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Cellphones Do Not Cause Brain Cancer, Says 29-Year Study (gizmodo.com)
A study from Australia reassures us that cellphones are reasonably safe, and do not cause brain cancer. Chris Mills writes from Gizmodo: "The study examines the incidence of brain cancer in the Australian population between 1982 to 2013. The study pitted the prevalence of mobile phones among the population -- starting at 0 percent -- against brain cancer rates, using data from national cancer registration data. The results showed a very slight increase in brain cancer rates among males, but a stable level among females. There were significant increases in over -70s, but began in 1982, before cellphones were even a thing." What makes the study in Australia so authentic compared to other studies conducted in other countries is the fact that all diagnosed cases of cancer have to be registered by law.
how does a slight increase in males mean "cell phones do not cause [correlate] with cancer."
Hypothesis, the study does not distinguish between rocks and stones, which which could have a difference in determining the density of whatever is calcifying inside your skull..
There is no such thing as digital, unless you are talking about quantum mechanics. All digital phones, even digital computers, are fundamentally analog systems. Digital means that you ignore all signal level below a threshold. Something like -55dB/decade.
Photons from microwaves can't ionize matter. This is why ultraviolet photons are so dangerous: they can cause chemical changes in living tissue. Microwaves can't do that it it is silly to worry about it.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
just as correlation do not prove causation, absence of correlation does not rule out causation. so this study proves nothing.
(however we must recognize that burden of proof is with people who claim causation; proof that cellphones cause cancer, of which there is none).
so heading here at present, "Cellphones Do Not Cause Brain Cancer, Says 29-Year Study ", is wrong. heading in linked article "no increase in brain cancer across 29 years of mobile use in Australia" is more correct.
it is inaccuracies like that which open the atmosphere to false claims; for instance, using same sort of fallacy people may claim, that increase in autism in recent years, it is due to cellphones.
one expects /. to be better and more pedantic at these sort of technicalities, we certainly do not expect editors to degrade from the sources, as in this case.
few other questions,
how did they adjust for other factors?
was that unspecified "very slight increase in brain cancer rates among males" due to any subgroup among males ( iow was that increase more than the vague "very slight", with any more specific group)?
Microwaves dont generate that deep. What about ear and skull cancer?
Analog phones had higher peak power (TDMA vs. CDMA anyway), but even digital modulation looks very analog after all the filtering done to stay inside the frequency mask specs.
Man [to friend]: "I always use a Bluetooth headset and keep my phone in my back pocket, to reduce the risk of brain cancer."
[Doctor walks in]
Doctor: "You have butt-cheek cancer."
But feelz can melt steel beams! And there's so many kinds out there these days.
Om, nomnomnom...
Analog phones output at least 4x more radiation and as high as 20x more. I think that counts. My CDMA phone sends about 0.2watt nominal to the antenna. GSM phones output about 1 watts, analog phones are around 4 watts.
Sure, according to your so-called "scientific consensus".
scientific consensus? you can test it yourself in your backyard if you really wish or go to look at any building that has suffered from a sufficiently large enough fire.
Heated steel expands and weakens. Melting isn't necessary to cause structural failure.
Learn to love Alaska
that they sometimes cause stupidity.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
There are people that simply do not understand science and will claim "evidence" to the contrary much like how people will show "evidence" that the moon landings were faked. I don't know what drives people to do these things but it just seems that some people don't want to learn.
A few examples of how people that should know better do not understand radiation. My aunt was a school teacher, someone that people would hope have been educated in some basic science. At a family gathering I was talking with her about my work. I mentioned that my desk is in the same room as the servers and much of the networking equipment for the facility. She asked me if I was worried about the radiation that the equipment gave off.
My sister has an insulin pump to treat her diabetes, this is a very sensitive, expensive, and vital piece of equipment. She is also an educated person and knows with some degree what kinds of equipment might damage this device. She had to go through a TSA checkpoint to board a plane and she asked the agent what kind of radiation the scanner emitted. The agent said there was no radiation. Of course this scanner emitted radiation but my sister knew that one kind of scanner would not harm her insulin pump but another kind just might. She ended up getting in the scanner and the pump survived. Although I saw in the news recently that another diabetic with an insulin pump was not as fortunate. The young lady had her very expensive insulin pump destroyed by the scanner because the agent assured her the scanner was harmless.
We would hope that the people that operate the scanners at airports would be trained by the TSA on how those scanners work and what kind of hazards they pose and do not pose. Which brings to mind something else I read recently, some of these scanners emit X-rays but the people operating them do not take the precautions common to people that operate medical X-ray machines. At a dentists office the technician will leave the room before a very short burst of X-rays are emitted into someone's head. They also take the precaution of putting a lead lined apron on the patient to protect vital organs. I'd like to see the cancer rates of TSA agents after 29 years of operating these X-ray scanners. It is quite possible the X-rays do not penetrate the skin like those used to look at bones and teeth but even so the skin is still exposed since the whole point of these machines is their ability to penetrate clothing. Their skin is still being exposed.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
I'm concerned that in some dodgy situations, the batteries could be carcinogenic, because the batteries might have Colbalt, or other dangerous heavy metals. This seems rather series in situations where the battery comes from a place where maybe the safety and environmental laws are not enforced? The danger from the battery leaking or exploding from over charge?
In my nearly half-century on this planet, I have *never* heard that interpretation of "yak". When it's not the animal, it's always meant talking.
Oh god, maybe it's an age thing, and no one talks like I used to anymore. No one says "daddy-o" anymore, do they???
Mostly random stuff.
After enduring 30 years of ads where the guy is a whiny moron who gets all his problems fixed by the smart, beautiful woman who for some mysterious reason has decided to make him the father of her children, I have no difficulty with dispensing one on the other side:
Perhaps the study would have shown the same slight increase for women, if they had enough grey matter to be affected.
Yes, I've already taken cover. ;-)
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
"causes steel to loose it's strength"
Loose is the opposite of tight. It's means it is.
Nah, 'yak' meaning to vomit is a common one here in Australia. It also means to talk as well, so things can get interesting, but hey, that is why context matters so much.
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Photons from microwaves can't ionize matter. ... it it is silly to worry about it.
There are other ways to foul DNA than ionization. For starters, it is a long molecule with charged regions. One way that you can detect electrocution is that the DNA in the cells has uncoiled and lined up in parallel along where the electric field was oriented. Since the folding and unfolding of DNA is part of the regulation of gene expression that could have non trivial effects. (On the other hand, that's an effect observed when the exposure to electrical activity is extreme, so any effect might be lost due to the death of the affected cells.)
BUT....
A very substantial effect of electrical (and changing magnetic) fields on cells HAS been detected. It is being used therapeutically - on brain cancer - with great success.
You may have noticed that the electrical activity in living cells is almost entirely confined to electrical potentials across membranes and fine-grained patterns of charge on molecules that affect their interactions at close range. There is very little involvement with, or sensitivity to, large-scale fields.
On the other hand, you may ALSO have noticed, in pictures or drawings of cell reproduction, that the mechanism for separating the DNA into two nuclei looks very much like field lines, or the patterns iron filings take up in the presence of a strong magnetic field.
This is apparently because the cells use gross electric fields as part of the mechanism for gene segregation. So any other use of large-scale electrical fields has a strong selection pressure against it - it must both avoid fouling cell reproduction and provide an extreme advantage to offset any problems it does cause. Very few mechanisms have made this cut. Similarly, any other sensitivity to large scale electrical fields must be small, to avoid being fouled in turn by the fields that occur during cell division.
So cells are very insensitive to large-scale electrical fields through them, EXCEPT during cell division. But it turns out that fields - especially those from changing magnetic fields, DO interfere with cell division:
- Sometimes they prevent gene segregation. After a while the cell passes the phase where it would divide, but without dividing - resulting in a diploid cell, which then commits suicide via the apoptosis mechanism.
- Sometimes they result in incorrect segregation, resulting in two progeny cells with the wrong compliment of chromosomes. Then both either die through missing genes or again commit suicide.
Brain nerve cells, along with most of the cells supporting them, are very long lived and rarely reproduce - to the point that for decades it was though that they didn't reproduce at all once the brain was mature. (In fact there is some new nerve growth, which may be involved in learning and mental plasticity. But it is very slow and mostly newly differentiated cells from stem cell lines rather than reproduction of existing nerves.) So the cells of the brain are almost never in the stage where electrical and changing magnetic fields would be an issue.
Cancer cells, on the other hand, reproduce a lot, and spend much of their time in the vulnerable state. So electrical fields that would cause them to die are particularly useful in treating brain cancer, selectively killing the cancer cells while almost never affecting the normal cells with which they are comingled. Electromagnetic coil devices to produce them have recently shown such excellent results in treating inoperable and rapidly fatal brain cancers that the FDA aborted the tests and fast-tracked an approval.
Yes, the individual photons of radio signals are too low energy to ionize most molecules. But they are coherent and their fields add up to enough to have major electromechanical effects. (They COULD also add to produce ionization, especially on structures appropriately sized or massed-and-sprung to resonate, but at the levels involved in a cellphone this
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Oblig SMBC http://smbc-comics.com/index.p...
Yup, autism causes vaccines (and probably better cell phones too).
...
We bathe ourselves in kilowatts of infrared radiation, and apart from heating, we don't worry about our chemistry or cells being changed, so it isn't really an argument about a few watts (at most) from mobile phones.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
While I don't think that cellphones cause cancer, one of the problems with such a large study is that over the years different brands, different frequencies, different telephone companies, and even different protocols would potentially have effectively kept changing the study. For instance the difference between frequency hopping spread spectrum is wildly different than an older analog phone, or even one of the early digital phones. Typically the older ones were just pounding out the power, and holding it steady on a given frequency. But different telcos have different parts of the spectrum. So Telco A might have far fewer customers than Telco B which had the cancer causing frequency. Then Telco B might have quickly jumped to a better technology to compete.
Then you get all kinds of trends. For instance heavy users of cellphones often switched to earpieces of one sort or another, then there are cultural trends such as holding the phone like a blowing on a bowl of soup.
The only way I would begin to accept such a study would be if they kept exposing animals to various types of cellphone transmissions with all the usual control groups and whatnot.
All this study tells me is that the vast majority of cellphone technologies over the years probably don't cause much cancer.
So im guessing you where conceived on top a power station transformer then.
The 'but' section of your post seriously needs to go back from where it came from.
[site]
You know causes brain cancer? Reading texts from people who claim that cell phone surely must cause brain cancer!
Ezekiel 23:20
Furthermore, digital phones simply *have* to consume less bandwidth because modern digital voice can use very efficient compression, and required bandwidth is one the key power indicators for radio communication.
Ezekiel 23:20
Do you mean the thin veiled marketing machine?
Digital means that you ignore all signal level below a threshold. Something like -55dB/decade.
This is how computers measure digital signals but it is not how digital RF systems work. You are right in that digital RF is fundamentally analogue but they do so by measuring differences in a continuously transmitter carrier signal at a specific frequency.
In the early days of mobile phones they were incredibly simple. They used frequency modulation of the carrier where the frequency change from the true carrier was related to the analogue signal on that carrier. Dead simple to decode.
These days RF signals still have the same carrier and they still operate the same fundamental way by altering the phase, frequency or amplitude of the carrier in relation to what is being sent across. The only difference is now this change in carrier is related to zeros and ones rather an analogue audio waveform.
All of this ignores the fact that even early analogue cellphones had a "digital" component which was used to communicate with the base stations. How else would the provider know to which base station to route the phone conversation, and how else would the individual phone itself know the call was for it, and not someone else.
Isn't it a bit like searching for ovarian cancer in men?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
When I was till a student, waiting for a teacher in a lab, I stumbled upon a paper that was showing the changes in the brain with the usage of a cell phone.
Three measurements where showing a cut before, while and after the use of a GSM (I don't recall all the details, it was 15 years ago). It was clear there was an increase in temperature slowly decreasing after use.
In the same period of time, there was this student that was always on the phone. He ended up with a patch of grey hair just around where he put the phone.
I've briefly known that antenna communication amateur in his sixties that told me he stopped because most of the other amateurs he knew got leukemia (because of the power of the antennas ). That one is not about GSM but about the "non-ionizing radiation is OK" I've seen on other reporting of the study.
So you'll forgive me if I'm a bit skeptical about the message "GSM is safe" because a study shows no (significant) increase over background noise of brain cancer.
Irrelevant news and morons using moderation to mod down what they disagree on. 2018 resolution: so long.
I was expecting this one: https://xkcd.com/552/
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Or I need to move to Australia. I guarantee that in Canada among the pot-bellied, yak means to talk.
Mostly random stuff.
I was joking.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Oh just realize that sometimes innovation doesn't mean it is going to be toxic or net bad to the population.
For every DDT they are hundreds of of safe and helpful inventions out there.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Might it not be more accurate to suggest that digital/analog is about interpreting the signal?
The little tiny human inside it would make a secret cellphone call to the tower saying ,"this is phone 4347-43-112-11141-96A, can you please authorize me? Oh hi Charles, how is the family... yeah still working as a cellphone authorization manager, I'll be moving soon this guy is constantly late on his bill so I am guessing he will not need me much longer."
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
You know causes brain cancer? Reading texts from people who claim that cell phone surely must cause brain cancer!
The whole "brain cancer" thing was just using the scariest thing they could dig up. And since UHF radio is not ionizing radiation, it simply wasn't going to cause brain cancer.
That being said, it is possible to have some effects from placing your head in the near field of an RF device. Otherwise microwaves and diathermy wouldn't work. Just not brain cancer - some folks think it might make people temporarily stupid - that's a joke there son....
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
We bathe ourselves in kilowatts of infrared radiation, and apart from heating, we don't worry about our chemistry or cells being changed, ...
That's INCOHERENT infrared radiation - the same incoherent stuff that has been bathing lifeforms since there were single cells exposed to sunlight.
Try it with a kilowatt infrared laser.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
That is untrue. The signal is digital; it's simply encoded in an analog medium.
If I call your mother fat, what is the actual message: the air pressure plotted against time, amplitude of air vibrations plotted against frequency domain, the idea that your matrilinear direct ancestor has excess adipose tissue, or that I hate you?
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
No man. I'm just playing. Making fun of you.
You are welcome on my lawn.
This is how computers measure digital signals but it is not how digital RF systems work.
Except that is exactly how digital RF systems work.
Regardless of how the information is encoded the broadcast RF signal is analog. The "digital" data signal is encoded within the amplitude and frequency of said analog signal.
Re-read the GP's post. He said digital means you ignore a signal below a threshold. That's only how a very small portion of the possible modulation techniques work, and only one of 3 possible ways of encoding RF data.
we already have firm data that cellphones do cause cancer, especially in children. the rates are looking like a three fold increase for children.
also this study is pretty narrow looking only at cancer in their area. we have firm data that cellphone radiation causes a variety of biological health effects including the activation of voltage gated calcium channels, which leads to numerous health problems such as autism, schizophrenia, headaches, anxiety, sleep disturbances, etc. we know DNA is harmed by microwave radiation and the damage sometimes doesn't show until subsequent generations of children. we know melatonin levels are lowered by microwave radiation. we know planet life, birds, and bees are impacted by cellphone, WiFi, and other signals. we know military radar causes cancer increases in those exposed to it.
this study is amongst the worst out there to have such a conclusion.
http://www.oregonstatehospital...
http://www.oregonstatehospital...
http://www.oregonstatehospital...
http://www.oregonstatehospital...
http://www.oregonstatehospital...
http://www.oregonstatehospital...
http://www.oregonstatehospital...
http://www.oregonstatehospital...
I wanted to let you know that we know the biological health effects of radiations, it's been studied. But the best data is classified and companies and doctors don't release the information or talk about it publically, nor does the government or military.
http://www.obamasweapon.com/
CMDA is designed to work with a worse signal to noise ratio than other radio encodings, so it can use less power.
There is no such thing as digital, unless you are talking about quantum mechanics. All digital phones, even digital computers, are fundamentally analog systems. Digital means that you ignore all signal level below a threshold. Something like -55dB/decade.
That's true, but it's irrelevant to the discussion, and you're being pedantic. The cellular companies themselves provided the digital / analog nomenclature to differentiate between the two systems. And in the context of the current discussion, the difference is important.
The average transmitted power of handsets on the old analog cellular networks was far higher than that on handsets using a digital network. And I can attest to the difference. The first cell phone I ever used was analog. When I held it to one ear, in a few minutes I would get an uncomfortable itching sensation that felt like it was inside my head, two or three inches above my eye and slightly to the outside. So I'd change ears, and the sensation would go away - only to come back on the other side a few minutes later. This happened every single time I used the phone for more than a couple of minutes.
When I started using a digital handset, the problem mostly went away. I'd still feel that itch occasionally when using the phone though. And every time it happened, when I looked at the display the phone was in analog mode. Since cell networks abandoned analog mode altogether, I've never again felt that sensation in my head.
No, correlation is not causation, and my experience might be unrelated to the handset transmitter power and the signal's characteristics. Nevertheless, when studying whatever biological effects might arise from close-up exposure to RF fields, average transmitter power has to be considered an important variable, just as dosage would be considered in a drug trial.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
In 1982 virtually no one had cell phones. That's the point. So brain cancer incidence in 1982 would be a useful baseline for comparison with layer years. I didn't have a cell phone until the mid 90s.... And I'm an early adopter.
Only boring people are ever bored.
That's not caused by the Apple. It's just that weird people like Apples, they were already arty farty types who have promiscuous sex.
Technically, that's true: the product selects its audience because the audience selects the product. But, the community also endorses such things, which pushes ordinary users into a culture of emojis, promiscuous anal and bestial sex, and artisanal fast food. Stop the madness!
Cell phone radiation unquestionably was not a factor before 1975, and unquestionably it is rising. My father was at a medical resident's conference in 1950 when they were amazed at this new cancer in a place that wasn't expected to be able to have cancer...lung cancer (everyone was smoking during the conference) and nobody had an idea why there could be all this cancer. I had a residents conference in 1980 when we were finding melanoma in children for the first time. Nobody had much doubt it was because of more sun exposure and more severe sun exposure. There isn't a rise in brain cancer like there were in lung and skin. http://seer.cancer.gov/statfac... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pm... http://www.cancer.gov/research...
Can't possibly be right when compared to a few dozen real believers in an echo chamber.
Just not brain cancer - some folks think it might make people temporarily stupid - that's a joke there son....
And I was ready to make the "Correlation Causation" statement. ;)
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Just not brain cancer - some folks think it might make people temporarily stupid - that's a joke there son....
And I was ready to make the "Correlation Causation" statement. ;)
Indeed. Smartphones don't make people stupid - they just allow stupid people to have access to technology where they can showcase their dumbnitude.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
If they live long enough after getting zapped by 480V, they might get cancer. I wouldn't attribute it to the electrical shock though...
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?