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A Balanced Look At Cellphone Radiation
A month back we discussed an article in GQ on the alarmist side of the cellphone-radiation question. Now reader pgn674 passes along a PopSci feature article looking at the current state of cellphone radiation research. It profiles people who claim to be electro-hypersensitive, "who are reluctant to subject themselves to hours in an electronics-laden facility" for studies. The limited research on that condition is still showing that sufferers, in blind tests, are unable to detect radiation at levels better than chance. The article also touches on the relationship of non-ionizing radiation to cancer. The conclusion is that while it seems unlikely high-frequency fields in consumer devices directly cause cancer, they might promote it, and might also indirectly cause other health deficits beyond simply heating nearby tissue — though one skeptical researcher cautions, "The gap between a biological effect and an adverse health effect is a big one."
who are reluctant to subject themselves to hours in an electronics-laden facility
Which just goes to show how much the tinfoil hat actively interferes with the thought process.... In order to conduct a valid scientific experiment on such matters, it requires a room which is 100% free from other radiation sources. Which means the rooms in the facility are anything BUT "electronics-laden".
But we're already fully aware that being vulnerable to EMR is the very least of these people's problems, which are usually only solved through extensive use of mind-altering drugs.
A lot of those so-called "radiation sensitive" people are nothing but Luddites in disguise.
In Malaysia, there have been cases of communities in uproar, having many people claiming that they suffer from "excruciating painful headaches" to "cancer" and all that, just because there is a cellphone station nearby.
Those "radiation sensitive" people demand that the authority remove those "radiation hotspots" immediately, and it turns out that, in some of those cases, the so-called "cellphone stations" haven't even begun operation and never emit any radiation !
Luddites !
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
1: "GQ" :( ... /. without it!)
2: "PopSci"
3: The entire summary reads like a news announcer sounds. I can actually hear in my head as I read it, my inner voice's pitch changes exactly like a certain bored-out-of-her-skull Asian Reporter.
4: kdawson
5:
6: Profit! (wouldn't be a list on
not finish your sentences?
Check out your pharmacy. I'm fairly sure there are some Bach flowers tinctures available by now that can cure the problem. If everything fails, get a few healing crystals.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
the other han,d there is a tremendous psychological incentive here to wishfully believe that there is no danger-- because the proposition that cellphone radiation near your head (or wifi for that matter) actually is dangerous leads to thoughts horrific to contemplate-- namely that you'd have to stop/reduce the amount of calls you do, or worse, to live in a wifi-less world.
I strongly suspect that people are more likely to believe things that do not challenge/threaten their current lifestyle (or whatever it is that makes the money).
So I wonder if any of that bias leads to a more ready dismissal of the cellphone/cancer danger. As Lessig said in his latest website chat, 75% of studies not funded by the cellphone industry found evidence for a connection.
So x-rays must be completely harmless if I can't "detect" them? Think of airplane noise, as it is permanent near large airports. Would be ridiculous to claim it seeds tumors in human bodies. It just disturbs attentiveness, concentration, calmness, sleep. If you are a sensitive person, these disturbances may severely affect your quality of life. Noises can be heard, i.e., "detected", so there's no dispute as to the possible harm they can do. But how adequate are these criteria? Consciousness is not a system monitor. It is a bonus that some species were endowed with. The human body is not a robot. Our physiological systems were not designed. They're not just modules with interfaces. Their behaviour is not just determined by a set of formal rules and a specified input. They're not circuit boards. When our bodies and their functions gradually evolved in nature's history, they were not exposed to electromagnetic fields of the quality that is in question now. As long as life is not understood (and it isn't, unless we'll have succeeded in building living cells from scratch), it is not unreasonable to be cautious. The cancer claim is notorious because any lesser claim is not shocking enough to make it to the news. It is a suicide bomb of reputation: You get some attention at the expense of credibility.
Obviously, yes, there are those people claiming hypersensitivity, basing it simply on their fear of the radiation getting to their bodies.
But, I wouldn't go as far as saying that there is no danger at all because of them, much the same way I wouldn't conclude the radiation being dangerous if non of these people claimed hypersensitivity.
The question to me comes down to long-term exposure damage, which we cannot much about yet - and it would be difficult to force companies into very long term safety tests before being allowed to market their devices. But I do feel that the subject should stay under investigation for longer.
In the time after WW-II, US armed forces tested how their troops could fight near the blast of a nuclear weapon - and, hey, pretty much everyone was healthy in the first tests afterwards. Cancers don't measurably spring up within hours of a test. Still, you have claims from soldiers claiming their cancers were caused by those events decades later...
In Germany, soldiers working on mobile radars are trying to get compensations for tumors they seem to have received by operating the radar devices. Yet, I bet you, on the first tests of those, there were no permanent health problems reported in the days/weeks after the initial tests.
Most famously, big tobacco - your first cigarette isn't clearly measurable the one killing you. Neither is the second, third, twenty-first or onehundredfifthyfourths the lethal one. There is no doubt left about cigarettes being lethal now, but big tobacco made lots of profits over the years by claiming that cigarettes are safe, and that noone could ever link any individual cigarette to lung cancer. And it's still the argument used now by smokers against 'too heavy handed' anti-smoking legislation - why should smoking be banned in pubs. Let non-smokers go somewhere else. Or - more ridiculously, smokers in some countries (like the UK) actually claiming it's breaching their human rights if you prohibited them from lighting up in public. (Who cares about the human rights of the non-smoker next to him, if noone can prove it was 'my' cigarette that gave him lung cancer)?
Neither of those examples can obviously prove whether there is cellphone tower radiation is harmful; much the way that the luddites trying to raise panic about them can prove their harmful, nor that their existence proves cell phone radiation harmless.
What I would wish for - is that the subject stays under some form of independent investigation - without any lobbying from either side. (don't see though, how that could ever happen)
A critic in me reckons that increased cancer levels (if there are any) may be attributed to overall worsened environment conditions (pollution, etc.), decreased food quality (and mass usage of food additives) and mass hysteria related to the risks of adverse health effects caused by EMF radiation.
Anyway, I really believe anyone can make his life safer (as for now God really knows if EMF radiation can interact with our own electric fields) by using mobile phone as little as possible - I speak on my cellular for no more than two minutes a day.
Bone alignment? Do you really think your bones can get out of alignment without leaving their sockets? If you are having problems with your bones go to your doctor, not a chiropractor.
Bones don't generally have sockets to fit into. Believe me. I broke my humerus in July last year and I have the X-Rays to prove it. Speaking generally our bodies are held together with string. The tension on the string varies dynamically and tries to keep everything fitting together.
When I started getting knee pain from cycling I consulted several doctors. They all suggested I wrap a bandage around the knee and wait for it to get better. It didn't.
Then I went to a bike shop which caters to the racing crowd and they helped me get the bike fitted properly. They sold me some gear to help with that. They also recommended an osteopath to see. This particular person is a bike rider too, and understands the injuries you can get.
So between the bike fit and a bit of help from the osteopath my condition improved. A doctor who did a lot of bike riding may have helped as well, but I wasn't lucky enough to meet one of those.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
... then I guess we'd better wait for the Fox News coverage! They'll be fair, too!
Glenn Beck: "What I wanna know is, why don't these cell phone companies deny this rumor that their phones are cooking my brain? I'm not saying my brain is actually fried, but it sure feels that way and why won't they deny it?"
The issue is one of penetration. For the radiation from cell phones this is very low. The depth affected is comparable to that which is warmed by, for instance, sunshine. Except for a cell phone close to the ear - where most of the heating comes from the battery and the electronics getting warm - the effect from all combined sources is very small, much smaller than the effect of sunshine or even an incandescent lamp a couple of meters away.
So, barring the discovery of some kind of magic effect, the conclusion has to be that the risk is negligible because the absorbed radiation is infinitesimally small compared to the energy absorbed from the other wavelengths of incident radiation.
You get much more penetration for lower frequency radiation - up to VHF - than for microwaves, and for the best part of a hundred years we have been exposing people to rather high doses of it. The radiation from the converter stages of a superhet radio or a VHF/UHF television greatly exceeds what you get from wi-fi or your DECT phone. But strangely, nobody suffered from headaches as a result of listening to AM radios, perhaps because they did not know that radio and TV receivers actually emitted radiation, often at several volts per meter.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
osteopath != chiropractor.
Or - more ridiculously, smokers in some countries (like the UK) actually claiming it's breaching their human rights if you prohibited them from lighting up in public. (Who cares about the human rights of the non-smoker next to him, if noone can prove it was 'my' cigarette that gave him lung cancer)?
The problem is the anti-smoking crowd are verging into ever more tenuous territory. Some seem to believe that seeing someone downwind smoke is a hazard to their health. They also seem to be unconcerned about the dozens of cars spewing a great deal more toxic gasses right next to both them and the smoker. They do this without even a shred of a study showing that cigarette smoke in an open public space is the least bit harmful to passers by. Much like the anti microwave loonies, many will start coughing at the mere sight of a cigarette even when it's not lit.
Perversely, many of those anti smoking people also fight vigorously against any other form of nicotine intake, and for that matter, against people using nicotine in their own home. Like the anti EM loonies, the anti smoking loonies believe that nicotine=smoking=bad, just like microwaves=radiation=bad.
That isn't to say that the smoker isn't harmed by smoking nor that the radar techs weren't harmed. Both get a MUCH larger dose.