11-Year UK Study Reports No Health Danger From Mobile Phone Transmissions

Mark.JUK writes "The United Kingdom's 11-years long Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research Programme (MTHR) has today published a comprehensive report that summarizes 31 research projects, which investigated the potential for biological or adverse health effects of mobile phone and wireless signals on humans (e.g. as a cause for various cancers or other disorders). The good news is that the study, which has resulted in nearly 60 papers appearing in peer-reviewed scientific journals, found 'no evidence' of a danger from mobile transmissions in the typically low frequency radio spectrum bands (e.g. 900MHz and 1800MHz etc.)."

Comments

I agree

[ls671]

I agree. If I say so, then it must be true!

Re:I agree

[Anonymous Coward]

Brought to you by Google and Apple, bringing the inevitable, faster.

Re:I agree

[mjwx]

I agree. If I say so, then it must be true!

B-B-B-But all the astrologers told me this radiomation is dangerous to mi Qi. That and I may face challenges today.

Who is this "study" to cast doubt on that.

Re:I agree

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, I think you might be right. Oh, and you spelled IQ wrong.

Re:I agree

[flyneye]

This study brought to you by an endowment from THE PHONE COMPANY. WHOOPEEEE!

Re:I agree

[Ex-MislTech]

Well some ppl have some evidence that says cell phones are having an effect.

http://www.naturalnews.com/042...

Low Frequency

[inasity_rules]

So, 900MHz is the new LF band. Now where did I put my 2m VHF handheld...?

Re:Low Frequency

[thephydes]

mmmmm I can lend you one if you need it. Like you I've always believed that LF means KHz or perhaps even low MHz (depending on the decimal point). Shows how out of touch we old hams are ..... Think I'll go back to my radio.

Re:Low Frequency

[Anonymous Coward]

To do what? Listen in? That might be a bit difficult.

Re:Low Frequency

[inasity_rules]

The implication being that if LF is 900MHz, what is VHF? Visible light?

Re:Low Frequency

[inasity_rules]

Sadly I lost my ham license while immigrating to a new country. I should really go get it sorted and a new call sign, but I find less and less free time for the hobby these days... Ah, well, such is life.

Re:Low Frequency

[telchine]

Sadly I lost my ham license while immigrating to a new country. I should really go get it sorted

You can do it online ;-)

http://totl.net/Ham/

Re:Low Frequency

[Sockatume]

Given that we're talking about cellphones, yes, it's the low frequency band.

Re:Low Frequency

[inasity_rules]

No. Please see wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...

That is technically the UHF band.

Re:Low Frequency

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that there are other contexts and that is not the only meaning of LF? In many circuit and RF equipment design, LF, IF, and HF/RF have relative meanings depending on what part of the circuits you are looking at and if multiple bands are being used, etc.

Re:Low Frequency

[Sockatume]

...of radio. Not of cellular radio. In much the same way that I am a tall person, but I am a short basketball player.

Re:Low Frequency

[ArcadeMan]

And UHF is technically the best "Weird Al" Yankovic movie.

Re:Low Frequency

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because other fields and applications re-use low frequency and high frequency relative to their situation doesn't mean they copy pasted all the names from the ITU radio band names and give them analogous meanings. LF and HF come up a lot with a literal intention, not referring to an absolute radio band definition.

It doesn't matter.

[SuricouRaven]

Scares usually persist long after any scientific backing is gone. Look at anti-vax, for example - the one study showing a link between vaccines and autism has not only been discredited but exposed as an outright fraud by a doctor who was paid to produce specific results. Yet the anti-vax movement continues to believe in the connection regardless. Or the abortion-breast-cancer link - originating in a study which misinterpreted results due to the lack of a true control group and now rejected by just about every reputable cancer-related organisation. Yet, once again, belief in the link remains widespread in the pro-life movement - largely because they wish it were true. This is the same thing again - it doesn't matter how many studies show no adverse effects, we're still going to see a lot of people claiming wireless networks gives them a migraine and worrying about phone-induced cancer.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[ledow]

A determined idiot can be an almost unresolvable roadblock.

It doesn't mean we should stop beating sense into them, though. I find it much more scary that something like 50% of Americans believe that astrology has some effect on their life... at least these people are basing their prejudices on something that appeared (for a while, in a modern environment) scientifically plausible.

Sorry, but until we can eliminate the UFO-believers( and the astrologers and palm-readers and the conspiracy theorists, and whole swathes of others) we don't stand a chance of having no misinformation being spread by idiots about health-scares.

Go ask people about swimming on a full stomach. Then find out the truth (it makes no difference!). We're in the Misinformation Age.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[jtownatpunk.net]

Do people still think cell phones cause gas pumps to explode? Some of my early cell phones had warnings about that in their manuals.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[wonkey_monkey]

What have we got to lose by acting as if it's true?

Re:It doesn't matter.

[MrMickS]

The problem about not believing this sort of report is that there will always be some pseudo scientific journalism piece that will highlight a leukaemia cluster, or similar, near a phone mast. The fact that it doesn't happen around all, or a significant number, of phone masts won't make the piece. The conclusions will be incorrectly drawn that there is no smoke without fire and that the cause must be the phone mast, regardless of the fact there there are many other factors influencing these people and its likely to be something else.

A lot of the anti-vax in the UK was linked to a single, now discredited, study that was latched onto by a journalist eager to make a name for themselves with a scoop. The measles outbreak, and potential deaths, that it has led to are as much on their hands as they are on Andrew Wakefield who faked the evidence of the link.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[jhol13]

Vaccinations ... Finland is in trouble. One (Pig Flu 2009) vaccination provably caused several cases (more than ten) of narcolepsia.
Now, understandably, people are frightened to get any vaccinations, especially for Pig flu. Unfortunately totally unrelated vaccinations (MMR, HPV) are also opposed.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[MrMickS]

There are still signs around the all of the pumps here banning use of a cell phone in a filling station. The current reasons is because they could cause a spark. Is there any evidence of this, or is it another feeling that's become true by repetition?

Re:It doesn't matter.

[Anonymous Coward]

Eliminate UFO believers?

I have seen a UFO myself, at close range. I can't say who or what (if anything) was piloting it, as I didn't see anything but the outside of the craft, and I assure you it was entirely unlike anything else I've ever seen on land, sea or in the air, before.

Perhaps what we need to eliminate is jumping to conclusions?

Re:It doesn't matter.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, you saw a UFO. That is, it was a Flying Object, and it was Unidentifiable to you. That happens all the time, and various armies, navies & air forces take UFO sightings seriously.

It's when people start ascribing extra-terrestrial origin nonsense, or claims of alien abduction, where things start to get hokey.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly, four people have already died of swine flu this year in Finland. They were around 55-65 years old. At least it's sparing children this time around.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, you saw a UFO. That is, it was a Flying Object, and it was Unidentifiable to you. That happens all the time, and various armies, navies & air forces take UFO sightings seriously. It's when people start ascribing extra-terrestrial origin nonsense, or claims of alien abduction, where things start to get hokey.

There are studies showing strongly increased UFO sightings at times and areas we decades later know was used for secret testing, like the SR-71 Blackbird.

But here is the reason it is right to be sceptical of UFO's as in the extraterrestrial interpretation -- there are zero non-debunked evidence backing up any of the stories. You would especially think that in this age of ubiquitous cameras, radars and other sensors someone would catch something, but zero..

Re:It doesn't matter.

[greenfruitsalad]

and yet you are one of those people. i often see comments about swimming on full stomach here (i'd say from people who either don't swim or eat). if you want to know why it's stupid, eat and drink until you're full, go to bed, lie down on your belly and wait for a burp to come. if you don't barf, you're not human. to better simulate swimming, you should have somebody shake you at the same time.

BTW, I swim for an hour 4 times a week and have seen this full stomach swimming way too often. when you see a person suddenly stop and stand up in the middle of a pool, they're either burping (if they're quick) or swallowing sick.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[Welsh Dwarf]

> I find it much more scary that something like 50% of Americans believe that astrology has some effect on their life...

But it does, it's called the placebo effect!

Re:It doesn't matter.

[KingOfBLASH]

I remember seeing this explained somewhere that it's not that a cell phone makes the pump explode it's that if you touch your gas tank and have a lot of excess static electricity the pump explodes, and if you shock a gas tank on purpose you will blow it up. While a normal phone should not cause a static charge that would lead to an explosion, it's conceivable that some phone somewhere was malfunctioning leading to this "myth." Just like how, given all the people electrocuted while on their phone recently, you might erroneously believe talking on your cell phone while plugged in leads to death.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[telchine]

There are still signs around the all of the pumps here banning use of a cell phone in a filling station. The current reasons is because they could cause a spark. Is there any evidence of this, or is it another feeling that's become true by repetition?

Well, as they say... no smoke without fire :p

Re:It doesn't matter.

[KingOfBLASH]

You'd think Fins would be more susceptible to gill rot or swim bladder rupture or some other fishy disease.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[dbIII]

I think it's Italy where people pay at the pump using their mobile phones. That was a few years back so it's probably more widespread.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[Anonymous Coward]

Despite documented cases, forensic investigations and reports, even at least one video of it happening? And that's just from waht I can recall.

The banality trolls are out in force today, and mixing apples and pears like there's no tomorrow. Thousands of qualified to highly qualified (technically skilled and competent) people have seen UFOs and testified to it. Plus the hundreds of military and government sources that have equally come public. Oh, and there's FOIA'd documentation and reports that were found "misplaced" all over the place. Including some very standard FBI reports and intercepts going back to the 40s. Plus the Battle of L.A., plus the Washington Flap, plus ... at least a score of other occasions when thousands of people in large cities or regions saw what wasn't flares or chinese lanterns. Or Venus.

I wouldn't doubt that they put crud in the vaccines. Just as they put it in food and everything else. Or fill a third of the world with a few total nucleare war's worth of radiation. And more.

I'd just want better quality vaccines. Not just herbal teas.

And it doesn't make sense that arrays of ionically and eletrolytically loaded bags of water can't suffer charge effects - not lust water heating - from all sorts of frequencies and intensities. Even when microwaves emitters are held close to the brain for 5, 10, 20 or more minutes at a time.

And the studies that reported minor brain edema - something basic oozed out of the cells, albumin? - at every use. It seems at least logical to suppose that at some point, fatigue would involve some sort of scarring and damage. But why worry, right? It's just the whole population including their loved ones, If they have any.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[Mashiki]

Do people still think cell phones cause gas pumps to explode? Some of my early cell phones had warnings about that in their manuals.

I don't think that a cell phone would cause a gas pump to explode, but let's say static discharge or a faulty battery cell could. Just as much as someone with a pickup truck that has a plastic liner could cause the same thing. Or you could, should the fumes in the air be sufficient and the grounding wire from the pump had failed.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the *real* reason is because it's a polite way to prevent the idiot on the phone from getting distracted and forgetting to remove the gas nozzle from the car before driving off. Kinda like how tech support will tell people to "remove the plug, blow on it, and put it back" rather than just say "make sure it's plugged in".

Re:It doesn't matter.

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of us have strong enough stomach valve muscles to be able to be horizontal on a full stomach.

Some of us can't handle fast blinking reddish lights. Some people get sea sick or puke when watching 1st person shooters. Others puke when people near them puke (an evolutionary good idea if you're all eating the same food and someone gets sick). Some people sneeze when you flash a light in their face. Humans have very few magnetic sensitive cells but we do have some. If someone says he can feel when he's facing north no matter the time of day there's reason to believe him. Just because something is rare doesn't mean it can't happen. Some people have allergic reactions to light.

It's not hard to believe that a few people can be affected by every new tech we created. It's unlikely that many people are affected by most radio spectrum bands, but I'd bet money that someone out of the 7 billion people on the planet does have some type of issue. It's even more believable when you learn that your heart responses to different radio frequencies by beating differently: http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/90/5/2299

People need to keep their minds open. It's an interesting world and we know very little about how it all works.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[ledow]

Yep. This is what annoys me.

I totally, 100% believe in extra terrestrial life. The Drake equation and simple statistics says that there has to be some - even if it's just a scientist "hunch".

But I cannot fathom why people think they are visiting us in little spaceships that happen to look EXACTLY like the movie little space ships (yet, before movies, reports all looked like descriptions from popular sci-fi books, etc.).

I can't walk down a street without being caught on a thousand CCTV cameras. I wouldn't be able to send up a Chinese lantern without the local police coming to find out who did it. Hell, if someone comes in and is spotted by the military the first we're likely to know is from the fallout when they try to blow it out of the sky thinking it's an enemy deviating from their airspace.

Yet, somehow, these aliens with inter-system flight technology always seems to be "just" caught in blurry, out-of-focus, tiny image as just a fleeting dot and yet nobody else in the area notices anything at all. Until you ask them. Then they saw five guys in silver suits.

I believe in "U.F.O."'s (the unidentified object kind). The theories for what they are is absolute crap as they have only ever turned out to be aircraft, sunlight, camera aberrations, and hoax.

Hell, some bloke phoned 999 in the UK and reported a strange light in his garden hovering over him. Ten minutes later he called back to apologise as it was "The Moon". The clip plays on every "funny clip" show on TV. When you factor that into UFO reports, you really have to wonder how the human race manages to get to work in the mornings.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never in my life heard of an abortion-breast-cancer link except from you using it to claim another group of people believe in it in order to disparage them.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[itsthebin]

Is there any evidence of this,

if the vapour was over the LEL and the battery was removed ( fell out when dropped ) you may be able to cause ignition.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[ColdWetDog]

Is there any evidence of this,

if the vapour was over the LEL and the battery was removed ( fell out when dropped ) you may be able to cause ignition.

Ah, that Steve Jobs. Always looking out for us.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[ColdWetDog]

Here. this should help a bit.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[Jade_Wayfarer]

Please mod parent up, sadly out of mod points today.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[Bengie]

Do people still think cell phones cause gas pumps to explode? Some of my early cell phones had warnings about that in their manuals.

It's highly unlikely at the powers involved with cell phones, but have you have put tin foil in the microwave? Many cell phones operate in the microwave range. Last I checked, most vehicles are more out of metal.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[jc42]

I have seen a UFO myself, at close range. I can't say who or what (if anything) was piloting it, as I didn't see anything but the outside of the craft, and I assure you it was entirely unlike anything else I've ever seen on land, sea or in the air, before.

While reading your comment, I just saw a UFO myself. It flew through the leafless maple maybe 10m away, but it was in my peripheral vision, so I couldn't identify it. And it was very likely to have been an actual alien, since the most common flying things in this suburb of Boston are English sparrows, and starlings. But I can't say that for sure, since it could have been a native flyer such as a grackle, cardinal, or one of those pesky robins (the American kind, not the European) that no longer bother migrating south in winter because the winters here are now warm enough for them. Actually, it probably wasn't one of our neighborhood cardinals, because I'd likely have noticed the red color even though I didn't see it clearly. But it was definitely flying, I can't identify it, and it's unlikely that anyone was watching it from any of the neighbors' houses, so we'll probably never know what it was.

The robins are especially useful when people complain about all the aliens moving north and taking up residence here in the US, displacing the natives. And we can even tie in a comment about global warming, to further confuse the issue. "When did the robins arrive this year? They didn't; they never left."

(Hey, do you think we can make a connection between mobile phone transmissions and global warming?)

Re:It doesn't matter.

[jc42]

I find it much more scary that something like 50% of Americans believe that astrology has some effect on their life...

But it does; reading astrological "information" wastes lifespan that could have been used to read something informative and increasing your knowledge of the world. That's time that you can't ever get back.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[coofercat]

Literally 10 seconds of googling found this: https://www.osha.gov/dts/hib/h...

When I did some RF stuff at college, they talked about the possibility of a spark coming off a (high) power antenna if various other factors all came into play at the same time (intuitively it makes sense - you've got a whole lot of energy in the antenna, which you're providing an easy release for). I assume it to be true, although I've never seen it (because I don't do any RF work to speak of).

I'd imagine that way-back-in-the-day, the first generations of mobile phones were literally hand-held cookers. There was some story where some BT engineers were going a bit doo-lally and it was supposed their phones were the cause. I don't know if that's true, but I do know that modern phones use a lot less power than their older counterparts, so I presume the risk of sparking to be as good as zero these days. I still wouldn't want to find out I was wrong in the presence of petrol fumes that ignite rather easily though.

As for this study, it's really saying exactly what we expect them to say. There was no way a 'proper' study was going to say there was any risk using a phone. As I say though, I'm rather glad I didn't have one of the first generations of phones - I seriously doubt they were safe in the longer term (and no, I can't prove it).

Re:It doesn't matter.

[jc42]

I've never in my life heard of an abortion-breast-cancer link ...

Me neither, so I googled "abortion breast cancer link" (minus the quotes, of course). The first page's 10 (out of 1.7 million) hits were mostly about the studies debunking the idea, but a couple of them were links to comments on a recent Chinese study supporting the idea. A quick scan of the 2nd page's 10 hits shows roughly the same.

So it's a real thing. But granted, it can be difficult to keep up with all the misinformation that's flying around among the general population.There are probably a lot more such bogus "health risks" that neither of us knows about.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting anonymously because modded.

I think you actually meant the Barnum Effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnum_effect):

The Forer effect (also called the Barnum effect) is the observation that individuals will give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that supposedly are tailored specifically for them, but are in fact vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy crap, that paper you link to mentions using an RF ablation tool, as in RF strong enough to actually physically burn off or remove material. No shit, if you start physically cutting things, you can expect a physiological change, which is a whole different ballpark than RF used for communications as long as you aren't sticking your head inside a multi-kW waveguide.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[Agent0013]

Yes, plenty of studies have be mistaken or even outright fraudulent. But you somehow expect us to believe one side of fraudulent studies over the other side? Look at all the government food recommendations that are being discovered to be unhealthy. Just yesterday I was listening to the radio when they were discussing recent studies that have noticed a correlation between people who drink skim milk getting overweight while people who drink whole milk don't. The recommendation is that kids over 2 should drink skim milk to control their weight. But kids that started out at a healthy weight before switching to skim milk had a much higher incidence of becoming fat than the kids who drink whole milk. And then there is all the sugar substitutes that also appear to act contrary to what the companies and government tell you. Or the messages everyone gets on how they should be using anti-bacterial soaps and cleansers. This just leads to super strains of bacteria that our medicine can't kill off anymore. And we have the studies telling us that the poison on your food is healthy (glyphosate).

Even this study that the article says took 11 years, it was really just a summary of 31 other studies. How do we know they didn't just choose the 31 studies that aligned with what they wanted to show. It's easy to take a list of 100 studies and throw out the 69 of them that show harm and end up with a result that shows there is no harm caused! I am certainly not saying this is what this study has done. In fact I believe this study's results are probably correct. But, like most people, I haven't looked at their papers or how they did the study. I don't have the time, or the interest, to do that for everything I learn about. Instead I am relying on the scientific community to come to a general consensus over time. The older and incorrect studies will be discounted as our knowledge increases. Sometimes this may take a while, especially when big powerful companies spend a lot of money to buy the studies and regulations they want done to control what people think. In some cases I discount studies as they don't align with what I already believe to be healthy. It would take some seriously major shift for me to think denying your body the material your brain is made out of is ever going to be healthy (your brain is made of fat). If eating fat makes one fat, then eating muscle should make me into a bulked up body builder. Of course the rule is "everything in moderation". Even water will kill you if you drink too much of it.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[Mashdar]

1) You must burp a lot more than I do. It's unusual if I burp twenty times in a week unless I've been drinking beer. (The other end is another matter, but I eat a LOT of beans!)

2) I frequently eat until the next helping would make me sick. It's slightly pathological, but useful for this conversation.

3) I have never once noticed a problem with burping in bed. Maybe I just don't burp enough?

4) In college I used to swim for at least 30 minutes daily, and I literally never had a problem with a full stomach (again, perhaps I don't burp enough?). I don't recall anyone else in the lap pool stopping suddenly, but I am not particularly observant, especially with my face under water.

5) The myth about swiming on a full stomach is that you will have a cramp and drown. It has nothing to do with being sick. GP was refering to that myth, and your comment has nothing to do with it.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[Mashdar]

It affected my life today by reading these comments.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[geekoid]

Fortunately, belief in UFO(Alien spaceships) is falling.

Another win for the internet.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[Jason Levine]

The Mythbusters tests this awhile back and couldn't replicate it at all. Now, I know they aren't "a scientific study", but they actually tried the best case scenarios and couldn't get it to work. You are more at risk if you set the pump up, go back into your car, get out of your car (thus building up a static charge), and then touch metal near the gas pump as it is being removed.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[geekoid]

Every thanksgiving millions of people eat way to much, lie down, and then don't barf.

You are either really, really stupid, or a liar.

I used to swim a lot. AS in hours everyday. IN the ocean and pools. I played water polo, surfed, and been a life guard.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[geekoid]

There is a voltage differential between a car and the neg of a cell phone, you can have spark.

" I seriously doubt they were safe in the longer term"
You would be wrong. We do understand the physics.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[Ex-MislTech]

Yes by all means lets get rid of those conspiracy theorists.

http://archive.lewrockwell.com...

Re:It doesn't matter.

[geekoid]

Learn how to read the study, look at the Bayesian probability, look at other studies.

" I don't have the time, or the interest, to do that for everything I learn about."
Fine, but shut up about what you clearly know nothing about.

Re: It doesn't matter.

[ceoyoyo]

Intelligence?

Seriously, the thing that causes gas pumps to explode is static electricity, usually from entering and exiting your car. While everyone is worried about cell phones, how many people make sure to touch their car with bare hands before pumping?

Re:It doesn't matter.

[PPH]

And the source of that spark was the possibility of someone dropping a cell phone and the battery shorting out. Particularly back in the old days, phones (DynaTac 'bricks' for example), had quite sizable batteries. And the area up to 18 inches above the ground around a gas pump is considered to be an explosion hazard area due to accumulated vapor. So dropping something like a cell phone was determined, by analysis, to be a possible hazard.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[Ex-MislTech]

:I'd just want better quality vaccines. Not just herbal teas."

Become one of the important ppl and you can get the "better" vaccine.

http://www.spiegel.de/internat...

Re:It doesn't matter.

[Sockatume]

"It's not hard to believe"... but there's no evidence that it is the case, and copious evidence otherwise.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[Agent0013]

You are simply an asshole, that is pretty obvious.

The point is that if everyone has to do their own studies of the studies then there is no reason to have scientists doing the studies and giving reports. You can't trust any of them as they are all paid by some industry or are shilling for something. I'm not going to trust any number of studies from industry when it goes against my first hand experience. You can look at all the studies you want about how safe tobacco is for you and die your own horrible little death. I won't miss people like you. Your sig even shows how stupid you are as you feel there is no use in complaining about the end of a very valuable site. You would rather watch it dissapear as long as you don't have to hear people complain about it being ruined. Nice one asshole!

Re:It doesn't matter.

[SuricouRaven]

Do you want me to insult some 'natural food' hippies to balance it out?

Re:It doesn't matter.

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a reason why astrology has been studied for thousands and thousands of years.

Yes, that reason is that idiots keep believing it so someone smarter has to repeatedly debunk it for them. Astrology is amoung the many pre-science beliefs that would have been the foundation of science if they hand't fail;d scientific scrutiny.

  There's a reason why hundreds of attention whore's testimony about aliens and the government is floating around on the web.

fixed that for ya'

There is some kind of correlation between something or other and autism now, because it's definitely on the rise.

I'll give you that one; the rise of autism diagnosis is strongly correlated with both the ability to diagnose autism and the availability of treatment. Those are relatively new.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[Anubis IV]

I believe he was referencing the notion that you shouldn't go swimming on a full stomach because you'll get cramps and drown, which has been thoroughly debunked, yet continues to persist as something mothers pass down to their children. There may be other valid reasons for not going swimming on a full stomach, such as the one you cited, but the commonly-reported reason for that piece of advice is related to cramps, not upset stomachs.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[Ex-MislTech]

Peoples concerns are not so much with the unmodified vaccine as with
one that have adjuvants added.

Two that raise some concerns are Thiomersol and Squalene.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

So the Antivax issue is more then just the vaccine, but what is added to it
to thin it, and to preserve it.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[skids]

We are having to face this at work. In order to upgrade our WiFi network to 11ac we are going to have to double the number of APs and put many of them inside dormatory rooms. Despite current lack of evidence as to any health effects (notwithstanding placing the AP 2 feet from where your head is when you sleep, which is against official recommendations and we plan to make impossible,) housing will probably offer people an option as to whether they prefer one of the rooms that does not have them, or at least have to deal with complaints. I don't blame them if they do -- a college housing department isn't the right place to have a showdown over scientific research, and on the off chance that some hitherto unsurveyed adverse effect does become evident, liability issues could ensue.

As far as the anti-vax people go there were a small but significant number of parents who noticed autism start to develop very close to the time when their children got vaccinated. This could have been coincidence or it could have been due to the children having gene expressions that made them susceptible to some adverse reaction, and studies that look at the general population might not be able to tease out any statistical signifigance if there is a small subpopulation that is more susceptible. The thimerisol connection was apparently a mass-media-induced panic, but I can't blame the parents for wanting an explanation, and can't expect them to all be scientists nor really expect them to even have a bearing as to which scientific authorities are trustworthy, given the current influence of money on research. People love to hate on them for some reason, but I refuse to.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[DiscountBorg(TM)]

Ah, the old -science will all be wrong in 20 years...

Which is wrong of course, we still make use of Newtonian physics hundreds of years later, and were you to count mathematics, some aspects of mathematics date back thousands of years. It's fair to say that 20 years from now we will still accept phylogenetic trees and we will use physics that allows us to build computers. Science is a process of refinement, a spectrum of probabilities

The strength of science is that it can in fact discard ideas quickly. If a model is no longer useful, out it goes, or it is altered. I find it odd that the parent assumes that because science has procedures built in to allow it to change when it is wrong, that this somehow equates to astrology therefore being right. Eg science will be wrong in 20 years which it wont)==astrology is right. This does not follow.

Science has predictive power. Anyone can replicate its results if they replicate the conditions of the experiment. With astrology on the other hand, lots of us have tried it, and it doesn't work. It doesn't stand up to testing. If it worked for everyone, it wouldn't be an issue, but it doesn't. Sure, there's a percentage of people out there who claim it work, but that's to be expected in a large enough population as a statistical probability. You'll find people claiming garlic cloves ward off the flu too. What it comes down to in the end isn't just that such beliefs are wrong--they simply aren't useful for the most of us.

Of course when the phrase 'be open minded' comes out, this translates as 'crowds who believe in anything for thousands of years can't possibly be wrong, blindly follow them''. When the bandwagon fallacy comes out, you know the ego is at work. Let's talk Tim Leary. Science is the real, ultimate ego death. There's no room for ego in determining objective reality, because objective reality doesn't work the way one wants it to.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[CastrTroy]

But what does that have to do with talking on the phone? With mobile internet, our phones are constantly sending out and receiving information from cell towers. What if someone calls you when you're filling up? Could this be a problem? I've known computer speakers that would play audible noises moments before the cell phone starts to ring. Should we be putting our phones in airplane mode, or turning them off when we drive up to the gas station?

Re:It doesn't matter.

[Anonymous Coward]

[Geekoid,] You are simply an asshole, that is pretty obvious.

Awesome.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[Ravaldy]

My wife worked at the Toronto general for a few years. During her stay she did care on dozens of girls between the ages of 15 - 18 that all had brain tumours. Of all of these girls most were heavy cell phone users. This at the time had prompted these observations to be submitted to a university (don't remember which one). Now, this could have been a complete coincidence since girls of that age usually do spend lots of time on their phones.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[Anonymous Coward]

Your heart doesn't respond to radio frequencies. You misunderstood the article. Read up on Radiofrequency Catheter Ablation here: http://www.uptodate.com/contents/radiofrequency-catheter-ablation-for-the-heart-beyond-the-basics.

TL;DR: They stick metal wires into your heart, then focus radio waves on it. The wires, act like an antenna, and the RF induces electrical flow, which burns surrounding tissue. This is not the evidence you are looking for.

Keep your mind open, yes, but at least filter the shit.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[Anonymous Coward]

That link talks about using 10 - 30 W of RF energy applied *at the AV node* from a catheter present *at the AV node*. In other words, the catheter was put *into the heart* in order to ablate cells there.

Calling this "your heart responses to different radio frequencies by beating differently" is patently dishonest.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's even more believable when you learn that your heart responses to different radio frequencies by beating differently: http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/90/5/2299

In the spirit of keeping an open mind, I don't think you understand the article you linked to here. It talks about RF ablation, a technique by which heart tissue is destroyed through heating (using RF), thereby causing scar tissue. The scar tissue changes the electrical conductivity of various pathways, and thereby the way the heart ticks (for example, by eliminating feedback loops that can cause abnormally fast heart beats).

The radio waves have nothing to do with the frequency of the heartbeat, they are just used to burn and create scar tissue. Freezing is also used with cryo gas (Cryo ablation).

Re:It doesn't matter.

[Anonymous Coward]

We just don't have enough information to run the numbers for the Drake equation. We don't actually know how likely abiogenesis is, what if the probably of life arising is so infinitesimally small that it is only likely to have ever started once in the entire Universe?

Re:It doesn't matter.

[radish]

People love to hate on them because they aren't unsure of which scientific authority to believe in, they are choosing Jenny Fucking McCarthy over every single scientific authority - and at the same time putting both their kids and every other kid in their area at serious risk.

Sure there was one fraudulent study done which may have confused some people, but that was exposed years ago and people still aren't getting their kids vaccinated despite huge amounts of publicity. It's unbelievable levels of stupidity and selfishness and I'm not going to give anyone a pass.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[david_thornley]

I find it much more scary that something like 50% of Americans believe that astrology has some effect on their life

If the stories I've read about Nancy Reagan consulting her astrologer to give advice to Ronald were true, then astrology really did have an effect on my life. (It's also true that, when the Sun is in Leo and is also in the fourth or fifth house, I tend to seek air conditioning.)

Re:It doesn't matter.

[Tharkkun]

My wife worked at the Toronto general for a few years. During her stay she did care on dozens of girls between the ages of 15 - 18 that all had brain tumours. Of all of these girls most were heavy cell phone users. This at the time had prompted these observations to be submitted to a university (don't remember which one). Now, this could have been a complete coincidence since girls of that age usually do spend lots of time on their phones.

And that's what the research is telling us. It is a coincidence. I can't think of a single teenager not having a cell phone in the last 5 years unless their parents are either overly strict or they lost their privileges.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[Anonymous Coward]

And the evidence really backs up the Drake equation.

Yup!

Re:It doesn't matter.

[skids]

and at the same time putting both their kids and every other kid in their area at serious risk.

Their kids, sure, there's a case to be made about that. However, I don't see the same amount of rage about parents who allow/encourage their kids to particpate over-competitive sports programs which result in a lot injuries due to the mass acceptance of the "no pain, no gain" mantra.

Also, they aren't putting other vaccinated kids in their area at much extra risk.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[isorox]

  There's a reason why hundreds of attention whore's testimony about aliens and the government is floating around on the web.

fixed that for ya'

You really didn't

Re:It doesn't matter.

[isorox]

1) You must burp a lot more than I do. It's unusual if I burp twenty times in a week unless I've been drinking beer

I'm confused -- there's a week which doesn't involve drinking beer?

Re:It doesn't matter.

[s0nicfreak]

Yet the anti-vax movement continues to believe in the connection regardless.

No they don't. The majority of the anti-vax movement is not anti-vax because of autism anymore. They are anti-vax because of other things - things vaccines actually do cause.

The autism thing has now become an excuse by the anti-anti-vax movement. "Don't listen to those bozos, they still think vaccines cause autism!" *puts fingers in ears* "Lalalala, I can't hear you because you're stupid. Come on everybody, do it!"

Re:It doesn't matter.

[SuricouRaven]

That, or to stop someone from faffing around with a phone call and slowing the line down. The managers aren't going to like people who sit around for five minutes after the tank is full chatting while a queue builds.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[s0nicfreak]

I'd bet these girls were drinking the same water, eating much of the same food, and breathing in much of the same pollution. as well right?
They may have even been taking the same birth control or anti-depressants. Was your wife in a position to find out that information?

Re:It doesn't matter.

[SuricouRaven]

Short version:
There was a study that appeared to show abortion increased the risk of breast cancer. This wasn't a deliberately fraudulent study, but later analysis found a flaw: They'd compared women who underwent abortion with those who carried their pregnancy to term. It turns out that pregnancy actually has a protective effect, lowering the risk of breast cancer - but without a control population of non-pregnent women, it appeared as if abortion was causing an increase in breast cancer risk. Easy mistake, but one that played into the very heated debate. The claimed link was quickly picked up by a pro-life movement eager to put aside their mysogynistic public image with some new pro-woman arguments, and has since become a staple part of their rhetoric. From there it just progressed to the usual follow-up for any publicly disputed medical matter: Lots of studies carried out by many different groups, some with an agenda and some without, and the political types then cherry-picking the ones that agree with their position to promote.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is and will be modded all over the place, because while the first half has some good points, the latter half uses a really stupid and wrong example...

Re:It doesn't matter.

[airdweller]

You've just provided a thorough proof of why you should never be taken seriously - you failed at the basic logical reasoning. You will be modded down and you will deserve that, but I'm sure that won't make you question yourself - you'll just blame that on our narrow-mindedness.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[mjwx]

and yet you are one of those people. i often see comments about swimming on full stomach here (i'd say from people who either don't swim or eat). if you want to know why it's stupid, eat and drink until you're full, go to bed, lie down on your belly and wait for a burp to come. if you don't barf, you're not human. to better simulate swimming, you should have somebody shake you at the same time.

Amazingly enough, I don't have that issue.

I've done weights after eating a large meal before, sure it wasn't all that comfortable but I didn't barf doing squats or deads.

Maybe I'm not human (you never know, I could be a dog on the internet for all you know) or maybe you've just got a very weak stomach.

That aside, the old myth about swimming and eating used to be that if you didn't wait 30/60/120 minutes after eating before swimming you'd get a huge stomach cramp and drown. That's the bit that's been proven to be a myth.

Erm... woof.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[mjwx]

There are still signs around the all of the pumps here banning use of a cell phone in a filling station. The current reasons is because they could cause a spark. Is there any evidence of this, or is it another feeling that's become true by repetition?

That reason is gone (mostly) there's still a small risk that you can drop your phone and somehow it will spark and a smaller risk that will ignite the some fuel (I see people drop a few centilitres onto petrol station floors all the time when they take the nozzle out after filling).

The main reason those signs are still around is because when pumping an extremely flammable substance they want people to pay attention to what they're doing. Unfortunately when told this, people think the rule does not apply to them (and the Dunning-Kruger effect means that these people are almost always the most incompetent that ignore it) so it's easier to hang onto a disproved scientific reason then tell people the real reason.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasn't there an article on Slashdot about how the placebo effect doesn't exist? At least, no one had proved that it does, because surprisingly no one had actually done any studies on it?

Re:It doesn't matter.

[RockDoctor]

Do people still think cell phones cause gas pumps to explode?

I work with flammable and potentially explosive atmospheres all the time.

Unsurprisingly, we're very careful about the equipment that we take into such areas - designing them to equipment classes Ex-e (enhanced safety) Ex-i (intrinsically safe), or Ex-d (explosion-proof, meaning it will contain an explosion within itself) not to mention surface temperature ratings.

Unsurprisingly, that equipment is rather more expensive than consumer grade shit. Tens to hundreds of times more expensive. But it's what the job requires, so we get it and use it. (Just for entertainment, I also had to shave off 5 years growth of beard yesterday. Poison gas is another hazard we take appropriate action over.)

Consumers rarely come across explosive atmospheres, because they're fucking dangerous. I bet you're not surprised about that, either.

One of the few places where consumers have a reasonably good chance of coming into contact with an explosive atmosphere is ... you guessed it ... at the petrol station. Particularly when filling the fuel tank and displacing a cloud of flammable petroleum vapour into the general atmosphere, where it will dilute down and pass through the upper explosive (composition) limit and then through the lower explosive limit.

Frankly, I'm surprised there are not more cases of people triggering fireballs at petrol stations by clanging their keys off the metal work, dropping their phones, striking sparks off nailed boots ...

You won't be surprised to learn that petrol stations don't like to remind their customers that they're sitting in the middle of a fairly substantial bomb. They think that it might upset the customers.

My mobile, when I get to the petrol station, stays exactly where it is when I drive : in the passenger cabin, with the windows closed, bluetoothed to the hands-free kit. And I give the vapour cloud time to disperse by going to the kiosk to pay BEFORE opening the door to get back in.

Those batteries represent stored energy, quite a lot of it. Stored energy getting un-stored at the wrong time is a very popular cause of death. Enough said?

I don't smoke at the petrol pump either. Well DOH!

Re:It doesn't matter.

[Ravaldy]

Don't get you panties in a knot. I was just pointing out an observation that resulted in documents being published for study. My wife isn't the one who helped gather information for the study. The doctors took the time to ask the questions which is how they came to know they were all heavy cell phone users. This was over 10 years ago so cell phones weren't as predominant as today.

As for the study, we've seen many studies from the past become obsolete after new information was brought in. E.g. Vitamin D.

I would like to also note that this study is one of many published. There are many other studies published in the last 3 years that could not conclude 100% that non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation does not cause cancer. So what makes this study more concrete than previous studies? The answer is: It doesn't matter because we won't stop using the devices.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[s0nicfreak]

My panties aren't in a knot. I was curious. I was wondering if this was the type of hospital that served mostly people from the same area (who would have then been consuming the same water, food, etc. and would be going to the same doctors, who would prescribe the same things for a lot of their patients). I'm in between Chicago and Indianapolis, so there's some hospitals that pretty much only serve people in the area, and some hospitals where people come from all around the country for service. I would think that everyone working at the hospital would have an idea of which is more common, and nurses would probably know what medications the girls were taking and would notice severe overlap.

On a side note, though cellphone usage has gone up in the past 10 years, I would think the amount that teenage girls keep the phones up to their heads has gone way down (as they now focus on texting and online messaging rather than talking). It would be interesting to see if brain tumor rates in teenage girls has changed in relation to this.

What about the missing bands between 900 and 1800?

[Anonymous Coward]

What about the missing bands between 900MHz and 1800MHz?

I mean isn't it the same as what creationists are always pointing out? Where's the missing link?

Prediction

[virtualbedouin]

My astrology reading says I should make a prediction today, so here it is...

This study will NOT measure all the cumulative wireless frequency you and i experience every day and night. That would be too tooo hard. So instead, I am betting they just based the study on the weakest signal they could find (not from your mobile phone but rather the super weak signal from the base stations that send signals to your mobile).

So rather than doing a study on a typical human, they will study the safe and wonderful effects of these signals that could only possibly relate to your cat, who stays at home 24/7 and is exposed to base station signals... oh wait, I forgot about TV signals, Radio signals, WiFi signals, etc...

Ok, I am off to read the report...

Back

Yep, another pointless study that is so narrow and specific that it can not possibly relate to a normal typical human on the planet, Except for that desert bedoiun that live near a cell tower I suppose.

Re:Prediction

[jklovanc]

There is a simple long term study that proves that cell phones do not appreciably increase brain cancer risks. It is the basic cancer statistics. That graph covers the years 1992 to 2010. Over that period of time cancer rated have been pretty steady. Considering the explosion in subscriber after 1998 there should be an explosion in brain cancers. There is not. No correlation therefore no causation.

Re:Prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

What if by chance whatever was causing cancer dropped off at the same time supposedly-cancer inducing spectrum picked up, thus making it appear that there is no chance? Unlikely, but we can't necessarily rule that out.

There may or may not be something to WiFi causing migraines and whatnot. But until we have conclusive proof that it does cause migraines, we shouldn't necessarily take legislation to outlaw or restrict it.

As for the anti-vax thing, I don't feel the government should force us to be vaccinated. It should be a personal decision between patient, parent, and doctor. However, I feel that health care should cover vaccines 100% in full regardless of how someone feels, but it should be voluntary if someone wants to be vaccinated.

The same goes for global warming. Some people may think it's primarily caused by humans. Regardless, we should take steps to reduce pollution anyways, for it's own sake of reducing pollution. "If it stops global warming, yay! If it doesn't, at least we get some clean air out of it."

Re:Prediction

[Warma]

The anti-vax thing is entirely different, because by choosing not to become vaccinated, you are increasing existential risk for others. Being of that mindset is internally consistent only, and only if you really think, that harming others based on your personal beliefs, is justified.

However, even being internally consistent does not necessarily mean, that you are doing the smart thing or even that you are doing the right thing. Please think about this.

Re:Prediction

[cmdr_tofu]

There may indeed be an increased risk of brain tumors from cellphone use though http://www.sciencedirect.com/s...

This has been known for a while. I didn't even know about the risk of cancer (which we now believe isn't there), but the risk of brain tumors is a concern for me. My phone switches to wifi when I am at home or work, and I increase the distance of the phone from my head by using bluetooth, or car stereo, and also limit time spent on the phone to try to decrease my risk.

Re:Prediction

[virtualbedouin]

God Poo is yuck!

Re:Prediction

[jklovanc]

Cancer.gov as in U.S. government as in the most trusted source in studies.

Your best shot is a general disbelief of anything coming from a government agency? Get real. Look at any epidemiology report from anywhere on earth and you will fine no increase in brain cancers. If you don't believe that one then try this one as it is non-governmental.

If dog poo is present and no one got sick then dog poo is safe. If you do the same test on millions of people in ever increasing numbers over 15 years and there is no upward trend in illness then dog poo is safe. If dog poo was unsafe there should be at least a few people who got sick. There are two parts to a study; correlation and causation. Correlation asks the question is there a similar trend in two factors. For example, the increased presence of dog poo and the increased incidence of illness. The second step is to prove if that correlation might be caused by a third factor. Possibly the presence of dog urine also increases with the presence of dog poo and it is the urine that is causing the issue and not the poo. If the correlation step fails there is no possible causation. There had been a dramatic increase in the number of cell phones used yet no increase in the rate of brain cancers. There is no correlation therefore no possible causation.

Re:Prediction

[Sockatume]

Cancer.gov as in a US government site summarising information from boundless non-US-government sources (scientists) who are in constant competition to one-up each other and for whom the prize for finding an interesting counter-intuitive result and proving it is fame and glory.

Re:Prediction

[jklovanc]

It would be nice to read the report but it is paywalled. It seems that a similar study done in the UK had different findings.

Re:Prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

UK, 1993..2010. Check out what happened in around 2008. People stopped talking to their phones when iPhones came around and started texting instead. Mora data usage, less talk.

Re:Prediction

[Bengie]

As for the anti-vax thing, I don't feel the government should force us to be vaccinated. It should be a personal decision between patient, parent, and doctor.

Except in exceptional situations like a family history of adverse reactions, not getting vaccinations is about as much child abuse as only feeding a child candy for their entire life. Not only is that detrimental to the child, but it is also a huge risk for the rest of society.

If people get to willingly choose not to get vaccinated(assuming we have high quality vaccinations), other people should have the choice of not allowing willingly unvaccinated people near them in any way. Turn it into a crime of attempted murder with malicious intent.

For me, vaccinations rank right up there with courts and law enforcement, as a modern requirement for a health society. Again, assuming we have stringent requirements on the quality of vaccines.

Re:Prediction

[msauve]

"I increase the distance of the phone from my head by using bluetooth.."

So, you decrease the RF by putting an RF transceiver on your ear. I don't follow your logic.

Re:Prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

Cell phones spend more time next to a person's leg than next to their brain. How about leg cancer stats?

Re:Prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

Bluetooth is an extremely weak RF signal meant to reach only a few feet, whereas a cellphone RF signal needs to reach miles to the nearest tower. Of course, to me that means it probably doesn't make much difference whether it is 1 foot from you or 5 feet from you. I just make a practice of switching my cellphone to airplane mode at night, since it sits on my bedstand and acts as my alarm clock. Take this with a grain of salt, but I do tend to feel better when I do this. If the phone antenna has been on all night close to my head I wake up with a throbbing sensation and a slight headache.

Re:Prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a simple long term study that proves that cell phones do not appreciably increase brain cancer risks. It is the basic cancer statistics. That graph covers the years 1992 to 2010. Over that period of time cancer rated have been pretty steady. Considering the explosion in subscriber after 1998 there should be an explosion in brain cancers. There is not. No correlation therefore no causation.

Thanks for the 8th grade science lesson. Unfortunately the real world is often much, much more complex. If the exposure needs to be over decades then the time frame is still too short. If there was a corresponding decrease of exposure to some other environmental cause, completely different but was phased out around the same time then it would not show up in your overly simplistic analysis. Also, FTA

Overall the lengthy research programme found no evidence that exposure to generally low frequency base station (mobile network) emissions during pregnancy affects the risk of developing cancer in early childhood, and no evidence that use of mobile phones can lead to an increased risk of leukaemia.

These seem to be the kind of overly specific details that one often uses in the hopes the naive public will generalize that there is no risk what so ever.

Finally, without knowing how the study was done the it really could be complete rubbish. What were the statistical methods used. See the /. article http://science.slashdot.org/story/14/02/12/2112254/why-p-values-cannot-tell-you-if-a-hypothesis-is-correct.

Re:Prediction

[Ex-MislTech]

As long as we can get the "better" vaccine that is reserved for the "special" ppl.

http://www.spiegel.de/internat...

Re:Prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with your point, but while Cancer Research UK is non-governmental, the source data for that page came from the Office for National Statistics and the cancer registries of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland respectively. ONS and the various cancer registries are certainly government bodies. I don't think this makes the statistics any less believable - but then, I work for one of them.

Re:Prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm still not keen on it on the government mandating what we must put into our bodies.

The best thing to do is to education people about the risks and rewards regarding vaccinations and hope they make an intelligent decision. Criminalizing it would be right up there with the concept of a large-soda ban in New York City.

Re:Prediction

[jklovanc]

This could be an example of correlation not being causation. Since it appears that you prefer to have your phone in airplane mode when sleeping there must be a reason that you occasionally do not. Maybe the reason you are keeping the phone on is the same reason you feel less well in the morning. Perhaps the reason for keeping it on is that you are might get an important call that night and the stress is causing you not to sleep well.

I am still skeptical

[ctrl-alt-canc]

I looked briefly to some of the reports published by MTHR, and it seems to me that there is a fundamental flaw (pretty much common to many studies published on this topic). The absorbed dose from the tissues is proportional to the transmitter power. Now the transmission power of handeld devices (like GSM) depends from the received SNR at the BTS: actually a negotiation about the power to use takes place between the BTS and the handeld device to limit the transmission power, so that batteries of the handeld unit last more and interference to neighbour BTS cells is reduced. IIRC power can be varied between 1 milliwatt and 8 watt, i.e. three orders of magnitude. If this enormous variation of the radiated power (and of the absorbed dose) hasn't been taken into account in the study (as I suspect), the research conclusions are very questionable.

Re:I am still skeptical

[Anonymous Coward]

8 watt

2 watts.

Re:I am still skeptical

[_Shorty-dammit]

It's still non-ionizing radiation. Be as skeptical as you want. The rest of us will just point and laugh.

Re:I am still skeptical

[jklovanc]

IIRC power can be varied between 1 milliwatt and 8 watt,

You may be recalling incorrectly. The car phones from the 80's maxed out at 3W. According to this

The transmission power in the handset is limited to a maximum of 2 watts in GSM 850/900 and 1 watt in GSM 1800/1900

The 8Watts seems a bit high. Most handsets max out at about .3 Watts to conserve battery power.

Re:I am still skeptical

[inasity_rules]

But it is an invisible thing that he doesn't understand. Don't interfere with his panic attack with reason or logic. Fear of what you can't see is a cornerstone of our society. Never mind the EM radiation coming out of his (probably 2GHz) computer. Or the wifi. Or, the X-rays from the sun. These aren't relevant, cell phones are evil cancer causing devices!

Re:I am still skeptical

[jellomizer]

Just like the flawed science in climate change and evolution.

The difference between conservatives and liberals with science is that conservatives refuse that something will be bad for them vs liberals refuse to believe that something new is not harming them.

They are both refusing to believe science because it messes up their world view.

Re:I am still skeptical

[ctrl-alt-canc]

You probably lack some knowledge about effects of EM fields on tissues. The damage possibly caused by RF fields generated by mobile phone is due to heathing, not to ionization.
BTW, most of the damage caused to tissues exposed to high doses of ionizing radiation is still due to heathing. Damage due to chemical effects caused by ionization and to DNA damage appear later in those who received exposure to ionizing radiation.

Re:I am still skeptical

[Sockatume]

Actually if there's one thing we can agree on, it's that thermal effects are not the cause of the problem. The energies involved are vanishingly low; holding your hand near your face has more of an impact on its heating than holding a phone there.

Re:I am still skeptical

[dbIII]

Before you laugh you need to add the words "low intensity" (which this most definitely is) since high intensity non-ionizing radiation is a known hazard. Enough to make you warm by induction alone (which is a hell of a lot of RF) is a big problem and that's why the really dangerous stuff gets shielded before anyone is expected to work near it. Faulty shielding in some RF welders for plastic seams caused quite a few miscarriages in one factory a few decades ago.
Still don't believe me? Microwave ovens use non-ionizing radiation. Several orders of magnitude more than if you had your head stuffed in the transmitting dish from one of these towers, but it's the intensity and not the type of radiation that divides safe as background from cooked in two minutes.

Re:I am still skeptical

[dbIII]

They are not "conservatives". That's just the sugar coating so that the travelling medicine show scam tweaked into dumbed down Christianity can hide that it is about control and hatred instead of anything Jesus spoke about. They see biologists, geologists and climatologists as hated enemies getting in the way of their rubbish about an unchanging earth - and they've lumped in the rest of science in as fellow travellers.
Bit of a rant, but that's what we are facing.

Re:I am still skeptical

[Anonymous Coward]

All those heating effects are extremely minor compared to the heating effects you experience from other parts of the EM spectrum every time you step out into sunlight.

Re:I am still skeptical

[Anonymous Coward]

No, that's how liberals see them (and by definition that is bigotry).

Re:I am still skeptical

[Anonymous Coward]

hey asswipe, he said "heathing" not "heating"

those are HEATHING effects.

go buy a heath bar, rub it on your skin. you'll see what i'm talking about.

Re:I am still skeptical

[Agent0013]

Yep it's non-ionizing. So is the heat in an incinerator. So you wouldn't mind if I stick you into one then?

There are other ways to cause harm than just ionizing radiation.

Re:I am still skeptical

[Sockatume]

I've stuck my arm in 700C furnaces without harm, and they're putting out about a million times the thermal energy of your cell phone.

Re:I am still skeptical

[Agent0013]

Your cell phone should not be putting out any thermal energy. The battery and other electronics might put out some as a side effect, but it is undesired. In the end none of that matters one bit. What matters is what happens to the brain cells. When you get a high temperature it only takes a rise of a few degrees before the brain is dead. If the radiation put out from the phone causes a rise in temperature then there is a problem even though there is no ionizing radiation. I am not worried about it as I still use my cell phone. I do believe that cell phones are not causing cancer as the incidence of brain tumors has not been shown to have increased with the increase use of cell phones over the years. The problem I have is with your very simplistic thinking. That only ionizing radiation can cause harm, or only temperatures higher than 700C can kill you or something completely idiotic. There are a lot of ways things can cause harm and if a study is going to be worth anything it needs to consider everything possible and not just some simplistic process of only this one thing is a possible harm.

Re:I am still skeptical

[david_thornley]

I have survived fevers of 103F without noticeable brain damage. I've heard that doctors don't consider that level of fever a problem. So, we're looking at a rise of over 5 degrees F (a touch under 3 degrees C/kelvins) without harm.

Now, any radiation that heats my brain has to go through my ear first. Since my ear is of similar chemical composition to my brain, any radiation that seriously heats my brain would have a similar effect on my ear. More so, since my ear is closer to the transmitter (think inverse square) and absorbs some of the radiation headed to my brain. Therefore, if my ear doesn't get noticeably warmer from the cell phone, it shouldn't be affecting my brain.

Now, it is possible that the brain contains some chemical that reacts to non-ionizing radiation. We know that there are chemicals that do that; there are such chemicals in eyes, and plants have to convert non-ionizing sunlight to chemical energy somehow. Nor can a study say that cell phones don't cause brain cancer; all it can say is that it's really unlikely that cell phones have a statistically significant effect on brain cancer. So, it's conceivable that some unknown chemical in my brain reacts with cell phone radiation to increase my chance of brain cancer by a miniscule amount, but I'm not going to worry about it. All things considered, I think terrorists are more likely to kill me than cell phone radiation, and I have a policy of not sweating risks much less than my chance of being killed in an auto accident.

Re:I am still skeptical

[Agent0013]

As I said, I don't think there is danger in cell phone use.

But saying that an ear is similar chemical composition to a brain just sounds pretty unrealistic. The ear is almost all cartilage while the brain has no cartilage. The brain has lots of fluids and is the consistency of jello while the ear can stand up on it's own and is not a bag full of water. The brain is also made of millions of brain cells and nerves while the ear is mostly . . . cartilage.

I do notice heating of my ear when talking on the phone for a while. I am pretty sure it is from direct contact and not the inverse square law of radiation though. The inverse square law sounds reasonable and I would expect that to hold, but there are plenty of things that don't work the way one would expect. Until it is tested we don't know. Like you mentioned with the chemicals in eyes. I do remember reading one study that did find heating occurred in the brain near where the cell phone is held. I do not have any clue if that study is worth anything or is full of crap though so I would not put much into it. But when something like 80% of all scientific studies cannot be reproduced and get the same results, I don't put too much credence into this study either, so take that to mean whatever you want it to.

And the point about fever and brain damage also sounds reasonable at first glance. But a fever happens for a couple of days once every couple of years or so. The cell phone use is much more frequent than that and could cause different effects. Even if the temperature is lower the fact that it is much more frequently experienced is one avenue for a difference to appear.

Re: I am still skeptical

[Anonymous Coward]

There are studies indicating that non-ionizing radiation can impact the permeability of the blood-brain barrier.

Discounting the possibility of health problems due to the energy involved is very non-circumspect. If, for whatever reason, small energy levels can interrupt bodily systems like the blood-brain barrier, there is clearly more to it than ionizing or non-ionizing.

Why would you point and laugh at anyone when you clearly can't even wrap your head around the whole realm of possibilities?

Re:I am still skeptical

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh noes - not heathing!

If you mean heating - you're an even bigger moron.

Re:What about the missing bands between 900 and 18

[Vanders]

What about them? This is a UK study. The UK doesn't operate any mobile telephone devices between 900Mhz & 1800Mhz.

When I quit carrying my cell-phone in my pants...

[Anonymous Coward]

I still felt ghost 'buzzing' and had muscle twitches in that area of my leg for 6 months.

The study is flawed or incomplete

Makes total sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering the amount of default background radiation we always get from space and the radiation from natural sources, the tiny bits from cell phones is nothing.

Re:Makes total sense

[Ex-MislTech]

As some frequencies can heal, I am sure some can do the reverse.

http://www.woundsinternational...

sorry to invoke godwin's but:

[Anonymous Coward]

The nazis banned smoking and western science said this was paranoia. All the studies from the west showed smoking was fine and doctors were on TV saying how good it was for you. Not till the late fifties was it 'discovered' or 'acknoledged' in the west that smoking was harmful.

Re:sorry to invoke godwin's but:

[Sockatume]

A stopped clock is right twice a day: there are no prizes for getting the right result from dumb luck, contrary to or in the absence of evidence.

Re:sorry to invoke godwin's but:

[Anonymous Coward]

Motorways and rockets were blind luck also I take it.

Re:sorry to invoke godwin's but:

[msauve]

When my clock stops, the LCD simply goes blank, you insensitive clod!

Re:When I quit carrying my cell-phone in my pants.

[Sockatume]

That's because you've conditioned yourself to expect a vibrating sensation and respond promptly to it; your brain is hypersensitised. The same phenomenon occurs with the actual ringing sounds of phones, landlines or otherwise.

A car is a big static electricity generator

[dbIII]

One thing to keep in mind. A car is a big static electricity generator.

Re:A car is a big static electricity generator

[KingOfBLASH]

Eh I'm not so sure about that. IANAE (I am not an electrician). However wouldn't any static created by the car discharge as you're getting out of the car (or at least there should be no difference in potential between you and the car)?

Re:A car is a big static electricity generator

[dbIII]

However wouldn't any static created by the car discharge as you're getting out of the car

Yes, right into the spilled fuel next to the pumps as it's stepped into. Such a static electricity discharge must happen several times a day if considered globally.


What we have here with the phones is electrical safety standards for other devices near fuel being applied as a blanket rule. Static electricity never came into it.

Re: A car is a big static electricity generator

[ceoyoyo]

Not usually. Most people's shoes are quite good insulators. The car discharges when you touch it with the metal filling hose. The problem is that YOU don't always discharge before the gas starts flowing. It takes a few things to go wrong at the same time but it has cussed explosions. There has never been a reliable report of a cell phone causing such a thing.

Re:A car is a big static electricity generator

[Ex-MislTech]

Rubber tires, rubber shoes, both insulators, no clear path to ground except the negative terminal on the battery is
attached to the frame.

Re:When I quit carrying my cell-phone in my pants.

[c0lo]

I still felt ghost 'buzzing' and had muscle twitches in that area of my leg for 6 months.

It a very serious illness, it's called hypovibrochondria (aka ringxiety or fauxcellarm)...
I reckon not carrying you mobile in your pants will result in massive improvement on the life expectation... of your mobile.

and mental health ?

[Anonymous Coward]

> report concludes by recommending further studies to look at the behavioural/neurological outcomes of mobile phone usage on children, as well as to examine other areas like its potential impact upon sleep and brain function among other things.

which thus weren't part of the study. Granted it's not exactly health, but neither is far from it.> report concludes by recommending further studies to look at the behavioural/neurological outcomes of mobile phone usage on children, as well as to examine other areas like its potential impact upon sleep and brain function among other things.

some more

[Anonymous Coward]

'A stopped clock is right twice a day'

'there are no prizes'

'dumb luck'

Any more thought stopping colloquialisms, sockatume our resident propadanda pycops person

Re:some more

[Sockatume]

A man that cannot stomach an analogy is a man whose capacity for free thinking has died.

finally

[Anonymous Coward]

The '*dumb luck*' is the banning of smoking

if banning is is 'contrary to or in the absence of evidence' then it means that evidence shown would support smoking so this evidence is wrong.

This is a great piece of psycops with colons and commas and field testing but it is illogical.

Re:What about the missing bands between 900 and 18

[ColdWetDog]

What about them? This is a UK study. The UK doesn't operate any mobile telephone devices between 900Mhz & 1800Mhz.

Hmmm. Makes you wonder why. Maybe they know something...

Absent minded much?

[Anonymous Coward]

It took you 6 months to take that vibrator out?

Re:Hello. Fuckbeta

[Anonymous Coward]

That line is a bit passé already yanno. :D

Grain of Salt

[sociocapitalist]

How many studies were there that showed that smoking wasn't bad for your health?

It would be interesting to know who funded all the referenced studies, as well.

A proper answer finally

[aslashdotaccount]

Clears up this query: http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

Low Frequency

[INT_QRK]

The "typically low frequency radio spectrum bands (e.g. 900MHz and 1800MHz etc.)" of which the submitter speaks, are solidly in the Ultra High Frequency band, which ranges from 300–3000 MHz. He many have meant to say "low-power," which is very true but different altogether.

Re:What about the missing bands between 900 and 18

[X0563511]

Or maybe that spectrum is already assigned...

Meta-junk-science about junk science

[Nightlight3]

This "study" is meta-junk-science about other meta and non-meta junk science (epidemiology) contracted by the telecom industry & regulators (i.e. the future & former industry consultants). As they acknowledge in the report, experiments are left for the future research.

I would like to see animal experiments replicating typical exposures of someone keeping the phone in their pocket or on their head all day. Or teens talking on the phone for hours day after day. Also model of pregnant woman having the phone inches away from the fetus throughout pregnancy. The animal studies should also follow test and control groups for the whole lifespans of animals (e.g. lab mice and rats live only 2-3 years so it shouldn't be a big problem).

Another aspect, also left for future research, are the effects of mobile & Wi-Fi exposures on large organic molecules in the cells. This is very relevant since such molecules have photon frequencies (or energies) of various quantum transitions (e.g. those involved in protein folding or enzyme actions) in the GHz frequency ranges. Resonances with such molecular processes could have more subtle and narrow effects (e.g. on some cognitive and immune functions) for which epidemiology and even animal experiments are much too blunt to detect.

It doesn't matter

[PPH]

Because the people who suffer from phobias over imaginary radiation-caused diseases are considered to be suffering from deleterious effects to their health just as if they had an actual physiological symptom.

Don't throw me into that briar patch!

[Overzeetop]

Yes, please do stick me into a 2W incinerator. In fact, you might need to turn up the heat a couple of orders of magnitude just to keep my warm. See, I have a 1200W incinerator below my desk. It keeps my feet warm when the 14kW incinerator that blows radiated air into my office can't quite keep up with the temps outside and the poor building insulation.

Ultra High? Not wrt medical EMR

[Overzeetop]

No - you're confusing radio bands with the actual EM radiation spectrum. That's low frequency for EMR - in the 10^4 um range on this chart: http://www.crisp.nus.edu.sg/~r... which is pretty far in the low end. Considering these are medical studies, they would look at the bands of EMR across the whole spectrum. Consider that calling these "Ultra High" seems a misnomer given that medical radiation often concerns x ray wavelengths.

And, yes, they're low power too.

Proctologists may disagree!

[Mad-Bassist]

While the higher frequency transmissions of cellphones appear to carry no serious health risks, the number of emergency room visits from movie theater texters will surely continue to rise!

Re:What about the missing bands between 900 and 18

[Ex-MislTech]

Freq assignment list for the UK here, its MANY pages into the 280 pg doc.

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org....

Resonance

[Anonymous Coward]

"Resonance: Beings Of Frequency" is a good documentary on the subject as well.

Take with a grain of salt........

[Anonymous Coward]

I hesitate to send this link to my wife who a little over a year ago had a golf ball sized acoustic neuroma removed from her dominant (read "phone use") side of her head . She was in the "final stages" where the tumor was pressing against her brain stem. As a result of the tumor removal, she lost not only the auditory nerve but also her balance nerve and now has a damaged facial nerve as well. She still has Bell's Palsy symptoms and now faces several facial reconstructive surgeries. When something like this happens to a loved one you tend to research the situation. The scariest trend that I spotted was the number of people in their early twenties now getting these tumors. I know the jury is still out but you can bet that we all now use the speaker phone option in our home.
     

French/WHO Interphone Study concluded this month

[Jizzbug]

Conclusions

Glioma and meningioma
Overall, no increase in risk of glioma or meningioma was observed with use of mobile phones. There were suggestions of an increased risk of glioma at the highest exposure levels, but biases and error prevent a causal interpretation. The possible effects of longterm heavy use of mobile phones require further investigation.

Acoustic neuroma
There was no increase in risk of acoustic neuroma with ever regular use of a mobile phone or for users who began regular use 10 years or more before the reference date. Elevated odds ratios observed at the highest level of cumulative call time could be due to chance, reporting bias or a causal effect. As acoustic neuroma is usually a slowly growing tumour, the interval between introduction of mobile phones and occurrence of the tumour might have been too short to observe an effect, if there is one.

Progress

[Anonymous Coward]

It took 50 years to officially recognize smoking was harmful. I’d say, we years ahead with the impact of EM on the body. At least we are talking about the issues. There is overwhelming circumstantial evidence that EM does impact the body. EM drives our bodies. EM waves are emitted from our brains, our hearts, and in fact, every cell of the body. We accept this as fact and use these principals to monitor the sick in hospitals. Likewise, the rates of change of chemical reactions, which include our body chemistry, are influenced by electricity and EM radiation. EM plays a preponderant role in the cycle of life. One only need refer to the many patent applications and the work of so many scientists over the last 100 years to understand the weight of circumstantial evidence. Use your cell phone but realize this, you may one day learn you have been lied to. Future citizens may someday laugh at us in same way we laugh at Romans for drinking water in lead cups. Don’t look to cell phone manufactures or scientists sponsored by industry to tell you your cell phone is harmful to you. Weight the risks and make up your own mind.

THE BIOINITIATIVE REPORT 2012

[Anonymous Coward]

THE BIOINITIATIVE REPORT 2012
A Rationale for Biologically-based Public Exposure Standards for Electromagnetic Fields (ELF and RF)

http://www.bioinitiative.org/table-of-contents/

climbers

[CmdrTamale]

The biggest hazard of mobile telephony appears to be climbing the cell towers.
--
On the Internet, everyone's an expert. Right?