case-control studies on the use of cellular and cordless telephones and the risk of benign brain tumours diagnosed during 1997-2003.
L. Hardell, M. Carlberg and K. Hansson Mild (Örebro; Umeå, Sweden)
International Journal of Oncology, 28:509-518, 2006.
Use of cellular telephones and brain tumour risk in urban and rural areas
L Hardell, M Carlberg and K Hansson Mild
Occupational and Environmental Medicine 2005;62:390-394
Kundi M, Mild K, Hardell L, Mattson M-O (2004): Mobile telephones and cancer - a review of epidemiological evidence.
Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health Part B 7:351-384, 2004
Does anyone else have a problem with using humans to test if a product is harmful?
If a product is intended to modify biological processes in an attempt to improve the quality of life, I recognize the need to ulimately use humans to verify the product does not cause harm.
However, this is a test of a product that is not intended to interfere with basic biological processes like cell growth, reproduction or function. To then use humans to verify if its bad seems like a poor test subject. Why not use animals first, and if that's not conclusive enough, then maybe.
(Animals can protest being the subject of our tests when they evolve the ability to defend themselves from us.)
I'm in my right mind and I have the answer to everything!
cell-level changes such as shrinkage
It's not me baby, I swear! I was on hold for the new batch of Star Wars posters for hours, I SWEAR it was the phone!!
Less Talk. More Stab.
And you're sig is the best idea i've heard in a while.
Han shot first.
I have one 6yo boy and a girl is coming in April.
I put him and will put her in automobiles everyday.
Is it a necessity? Absolutely no.
I know lots of people who live their lives fullfillingly (is that a word?) without ever entering an automobile. When they have to go to the school, they walk to the school. When they have to go to the doctor, they walk/are carried to the doctor. Because you live in a big City you shouldn't assume everyone does, lest you sound really foolish. I'm not joking, I lived for five years in a town where my kid would not have to go inside an automobile to go to the school/doctor... and I still miss it a little.
Your argument is full of flaws... you say having a cellphone can't be a necessity for kids because there was a time where cellphones didn't exist (and you and I were raised at that time). Well, my father was born in a time/place where there were NO automobiles. Really. So, you see?
Now, if your argument was "to live in a big city (millions of people), kids need a car but they don't need a cellphone", my counterargument is "I consider indispensable that my son Lucas use a cellphone as soon as he is capable of not abusing it" (which I expect will be in a couple of years, at age 7-9, 10 tops). Because I live in a 3 1/2 million ppl metropolis and sith happens, and I want to be capable to call him and instruct him "get out of school, and walk three blocks south, I'll be waiting for you there because traffic is jammed at the school's gates" after his classes are over, and to call him when he is 14 and is going to a party with a fixed time to come back and he lets the time slip... because it's a big city and I'm freaking worried about sith that happens, but at the same time I'm not a dominatrix father that will lock his kids in a basement watching 50's american tv shows.
So, modern stuff becomes more and more indispensable at the same rate we start living a more and more "modern" lifestyle. And there is no need to be rude with me/others that think that some modern stuff is so indispensable in their lives as you think a car is in your life.
And those people (me including) will weight the risk of putting their kids inside automobiles, and the risk of putting a cell phone to the side of their kids heads, and the other risks they deem necessary for the lifestyle (s)he wants for itself and its kids.
The more information we have about the risks, the better.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Why are they testing the skin on people's arms? Shouldn't they be testing the ear and brain area where the antenna is located? I suppose it is a bit difficult to test for damage on interior tissue like the brain.
If the PETA groups would calm down, one could test cute fluffy bunnies with a cell strapped to them for a few days and extrapolate results after the autopsy.
Irrespective of whether lotsa Finnish saunas "harden" the skin -
as an earlier poster quipped - reports from autopsies of long-
time cell-phone users suggest that a better test of the effects
of cell-phone use would focus on the brain, where such autopsies
have apparently revealed small brain tumors on the side of most
cel-phone use.
When will we have more studies of cell-phone use's affect on
brain-cells?
In Soviet Finland, only the fins have fish!
I know of at least two cases of teenagers recently getting brain cancer.
In both these cases, the kids were "the first on the block" to get cellphones; i.e. the parents (and the kids) always had the latest hi-tech wireless gadgets etc.
I realize this is a small population, and not very scientific, but..
The cancer didn't develop until several years later, when they were teenagers.
Don't be surprised if there's an upswing in brain cancer amongst youg people who have been using cell phones consistently for years since childhood.
For that matter, what about high levels of autism developing in children in techy silicon-valley type communities? Anyone done any studies on that?
Look, these health nuts have a serious logic problem. The problem with diets today is the diet itself, not the individual things that go into it. Foods in the US are pumped full of sugar (even things like bread which in Europe are typically unsweetened (or they were a few years ago)). Small wonder Americans are so obese. But it's a mistake to say that sugar itself is bad. The problem is the bad diet. It's like saying that water is harmful because of what happened in New Orleans last year.
"The White House is not an intelligence-gathering agency," -- Scott McClellan, Whitehouse spokesman.