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Don't Keep Cellphones Next To Your Body, California Health Department Warns (techcrunch.com)

The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) issued a warning against the hazards of cellphone radiation this week. They are asking people to decrease their use of these devices and suggest keeping your distance when possible. TechCrunch reports: The warning comes after findings were offered up this week from a 2009 department document, which was published after an order from the Sacramento Superior Court. A year ago, UC Berkeley professor Joel Moskowitz initiated a lawsuit to get the department to release the findings after he started looking into whether mobile phone use increased the risk of tumors. A draft of the document was released in March, but the final release is more extensive.

According to the Federal Communication Commission's website, there is no national standard developed for safety limits. However, the agency requires cell phone manufacturers to ensure all phones comply with "objective limits for safe exposure." The CDPH recommends not keeping your phone in your pocket, not putting it up to your ear for a prolonged amount of time, keeping use low if there are two bars or less, not sleeping near it at night and to be aware that if you are in a fast-moving car, bus or train, your phone will emit more RF energy to maintain the connection.

10 of 344 comments (clear)

  1. So, in my pocket, next to my three boys, not good? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    where then?

  2. Re:Not gonna happen. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    In your European man purse.

  3. Re:The Battery has Colbalt in it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    What else are you going to eat? It's not like you can afford food after buying an iphone.

  4. Radiation inverse-square law by Max_W · · Score: 5, Informative

    The intensity of radiation passing through any unit area is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the point source. It is the fundamental law of the universe, and It is valid for any radiation, including electromagnetic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    Practically it means, that even a small increase in distance decreases the radiation dramatically. So putting a smartphone into a backpack, or on a windowsill, away from the bed, decreases the radiation probably by several orders of magnitude.

    In even simpler words, - do not keep radiating devices, like a smartphone, router, etc., too close to a place were you sit or sleep.

  5. WHO says no by De_Boswachter · · Score: 5, Informative

    Over the past 15 years, studies examining a potential relationship between RF transmitters and cancer have been published. These studies have not provided evidence that RF exposure from the transmitters increases the risk of cancer. Likewise, long-term animal studies have not established an increased risk of cancer from exposure to RF fields, even at levels that are much higher than produced by base stations and wireless networks.

    http://www.who.int/peh-emf/pub...

  6. Re:Not gonna happen. by drinkypoo · · Score: 5, Funny

    If I carry a shopping bag, it's a thin one that wads up and goes in my pocket. I don't want to be carrying items in my hands if I can avoid it. That's why I was born with a penis... so my clothes would have pockets.

    I don't want kids, so I just keep my cellphone in my front pants pocket. Kill two stones with one bird.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  7. When future generations look back... by CODiNE · · Score: 5, Funny

    recommends not keeping your phone in your pocket

    The wisest among us were known for holding their phones at a distance using so called "selfie sticks". While at first derided by others, their intelligence evidenced by longer lifespans and lack of serious illnesses lead to a beautiful society blessed with their fabulous rulership.

    This is why my son, we must always photograph our food before first eating, to share the joy of our blessed nonnoms with the world and more importantly our esteemed ancestors in the cloud.

    --
    Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
  8. It's not a warning by pots · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It is alarmist in a nebulous sense, but it's not a warning. There aren't any actual claims about negative impacts to your health, just a bunch of bullshit about what may happen, or what some people believe. The actual title is, "CDPH Issues Guidelines on How to Reduce Exposure to Radio Frequency Energy from Cell Phones."

    The closest thing to a solid claim that it makes is: "Although the scientific community has not reached a consensus on the risks of cell phone use, research suggests long-term, high use may impact human health." Claiming that the scientific community has not reached a consensus on this seems like an outright falsehood, but I suppose that as long as there's one holdout then you can say that it's not a real consensus.

  9. Re:Telephones by Junta · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The problem is that strategy causes no one to take California's concerns remotely seriously.

    For example, prop 65 warnings are on everything and everywhere:

    https://media.licdn.com/mpr/mp...

    It has no teeth because pretty much everything has that label. Many companies add the label as a matter of course, even if they don't have any of the relevant chemicals in some products because it's easier to apply the label to everything than keep track of whether they need to or not. Additionally, some of the chemicals on the list are about as likely to cause cancer as non-ionizing radiation.

    Heck even contact with most shipping pallets can cause a package to be contaminated with formaldehyde enough to be detected in some of the tests, so a company without a warning could be at risk from that despite it being a shipping company's fault.

    --
    XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
  10. Re:No radiation risk by rl117 · · Score: 5, Informative

    The L and S bands used for mobile communications are classed as microwaves. But it's not really that important. Both microwaves and lower frequency RF are energy inputs which can impart energy (heating) to a system even if the precise mechanisms differ. What about second- and third-order harmonic generation in ordered structures such as collagen connective tissue in the skin? When you have a transmitter sitting still in close proximity to the body, it's important to consider the effects it might have. Just like you get a hotspot in the centre of a microwave even with a stirrer, is there a focus adjacent to the phone antenna? Also note that even if the chances of disregulation are exceedingly unlikely, it only needs to happen once in a single cell. And while I'm no genius, I do have a PhD and spent some time working on cancer-related projects in a pharma company; I'm not stupid as you claim. General heating doesn't cause much damage; the body can detect it and respond with heat-shock proteins to cope. But what about sustained and highly-localised energy inputs? Is it sufficient to unfold or permanently denature some critical regulatory protein? Terahertz radiation can unwind DNA, as can raising the temperature; the helix is stabilised primarily through dipole interactions and it's easy to disrupt (see: PCR). Can that also extend to repressed genes in heterochromatin? It isn't stupid to ask such questions, though it's very hard to answer them experimentally.