World Health Organization Says Mobile Phones May Cause Cancer 354
Schiphol writes "A new study by the World Health Organization (WHO) concludes that mobile phone radiation presents a carcinogenic hazard. Are cell phones going to be the new tobacco, then?"
This seems to be a new interpretation of a long-tern WHO study of possible cellphone health risks that had "inconclusive results" last May.
Calm Down, It's Only Group 2B (Score:5, Informative)
I would like to point out that also in Group 2B are Magnetic fields (extremely low frequency), pickled vegetables, coffee, nickel and the occupation of carpentry and joinery. And you know what else? Citrus Red No. 2 which is used to color the oranges you buy in supermarkets.
So they've put it next to coffee, coinage and food coloring. Why doesn't everyone flip out when things like those are added to Group 2B?
Re:Calm Down, It's Only Group 2B (Score:5, Insightful)
Why doesn't everyone flip out when things like those are added to Group 2B?
Because those lack the "radiation boogieman".
Re:Calm Down, It's Only Group 2B (Score:4, Funny)
Banananaaaaaaas are Radioactive! AHHHHHHH! AAAARRRGGHHHHHHH!!!!!
Yup, humans are idiots.
Re:Calm Down, It's Only Group 2B (Score:5, Informative)
That does not make it medicine at all. It is still just a pesticide. Otherwise it could be the safest car too.
DDT is not banned where it is needed for Malaria control. The very treaty that made it illegal in most nations has a health exemption.
The fact that you call people nutcases based on your lack of understanding of the actual situation is why it is most reasonable to call you an asshole. It's a perfectly accurate description of the situation.
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IIRC DDT isn't effective any more in parts of the world because of overuse, even by the mid 50s-60s. Then the bird egg discovery was published and it was game over.
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A lot of things cause cancer that we don't give up. Like flying or living at high elevations. Or breathing. It's just a matter of how big the risk is versus how important the benefit is. If you smoke, you know you're taking a big risk but if it's really important to you, you do it any way. If you breathe, you know you're taking a minor risk, but because it's really ingrained into most of our life-styles, we keep it up.
Re:Calm Down, It's Only Group 2B (Score:4, Informative)
Most of the rat studies have, um, phenomenally low samples. You'd think that with today's technology they could run thousands of experiments for each group (cage, control, exposed). The results are really touch-and-go in all the papers you mentioned. Of course they have statistical validity, but the degree to which they are valid (likelihood of same outcome happening by random) leaves something to be desired IMHO.
Alas, that's not where the main issue is. The main issues I have is with blaming GSM specifically, and are as follows, and if you have any citations that address those I'd love to hear:
1. Did anyone test with continuous, wideband noise with same overall absorption?
2. Did anyone test with wideband noise pulse-modulated to typical GSM envelope?
3. Did anyone test with penetrating longwave infrared radiation (from a laser), at same absorption, running with same GSM envelope?
4. Did anyone consider that the effects may be of thermo-mechanical origin, where the envelope causes repetitive thermal shock?
At this point it's very unclear what is to blame, and at best the results indicate that a whole lot of other research needs to be done.
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Disco Stu would like to know more of this "radiation boogieman".
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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Well, they would be if they were locally produced and harvested at just the right time. But when you factor in harvesting just a little too early, packaging in an inert atmosphere, shipping around the world and then taking another few days to get distributed to the store...
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O tempora, o mores!
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Because They Sell Better and the FDA Allows It (Score:5, Insightful)
Why the fuck do oranges have to be coloured? Are oranges not sufficiently orange?
Because oranges aren't always orange and they have imperfections. Shipping and storing only exacerbates this. But suppliers noticed that people bought more oranges when they looked "pure" orange. And the FDA allowed it [fda.gov] (for whatever reason). Go to an organic food store sometime and look at the produce. You'll think it looks like shit. But it's really just not coated in dye.
Oh, but if the big bad evil government stopped oranges getting coated with food dye then everyone would complain that the nanny state is killing capitalism. So vote with your dollar and be lost in the sea of people who put perception above knowledge.
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What 'knowledge' do you use to tell if an orange is a good one to buy or not? How it feels (perception)? How it smells (perception)? How it looks - bruises, etc (perception)? Or do you just buy any old orange, secure in your knowledge that they are all exactly the same, and there is no such thing as under-ripe, over-ripe, damaged, rotten, etc?
Personally, if given the choice between oranges that are dyed and oranges that cost twice as much because half of them won't be sold, I'll stick with the dye.
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It's not because half won't be sold, but because less (none?) pesticides are used more of the crop is lost. Also, non GMO crops yield less than regular crops. They are more likely to spoil in transit or on shelves. If all farms switched to "organic" (God I hate that term) foods millions more people would starve.
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An under-ripe dyed orange looks like a ripe dyed orange
An over-ripe dyed orange looks like a ripe dyed orange
An bruised dyed orange looks like a ripe dyed orange
I would prefer to buy an orange I can see is ripe, and undamaged ....
Re:Because They Sell Better and the FDA Allows It (Score:4, Informative)
Incorrect. You can not tell ripeness of an orange by it's color. Color is affected mostly by climate. You can tell the ripeness of a picked orange by weight and firmness. Oranges are dyed precisely because people like you think that color actually means something.
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If it wasn't for the dye, would more strongly orange-coloured oranges taste better on the average?
I Can't Believe Your (Lack of) Critical Thinking (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is it that slashdot is all about crowd sourcing things and peer-to-peer distributing the load until it comes to government? Then, suddenly, there's all kind of trust and faith in consolidation of power, authority, (re)distribution of resources, etc..
Why are you trying to pigeonhole a complex and (in most respects diverse) group of people that often exhibits conflicting but strong opinions? I think crowd sourcing is stupid or nothing more than marketing except for very special cases and I strive for a balance of government regulation so that we get the best we can from capitalism while avoiding some of its horrors that used to happen in our country and still happen worldwide.
The fact that there are stores that openly and proudly sells uncolored produce tells me that many consumers know the difference and make a strong choice based upon those differences.
Tell me, right now, how close you live to an organic produce store or farmer's market that sells oranges without dye? And how far do you live from (many) regular orange dying super markets? The "choice" has many dimensions and factors and the way you simplify it down is laughable. Do you step outside and see two identical orange stands in front of your house, one dyed and one uncolored? The fact of the matter is that you are subject to the options of the population around you.
As a person who believes that going against capitalism often has unintended negative consequences
Well, I'm glad that you cling to a generic belief when it comes to policy. For me, it's not so simple and I have to make an effort to become informed and make a rational and logical decision that I hope strikes the right balance between capitalism and government regulation so that the people benefit the most. What "unintended negative consequence" did stopping child labor have? What "unintended negative consequence" did banning CFCs have? Oh, of course, the profit margin of some companies.
, all I really ask to be mandated by government in this kind of case is truth in labeling.
And where does it stop? Hmmmm? Should they have to label how these oranges were delivered so I can calculate my carbon offset? Should they be required to list which country and company provided the harvest of the oranges and what kind of labor was employed? Labels can be just as extreme as regulation, you know. And labeling food can be just as detrimental to the population as a whole. You can effectively inundate a consumer with information on a product to the point that they just don't care anymore. That's just as big a danger as absolutely no label. Do you think the average high school graduate can look at two dietary labels on two competing products and tell you the precise differences those labels mean for their particular diet?
What ever happened to critical thinking?
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This is a bit rantish, but I still wish I had mod points. The people who think unbridled capitalism will solve all problems strike me as perhaps the most naive large segment of the population.
Re:I Can't Believe Your (Lack of) Critical Thinkin (Score:4, Insightful)
Unbridled capitalism leads to companies doing anything they can get away with
Nanny state leads to government making more and more rules for companies to follow
Minimal government means forcing the companies to label properly
i.e. tell you the oranges are covered in dye, and that it is thought to be very low risk possible carcinogen, and leaving you to make up your on mind...
I don't mind if companies sell oranges covered in arsenic as long as they tell you first ...
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Why should I care about the average high school graduate? I can look at the dietary labels and tell you the important differences that pertain to my diet. As far as I'm concerned that's justification enough
But you would complain if the dietary labels would be instead written in some obscure domain-specific language (for example, off the top of my head, actual chemical composition of the incredients, or chemical reactions the ingredients may get involved in). The information would still be true, and complete (and maybe even more accurate than the current dietary labels), but in order to understand the actual effect on you you'd need specialized training or extended study time. Would you accept it's your fault
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Just to nitpick a little, there's nothing saying that producers aren't allowed to label GMOs. Most just choose not to. And we ignorant masses typically don't buy organic because we don't think it's worth the added price or environmental impact.
Re:Because They Sell Better and the FDA Allows It (Score:4, Insightful)
And we ignorant masses typically don't buy organic because we don't think it's worth the added price or environmental impact.
There's also the unsupportability of it. If we all switched to organic, most of us would die of starvation. It's a less effective agricultural technique. Organic food is a luxury item for rich westerners.
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There's also the unsupportability of it. If we all switched to organic, most of us would die of starvation. It's a less effective agricultural technique. Organic food is a luxury item for rich westerners.
The whole concept of "organic" exists only because rich westerners decided to sell the future for cheaper food now. By destroying our topsoil and relying on petroleum-based fertilizers, we've created an unsustainable system. You're simply affirming what the GP said - saving an extra five or ten percent for food is more important than the poisons in the food you feed your family. Further, integrated "organic" systems are much more effective on normal farms.
And before you worry about starvation, the US was [foodproductiondaily.com]
Re:Because They Sell Better and the FDA Allows It (Score:4, Insightful)
People only freak out when they find out what 'food additives' are because they are informed about them in a way designed to make them freak out. It's scare tactics - exactly what has been used to control uninformed populations for centuries. It doesn't matter if it's true or false. Once the scare enters the public consciousness, it's impossible to dislodge.
"Do YOU know what THEY put in YOUR food?"
"Do YOU know how ANIMALS are SLAUGHTERED?"
"Do YOU know that CELL PHONES cause CANCER?"
That's not an invitation to learn more, that's an invitation to your amygdala to go batshit insane.
Re:Because They Sell Better and the FDA Allows It (Score:4, Informative)
paying higher prices for no measurable gain in nutrition or the number of your days left on the planet
Organic Eggs have twice the Omega-3 fatty acid content, three times the Vitamin E and seven times as much beta-carotene. Eggs are food, and the gain in nutrition is measurable. This is based on science, as the diet of the chicken significantly affects the nutrient content in the eggs. Caged chickens are five times more likely to have salmonella infections than organic raised chickens. While it's not a gain in nutrition, per se, it's most definitely going to statistically affect the number of days you have left on the planet.
Regular milk is flash-pasteurized at between 140F - 160F for a short time. Organic milk is pasteurized using UHT (Ultra High Temperature) at 275F. Because of this, organic milk has measurably less bacteria content, and it takes longer to spoil. If you don't believe me, next time you're at the grocery store, compare the expiration dates of the organic milk vs. non-organic. This is not a nutritional consideration, but for me, less trips to the store is a measurable gain.
Because organic raised cattle graze on grass versus grain, the omega-3 fatty acid content of organic beef is significantly higher than beef raised in a CAFO. Grass-fed beef also tastes different in double-blind taste tests, as the composition of the muscle tissue is different. (I didn't say better, I said different.) This makes sense, because they have a different level of physical activity and grow at different rates.
So next time you try to say something, especially if you are chastising someone else for their ignorance, first ask yourself, "Is this just some crap I heard, or does what I'm saying actually have some truth to it."
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You should read up on what they do to other foods. the ONLY place you can get real food is the farmers market from a small grower (not the mexican in his truck with mangoes and kiwi fruit, that's all supermarket seconds) that is foods that are grown locally. Anything else has been processed... yes even the lettuce in winter.
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What I find most interesting, is that Lead, used to shield you from harmful X-rays, is also on that list. This means that you couldn't make some sort of lead shielding to protect you from your mobile phone.
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Why lead? My phones don't emit beta and gamma radiation... Where the hell are you getting your cellphones? The corner dealer in Chernobyl?
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"Why lead? My phones don't emit beta and gamma radiation... Where the hell are you getting your cellphones? The corner dealer in Chernobyl?"
I think you're on to something with the "gamma radiation cellphone" concept. No more signal loss just because you're in the middle of downtown!
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Did you know that America and practically every first world country ships and sells a more dangerous radioactive substance as food? They have much more radiation than coffee, and this substance is even fed to some animals, especially monkeys.
Hint: bananas have more radiation than almost every other food available, yet nobody wants to pull bananas from the market because it's the only good source of potassium.
Double hint: you get the same amount of radiation from a banana by just lying near someone.
Triple h
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Quadruple hint: Taking everything with a grain of salt will increase your sodium intake which is bad, so don't use hints, they will kill you!
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[...]
Hint: bananas have more radiation than almost every other food available, yet nobody wants to pull bananas from the market because it's the only good source of potassium.
Double hint: you get the same amount of radiation from a banana by just lying near someone.
Triple hint: take everything you read with a grain of iodized salt.
FTFY
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Salt may not be highly radioactive, but it does have other health implications. I'd suggest skipping the grain per read item rule. Especially for heavy readers.
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Uhh... on average? probably not ten minutes.
It *is* in a carrier on my belt, though, so while I'm probably safe from brain cancer I'm gonna be needing a new, non-glowing hip at some point.
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So they've put it next to coffee, coinage and food coloring. Why doesn't everyone flip out when things like those are added to Group 2B?
You know what else is in Group 2B?! Gasoline! Gasoline causes cancer! OMG we have to get off gasoline NOW!
Seriously though, the quote I took from that same Wikipedia article was "[...] less than sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals." In other words, if you take "science says it can't prove god exists" as "science says god might exist", then yes the headline is correct.
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"Why doesn't everyone flip out when things like those are added to Group 2B"
Because there is a large group of people who are afraid of science and technology. And they base their knowledge of science on what they learned in 8th grade science class. When they talk about the evils of DDT, and how we didn't know how harmful radiation was when we drop the Atomic bomb to end World War II. So they will go out and protest any technology and use any bit of evidence that it could be harmful to raise their arms us a
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Group 2B [wikipedia.org] simply means "possibly carcinogenic to humans." I would like to point out that also in Group 2B are Magnetic fields (extremely low frequency), pickled vegetables, coffee, nickel and the occupation of carpentry and joinery. And you know what else? Citrus Red No. 2 which is used to color the oranges you buy in supermarkets. So they've put it next to coffee, coinage and food coloring. Why doesn't everyone flip out when things like those are added to Group 2B?
Your post had me feeling good until I clicked on the Group 2B link and saw nasty materials like lead, DDT, heavy hydrocarbons, and hydrazine.
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Why doesn't everyone flip out when things like those are added to Group 2B?
Because the WHO didn't make a big deal about adding those to the list. This is another mostly useless organization throwing FUD around trying to look relevant instead of focusing on the small part of what they do that is actually relevant. Pretty much status quo.
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It's based off yet another metastudy. No new data, the studies, other than the BMJ study that pretty much everyone has problems with, all still show no causal link. I can't quite figure out the WHO's justification on this one.
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No, why? Won't you make this sacrifice? For the science?
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Forgive my ignorance, does lead actually cause cancer? It was my understanding it simply screwed up your nervous system; the wikipedia article on it doesnt mention "cancer" or "carcinogen" once.
So possibly thats a good point to make-- lead is on there, despite not really being recognized as a cancer causer.
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Its to busy being a fatal heavy metal poison to allow you to live long enough to get cancer. But you might get cancer if you survived the fatal dose of lead poisoning? Who knows.
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The difference here is that the frequency put out by a cell phone isn't capable of causing any direct change at a microscopic scale, period. For it to affect anything, you need an antenna of sufficient size and conductivity. And it was a fairly reasonable (though possibly erroneous) assumption that we do not have those naturally occurring in our brains.
The summary is, of course, wrong. (Score:4, Insightful)
Real story: the WHO lacked the guts to put this cellphone nonsense to bed once and for all. Studies that ask people with brain cancers "How much did you use your phone?" are pretty much all they had, and they seem to be the definition of "Confirmation Bias."
In other news, the media fails science forever, but we knew that already.
Re:The summary is, of course, wrong. (Score:5, Informative)
Real story: the WHO lacked the guts to put this cellphone nonsense to bed once and for all. Studies that ask people with brain cancers "How much did you use your phone?" are pretty much all they had, and they seem to be the definition of "Confirmation Bias."
In other news, the media fails science forever, but we knew that already.
I think they did put in a bit more effort than that. low level EMF radiation is not a trivial issue. And if you read the reports instead of concentrating on being shrill they did identify particular groups at risk, such as infants whose parents use cellphone music to keep their toddlers quiet and basically park an active phone next to young developing skulls and brains for hours on end. It also depended a lot on shape, Many flip phones because of their geometry kept the radiating part sufficiently away to be much less a concern, but almsot all smartphones today are unibody designs which means the EMF emitting body and screen is in direct contact with your head.
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Yeah but is there any evidence at all that low level EMF radiation is bad for you or anyone?
Re:The summary is, of course, wrong. (Score:4, Informative)
FTFA:
"This IARC classification does not mean cell phones cause cancer. Under IARC rules, limited evidence from statistical studies can be found even though bias and other data flaws may be the basis for the results."
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If you're going to talk of economic incentives, the telecoms industry has every incentive to make sure we never do definitive research on this question. That is the reason we don't know how dangerous EMR really is. Maybe it's not at all dangerous. We know it depends greatly on frequency and intensity. Gamma rays are very dangerous. X-rays are not as bad, and we actually make use of brief and light exposures to them. Ultraviolet can cause skin cancer. And the part of the spectrum used by cellphones?
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Are you aware that incandescent lightbulbs give off intense radiation between 400 and 700nm, and that often these devices are used in the vicinity of growing infants? And that this radiation is far more energetic than radio emissions? Oh the humanity.
Still noone has offered up any clue as to how this effect could possibly work when the only biological effects of radio emissions seem to be thermal in nature. Not that if we had some brand new study showing a strong correlation that wouldnt be worth looking
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And that's the problem here. What's needed isn't yet another metastudy that provides no new data, and ultimately no new insights. What's needed is research. Come back with possible mechanisms, with some solid evidence that there is a link, and then we can all talk about it.
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Microwaves more dangerous than visible light? (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry, but this is a really dumb remark. Did you ever hear of an "Easy Bake" oven? In fact, visible light can harm you in exactly the same way as microwaves. It is purely a matter of energy and heat dissipation. If I put you in a box with a few thousand watts of visible light, you will be just as cooked as if you were in a microwave oven at the same wattage. There is only one known mechanism whereby electromagnetic radiation of frequency too low to break molecular bonds can cause biological damage, and that is to pump in energy faster than the body can dissipate it as heat. If you do that, you will warm up and eventually cook. Of course, this is entirely irrelevant to the alleged danger of low intensity microwave energy, where the energy flux is far, far below the body's heat dissipation capacity.
Ultraviolet radiation, of course, does have enough photon energy to break molecular bonds, but the energy of microwave photons is orders of magnitude lower. In fact, the energy of a microwave photon is on the same order as the energy of the random Brownian molecular impacts that every molecule of every cell experiences constantly. As a result, it would be a remarkable biological achievement if an organism were to evolve the ability to even detect low intensity microwaves. It would have to have some way of preserving that tiny amount of energy--too small to break any bonds, at most able to jiggle or twist them a bit--and isolate it from the huge background of similar energy Brownian noise, and do so long enough for some protein or other biological molecule to react and trigger the use of biological energy to make some sort of persistent change in the cell.
Meanwhile, of course, despite a huge increase in the use of cell phones, there has been no increase in the overall incidence or death rate of brain cancer.
Remarkable claims require remarkable evidence. In this case we have a remarkable claim, no plausible mechanism, and evidence that can most charitably be termed ambiguous.
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I think they did put in a bit more effort than that. low level EMF radiation is not a trivial issue. And if you read the reports instead of concentrating on being shrill they did identify particular groups at risk, such as infants whose parents use cellphone music to keep their toddlers quiet and basically park an active phone next to young developing skulls and brains for hours on end. It also depended a lot on shape, Many flip phones because of their geometry kept the radiating part sufficiently away to be much less a concern, but almsot all smartphones today are unibody designs which means the EMF emitting body and screen is in direct contact with your head.
All of this is irrelevant, because radio waves are nonionizing radiation.
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Studies that ask people with brain cancers "How much did you use your phone?" are pretty much all they had, and they seem to be the definition of "Confirmation Bias."
Exactly, and if they had asked 10,000 people with colon cancer how much they used THEIR cell phones, the answer would have probably been "all the time". ANYTHING in the environment could be causing brain tumors: TV use, microwave use, silk pillowcases, dandruff shampoo... As I walk and drive around town, I see everyone using cell phones. I use one, all my family and friends use them. So why aren't people dropping dead left and right from brain tumors?
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Microwaves arent terribly likely to cause cancer either. They heat things up, and can potentially cause electric arcing between metals, but theyre certainly not ionizing.
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Therefore toilets cause colon cancer!
100% of all colon cancer victims use a toilet on a daily basis!
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Thank you for bringing that point up in the discussion. Perhaps one reason we're seeing less than the usual scientifically enlightened response in this case (comedians may respond here) is that the "tech-savvy" nerds are higher on the adoption curve for unibody phone designs (including smart phones) and also may consider brain cancer to be one of the types most detrimental to one's perceived chief asset. If so, then it's reasonable to expect that a higher level of fear than usual will be loosed among the
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"The heavy users had double the rate of brain glioma compared to the non-users."
I'm curious about this.
I went to read the ones linked to from the articles in the OP and I think the summary is in fact wrong about it simply being a new interpretation of the study from last may since that was fairly far on the side of there being not much there.
http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/10/05/16/1919224/10-Year-Cell-Phone--Cancer-Study-Is-Inconclusive [slashdot.org]
the actual paper from last may:
http://www.oxfordjournals.org/our_journ [oxfordjournals.org]
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"Lacked the guts" is a charitable way of putting it. The WHO has lied about the statistical significance of e.g. second hand smoking risk in the past. They are likely to be similarly disingenuous in the future.
Awesome.... (Score:2)
This announcement will certainly bring out the paranoid reply of the masses... It doesn't really change what any of us "know" about possible cancer causing effects (or lack thereof). But let's be clear... This means that there is a "possibility" that it could contribute to cancer. The WHO has a whole range of classifications within this category that it still really means nothing.
As an example, other things on this list:
coffee
alcoholic drinks
working the night shift
Also on the list: (Score:3)
FYI: Also on the list:
Coffee
Pickles
What about people with inherent susceptibility? (Score:3)
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If the radiation from phones (or wireless for that matter) are carcinogenic somehow, should we not see a dramatic increase in cancer incidences in people who suffer from broken DNA-repair mechanisms? Is this being observed?
Not to validate the fear-mongering going on here, but your question points out the problem we face exactly.
Perhaps it takes 25 years for cellphone radiation to make any observable changes in somebody's physiology. That would mean that most of the older generation wouldn't even notice a difference in their lives. But it also means that we currently have two entire generations that will all develop brain cancer around age 30. I imagine that would be a touch devastating to the first world countries.
Every ki
Re:What about people with inherent susceptibility? (Score:5, Interesting)
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As far as I understand, you are correct.
I suppose I should have prefaced my argument by saying that it might not even be cancer we need to worry about. We know that cell phone radiation does affect the brain (see: http://slashdot.org/story/06/06/26/1151231/Cell-Phone-Radiation-Excites-the-Brain [slashdot.org]) but we don't know the hows or the whys. Hell, this effect might even be 100% beneficial to humans and have no side effects. It just seems to me that we might be dressing our kids in asbestos clothing; we only kno
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But it also means that we currently have two entire generations that will all develop brain cancer around age 30. I imagine that would be a touch devastating to the first world countries.
Not really. It sounds like a selection process to me. It's easy to fall into the habit of thinking 'fuck off and die' when you see people driving or walking with a cellphone wedged permanently to their face.
There will be a certain amount of satisfaction in seeing cancer wards filled with that sort of people. I wonder if
Re:What about people with inherent susceptibility? (Score:4, Informative)
But that's not how cancers work. Every time you're exposed to a carcinogen, there's a probability that it will cause damage to your DNA relative to its carcinogenic properties. There's a range of damage it can potentially do. There's a chance that the damage will be repaired. There's a chance that the damage won't really amount to anything, but it might also prove to be malignant. Roll all these probabilities together, but wind-up being pretty unlucky, you get life-threatening, malignant cancer. Carcinogens aren't really cumulative-damage sorts of things; you could chain-smoke for 50 years and not get lung cancer (in which case you'd probably be beating the odds in a death-defying manner), or you could possibly be unlucky enough to have some toxic particulate act on your lung tissue and start a cancer from one whiff of secondhand smoke when you're 5 years old. Every single exposure is a roll of the dice, with one of the static multipliers being the exposure's potential for causing damage to DNA. If that probability is "0", it doesn't matter how many times you roll the dice, you cannot get cancer from that exposure, period.
That leaves the only question, "What is the potential mechanism for radio waves to damage DNA?" There could be some element we don't understand, but from what we do understand, there is essentially zero chance that the radio transmitters in mobile phones can damage DNA in the skin of your ears, much less your brain cells. If it *could* be demonstrably proven to cause damage to any DNA, then there might be cause for concern. But there is no evidence at all to support such suppositions.
Use a headset (Score:2, Interesting)
With a little research in to understanding how these devices worked from an electronics perspective I discovered that a mobile phone frequency transmits between 900Mhz and 2400Mhz. A rough calculation revealed th
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Er, what makes you think bluetooth isnt giving radiation as well, or that it doesnt operate in the 2.4ghz range?
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Power levels of bluetooth are 100x lower.
Almost everything "may cause cancer" (Score:2)
If you are going to use that criteria.
Benzene from plastic can maybe cause cancer. (Score:3, Informative)
Polycarbonate, the plastic used in most cellphones, out-gas various chemicals some of which are known carcinogens. These include benzene, toluene, and chlorobenzene. Since you usually hold the phone up to your face I would bet that you breath enough of this in to cause the amount of cancer found in any study. Real research is done with a negative control for a reason. Since, there is so much radio waves all around us, there is no where that you can exist without the presence of them. Not only that, there is no way for any EM of the wavelength (> than 1 M) or frequency to cause damage to any tissue. The microwave frequency can but it's wavelength is 10 cm and only interacts with molecules on the vibrational frequency that gets absorbed and converted into heat.
Science illiteracy at its finest (Score:2, Informative)
Claiming that cell phones can cause cancer is like saying that the wake from a surfboard could capsize a passing supertanker.
(And the orders of magnitude in this analogy are not exaggerated. The long-wavelength photons emitted by cell phones would need to be millions of times more energetic to break a peptide bond.)
Perspective (Score:4, Interesting)
According to the report there was a 40% increased chance of glioma among the heaviest cell phone users. According to wikipedia, glioma affects approximately 2-3 in 100,000 people. That's a 0.0025% chance. A 40% increase means cell phone users now have a 0.0035% chance, or 3-4 out of 100,000. You're still 3 times as likely to get hit by lightning and 250 times as likely to die in a fiery car crash.
Re: (Score:2)
You're still 3 times as likely to get hit by lightning and 250 times as likely to die in a fiery car crash.
Except if you're on the phone while driving.
WHO also says (Score:4, Funny)
That Daleks and Sonic Screwdrivers may cause cancer
In other news... (Score:3)
Way to come out with a definitive conclusion there, WHO.
Summary is hyperbole as usual (Score:2)
The actual article description of "could possibly cause cancer", is very different from "concludes that mobile phone radiation presents a carcinogenic hazard".
As others have mentioned, we do and eat many things that have a higher chance of causing cancer than cell phones such as engine exhaust! Should we go on and ban cars now?
He said she said (Score:2)
FUD (Score:3)
It also says it may NOT be carcinogenic.
All the studies are inconclusive one way or another, but the bulk of studies seem to be against the idea that they are carcinogenic. Limited (I believe ONE) studies did show an increase in a lethal form of brain cancer, but no other studies supported this.
So they are probably not carcinogenic, but the bureaucrats are too testicularly-impaired to actually come out and say that, so they leave it at a "may be harmful" rating the same as a bunch of other meaninglessly-"dangerous" things like copper or being a carpenter.
Tobacco comparisons are way off base (Score:4, Informative)
Are cell phones going to be the new tobacco, then?
No.
Duh.
If cell phones were anywhere near as bad as tobacco - or even anywhere near as bad as the doomsayers insist - then the extensive, large-scale, costly, long-term studies already conducted would have picked up a clear effect already.
Detecting the negative health effects of tobacco was some pretty low-hanging epidemiological fruit. Smokers die between ten and fifteen years younger than their non-smoking peers. Between one half and two thirds will die from a smoking-related illness. Their risk of lung cancer is elevated more than tenfold; about one in six smokers will be killed by it.
For cellular phones, the absolute worst-case scenario is a statistically-significant increase in the risk of certain rare cancers, affecting a minuscule portion of the population. The WHO's caution is based principally on a single study that found a 40% increase in glioma incidence among heavy cell phone users; the WHO report noted that while there is reason for suspicion, chance or coincidence couldn't be ruled out as a cause of the apparent effect.
The incidence of central nervous system tumors is something like 7 per 100,000 population per year; gliomas are about half of that total [wiley.com]. If we assume that the full 40% increase in risk is real and accurate, then we're looking at something like 1 or 2 cases per 100,000 population per year. This isn't the next tobacco. This isn't tobacco's kid brother. This isn't even tobacco's fifth cousin's hamster. Heavy cell phone use is something like a thousand-fold less risky than lighting up.
You're more likely to be killed [purewatergazette.net] by a car (either as a pedestrian or as an occupant), or drowning, or accidental poisoning. You're appreciably more likely to be shot and killed (though slightly less likely to be stabbed to death). Statistically speaking, the average American is quite a bit more likely to deliberately kill himself rather than wait for his cell phone to do it for him.
The most likely way for cell phone use to kill or maim anyone isn't through radiation, but through distracted driving.
Cell phones cannot cause cancer; here's why (Score:3, Informative)
Cell phones cannot cause cancer.
The reason is that the frequencies cell phones use are below the spectrum of ultraviolet light. It is near the spectrum of ultraviolet light where the first ionizing radiation occurs, which is required to be able to cause cancer. Ionizing means that the energy level of the individual photons of the transmission have enough energy to disturb the molecular structure of live cells. Microwave "radiation" (which has absolutely nothing to do with nuclear radiation) is far within the level of the non-ionizing radiation spectrum, so there is no possibility of it having the energy required to cause cancer.
Cell phones use frequencies around 800 MHz to around 2 GHz or so. 3 GHz has an energy level of about 12.4 ueV; ultraviolet light where the first ionizing radiation is possible is around 124ev -- that's a 10 million to one difference in energy level. Have a look at the energy level chart on the right hand side of:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_spectrum [wikipedia.org]
or even better, see page 3 of FCC OET Bulletin 56, which is a Q&A on Biological Effects and Potential Hazards of Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Fields:
http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Engineering_Technology/Documents/bulletins/oet56/oet56e4.pdf [fcc.gov]
People are also afraid of the cell base stations, because they don't know how safe they actually are. The transmitters for these typically send 20 - 40 watts -- that's all. This is then sent through directional "sectored" antennas that typically have 120 degrees of horizontal beam width and only 6 to 15 degrees of vertical beam width; so the three-dimensional antenna pattern is like a 120 degree slice of a pancake, yielding gain of about 13 dBi. This focusing is where the "gain" of antennas comes from -- by focusing where the energy is transmitted.
In the U.S., the standard for specifically what frequencies and power levels are considered safe is the IEEE C95.1 standard, which is unfortunately not freely available, however there's a an overview here: http://www.interferencetechnology.com/uploads/media/AG_07.pdf [interferen...nology.com]
This standard is incredibly long to read, but boils down to this: the only proven effect of microwave radiation in 60 years of research is the effect of microwave heating. No cancer. Further than that, the standard narrows down to the power levels that are safe for various frequency regions concerning microwave heating.
But if you really want something to "bite your teeth on", have a look at the international ICNIRP guidelines: http://www.icnirp.de/documents/emfgdl.pdf [icnirp.de]
Now, if you go through the MATH of how close you have to be to the antennas of a cell tower for it to be "unsafe", the result is pretty interesting:
Spec limit for human-absorbed power per IEEE C95-1 at 900 MHz: 50 Watts/m^2
13 dBi gain = gain of 20
EIRP = 20 W transmitted power * gain of 20 = 400 W
400 W / 4*pi*R^2 = 50 W/m^2
R = 0.636 meters
0.636 meters = 2.09 feet
So at 900 MHz and with a typical transmit power of 20 Watts and a sectored antenna with 13 dBi gain, you need to be 2 feet in front of the antenna while it's transmitting for it to be considered unsafe. This means the only way it's unsafe for a human being is if they're not only on the tower, but right in front of the antenna while it's operating at full power.
The cell phones themselves have a limit on how much power they are allowed to transmit. There are different power limits in various countries; in the U.S. the limit is 1.6 W/kg SAR, in Canada I believe t
But... (Score:4, Funny)
Lead is a possible carcinogen...
Re: (Score:2)
only if you lick it.
Re: (Score:2)
Visible and infra-red light cause more heating, and those are all around us at all times.
Re:Numbers (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, funny how all those useless studies over the last hundred years have nothing to do with the fact that I am able to read your drivel from the other side of the planet within seconds of you hitting the "submit" button - something that was unthinkable at the start of last century.
While the popular press likes to present science as a limited series of earth-shattering breakthroughs, in reality science is built upon thousands and thousands of tiny incremental steps, not all of them in the same direction.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
First Post's cause cancer.
Re: (Score:3)
CRT televisions and computer monitors do emit a small amount of X-rays, and X-rays can cause cancer in large doses. The dose you would get from using a CRT monitor for a year is considered to be negligible [xkcd.com], though.
The ultraviolet portion of sunlight will cause skin cancer if you are in the sun too much.
The effect of electromagnetic radiation on human cells can be different for different wavelengths. One problem is that different cell phone standards use different wavelengths, and research on the health effe
Re:No-Win Scenario (Score:5, Insightful)
Plenty of vaccines and pro-active considerations, no outbreak = vaccines are useless and medicine just a money-grubbing scam
Plenty of vaccines and pro-active considerations, mild outbreak = vaccines clearly didn't do anything, medicine is just a money-grubbing scam
No vaccines, no pro-active considerations, major outbreak = stupid government, why didn't you take pro-active steps to prevent this!?