Study Shows Cell Phones Safe

PreacherTom writes "In a move worthy of the Mythbusters, scientists in Denmark tracked over 420,000 cell phone users over the course of 21 years in an attempt to determine if the urban legend that cell phone use causes cancer is true. Their results: the RF energy produced by the phones did not correlate to an increased incidence of the disease. Please note that this doesn't make chatting on the highway at 85 mph any more safe." From the article: 'This so-called Danish cohort "is probably the strongest study out there because of the outstanding registries they keep,' said Joshua Muscat of Pennsylvania State University, who also has studied cell phones and cancer. 'As the body of evidence accumulates, people can become more reassured that these devices are safe, but the final word is not there yet,' Muscat added."

Comments

Re:Stupid

[SEMW]

I kind of thought it was common sense that radiation is harmful. I didn't think we still needed studies to prove this. OK, facts of life talk. Long to medium range electromagnetic radiation is everywhere, all the time. The Sun emits a hell of a lot of it in a Planck distribution, only a few narrow bands of which are absorbed by the atmosphere. Anywhere you could turn on a radio and hear a station, that means you are bathed in man made radio waves (whether you have a radio or not) -- and even when you can't hear a station, there's still a hell of a lot of natural radio waves around (which a radio hears as static). Moving higher up the spectrum; low energy microwaves are coming down at us from every corner of the universe; it's called the Cosmic Microwave Background. Infrared is, of course, only a step into the sunlight away (or in front of a fire, etc.). And then you get visible light -- also a form of EM radiation (radiation is dangerous? better turn off that light-bulb!). Not to mention *anything* that glows when hot approximates a black-body, emitting visible light, infrared, microwaves, and radio waves. That light-bulb is emitting not only visible light, but also infrared and microwaves (and negligible amounts of UV). Better get that tin-foil hat on -- remember, "it's common sense that radiation is harmful"...

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen"
-- Albert Einstein

Re:People plain just don't like cell phone users

[svnt]

This, this and other minor studies seem to suggest otherwise. It seems that the brain doesn't do as well at multitasking when it has to infer all social information about a conversation from a low-quality audio stream. Doesn't seem very surprising when expressed that way, does it?

What a HUGE crock!

[Fantastic Lad]

People want to believe in this stuff cause it sounds dangerous. Advocacy groups get funding, lawyers make money, politicians can scare people. Who's gonna listen to a bunch of boring Danish statistics?

Wow. I've come across some biased Wikipedia articles before, but the one you referenced sets a new low. It's current version, (with a single exception in non-bolded typeface buried in a paragraph), only mentioned studies which illustrate the safety of cell phone tech, and it does this using bolded headline entries. This is a shamefully poor representation of the available data on the subject. The article also fails to mention any of the many cases of conflict of interest which pollute many of the studies which claim safety. That's just pathetic and Wikipedia needs a solid re-write on this one.

I don't think the claims being made are bullshit, as you suggest, and I certainly am not motivated in my opinions because I like 'dangerous' sounding things. I just don't trust the telcos or the military, and there is plenty of reason not to. Anybody who argues differently is, in my opinion, either ignorant or willfully ignorant. It's the second variety of ignorance which baffles me.

-FL

Re:They didnt let the facts get in the way before,

[pong]

The study was paid for by the Danish Cancer Society. Trust me when I say they are not influenced by Nokia or any other operator in the mobile telephone market. The organization is extremely well regarded and has a spotless reputation in Denmark.