Slashdot Mirror
California Government On the Dangers of Cellphones (cbslocal.com)
mi quotes a report from CBS Local: After keeping it hidden for years, California's Department of Public Health has released a draft document outlining health officials' concerns about cellphone radiation exposure. The previously unpublished document was released this week after a judge indicated she would order the documents be disclosed. Health officials' overall recommendation is to "increase the distance between you and your phone" by using a headset, the speaker phone function and text messaging. Health officials recommend not sleeping near your phone and not carry it in your pocket or directly on your body, unless it is off. The fact sheet also states that "EMFs can pass deeper into a child's brain than and adult's" so suggests parents limit their child's cellphone use to texting, important call and emergencies.
I don't care who you are, this is funny.
The takeaway is that I don't care who you are.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
The tissues do get warmer according to some studies with heavy use in areas with bad cell reception (equals maximum handset power), but whether that is harmful within the recommended maximum power limits of 2 watts, that is the question.
On the other hand:
The WHO/International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has classified radio-frequency electromagnetic fields as possibly carcinogenic to humans (Group 2B), based on an increased risk for glioma, a malignant type of brain cancer, associated with wireless phone use.
-- http://www.iarc.fr/en/media-ce...
If scientific bodies are still not on the same page, what can we expect of laypeople?
Several years ago, the IEEE Spectrum had a big article in which they tried to find the best current evidence on whether cell phones emitted harmful radiation. So they reviewed all the major studies.
They had 2 interesting results:
1. In the best evidence for the harms of EMF, the radiation wasn't steady over long periods of time, but intermittent, with exposures of minutes to hours every day.
2. Studies of household radiation found the highest levels of EMFs from 2 sources: hair dryers and blenders.
So if you're really worried about EMFs, you should get rid of hair dryers and blenders.
I showed the IEEE Spectrum issue to Louis Slesin, the editor of Microwave News, and asked him about it. He refused to comment. I said, why not? He said, I just don't want to comment.
That's a fair point. Just remember, according to that classification system cellphones are in the same group as Carpentry and Joinery (p.7).
Granted, I cherry picked that from the list but the reason for a 2B designation is that they don't have the statistical power from their study to rule it out as a cause of gliomas, which means that the incidence is very low in exposed vs. unexposed populations. I think it's safe to say that as long as laypeople are okay with living in a house made of carpentry then they should be okay with using a cell phone.