Two Studies Find 'Clear Evidence' That Cellphone Radiation Causes Cancer In Rats (qz.com) 217
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Quartz: [A] pair of studies by the U.S. National Toxicology Program found "clear evidence" that exposure to radiation caused heart tumors in male rats, and found "some evidence" that it caused tumors in the brains of male rats. (Both are positive results; the NTP uses the labels "clear evidence," "some evidence," "equivocal evidence" and "no evidence" when making conclusions.) Tumors were found in the hearts of female rats, too, but they didn't rise to the level of statistical significance and the results were labeled "equivocal;" in other words, the researchers couldn't be sure the radiation is what caused the tumors. The next scientific step will be to determine what this means for humans. The peer-reviewed papers will be passed on to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which is responsible for determining human risk and issuing any guidelines to the public, and the Federal Communications Commission, which develops safety standards for cell phones. The FDA was part of the group of federal agencies who commissioned the studies back in the early 2000s.
Ronald Melnick, the NTP senior toxicologist who designed the studies (and who retired from the agency in 2009), says it's unlikely any future study could conclude with certainty that there is no risk to humans from cell phone use. "I can't see proof of a negative ever arising from future studies," Melnick says. He believes the FDA should put out guidance based on the results of the rat studies. "I would think it would be irresponsible to not put out indications to the public," Melnick says. "Maintain a distance from this device from your children. Don't sleep with your phone near your head. Use wired headsets. This would be something that the agencies could do right now." Quartz notes that when the draft results were published earlier this year, all the results were labeled "equivocal," meaning the study authors felt the data weren't clear enough to determine if the radiation caused the health effects or not. "But the panel of peer reviewers (among them brain and heart pathologists, toxicologists, biostaticians, and engineers) re-evaluated the data and upgraded several of the conclusions to 'some evidence' and 'clear evidence.'"
Ronald Melnick, the NTP senior toxicologist who designed the studies (and who retired from the agency in 2009), says it's unlikely any future study could conclude with certainty that there is no risk to humans from cell phone use. "I can't see proof of a negative ever arising from future studies," Melnick says. He believes the FDA should put out guidance based on the results of the rat studies. "I would think it would be irresponsible to not put out indications to the public," Melnick says. "Maintain a distance from this device from your children. Don't sleep with your phone near your head. Use wired headsets. This would be something that the agencies could do right now." Quartz notes that when the draft results were published earlier this year, all the results were labeled "equivocal," meaning the study authors felt the data weren't clear enough to determine if the radiation caused the health effects or not. "But the panel of peer reviewers (among them brain and heart pathologists, toxicologists, biostaticians, and engineers) re-evaluated the data and upgraded several of the conclusions to 'some evidence' and 'clear evidence.'"
Longer lifespan (Score:5, Interesting)
The summary neglects to mention that the strongest result of the one study was that the rats exposed to microwave radiation had SIGNIFICANTLY longer lifepans than the ones not exposed.
Somehow I would have thought that this result was worth mentioning.
Re: Longer lifespan (Score:2)
Re: Longer lifespan (Score:2, Insightful)
Many rats are bred for getting tumors. There was some anti GMO study where 40% of the control group got cancer and 60% of the experimental group. These were 10 rats each. The stain of rat was for studying cancer but that's because they were bred for getting it often and young. Read further in that paper and the incidence was 100% in both groups just 3 months later but they narrowed the observation window to try to show something when in fact there was nothing.
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Even wild rats are more likely to get tumors on a per cell-year basis than are anthropoids. Elephants are a lot less likely.
Additionally, in order to get results fairly quickly, usually the proposed tumor stimulant is supersaturated in the environment. I didn't check this study, but I doubt that the rats just carried little cell phones around.
OTOH!!! People live a lot longer than rats, so over time they are more likely to develop tumors.
This seems to me to be an important preliminary study. It breaks t
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Ever been to Utah? Ra-di-a-tion. Yes, indeed. You hear the most outrageous lies about it. Half-baked goggle-box do-gooders telling everybody it's bad for you. Pernicious nonsense. Everybody could stand a hundred chest X-rays a year. They ought to have them, too. When they canceled the project it almost did me in. One day my mind was full to bursting. The next day - nothing. Swept away. But I'll show them. I had a lobotomy in the end. Friend of mine had one. Designer of the neutron bomb. You ever hear of the
Re:Longer lifespan (Score:5, Interesting)
The study also neglects to mention if the rats were exposed to human-scaled phones, or, more appropriately in my view, tiny rat-sized ones, with tiny tiny touch sensitive screens and incredibly tiny headphone jacks.
What this study may indicate is that it's bad for humans to be around phones the size of your refrigerator.
Re:Longer lifespan (Score:5, Funny)
"The study also neglects to mention if the rats were exposed to human-scaled phones, or, more appropriately in my view, tiny rat-sized ones, with tiny tiny touch sensitive screens and incredibly tiny headphone jacks."
You show your age, gramps, not even rat-phones have headphone jacks nowadays.
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Not at all. All that matters is exposure. In that regard it doesn't matter how big your cellphone is. A phone next to your test is like a phone next to your head. All that means is of the link is real humans won't get toe cancer from using their cellphones at their head
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
normalized (Score:2)
For a drug it makes sense to normalize by weight. Does it make sense for this test? The radiation probably isn't evenly distributed in normal use. Mostly hands face and pocket areas I would guess.
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Re:Longer lifespan (Score:5, Interesting)
The summary neglects to mention that the strongest result of the one study was that the rats exposed to microwave radiation had SIGNIFICANTLY longer lifespans than the ones not exposed.
Indeed, and it is well known that longer lifespan strongly correlates with more cancer.
The RF radiation probably slightly increases body temperature, which helps fight off infections, leading to longer life, leading to age-related cancer.
Also, dupe [slashdot.org], by the same guy.
Re:Longer lifespan (Score:4, Informative)
That would make sense, actually ...
Radio waves have been used to promote wound healing. It was mentioned in the earlier thread [slashdot.org] discussing the pre-publication draft of this study.
I know of a study [sciencedirect.com] in which simulated cell phones were shown to promote the frequency and growth of tumours in mice that had been deliberately given cancer. That study confirms an earlier study. What would make this more credible is that this group's job in general has been to replicate junk science about RF to prove it wrong.
The point here is that small tumours that have been caused by other sources than cell phones are more likely to survive the onslaught of the body's immune system and be able to grow to become life-threatening.
I'm just posting these here for further discussion. I'm not a physician or biologist myself, and not a kook either. So don't shoot the messenger, OK?! Do let those who are knowledgeable enough to comment something useful comment instead.
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Well, that brings up another point. Most people carry around multiple tumors all the time. Some of them grow a bit, others don't. Only the exceptional one turns cancerous. So the rats developed perceptible (with instruments) tumors...were the tumors dangerous?
OTOH, I continue to avoid ear-buds. I generally assume that even low levels of non-ionizing radiation won't be helpful. Certainly not unless there's a wound to be healed, but my presumption would be that any medical use would need to be carefully
Re: Longer lifespan (Score:2, Interesting)
I work with surgical RF. It works by ohmic resistance heating. Thinking of monopolar as a miniature arc welder isn't far off. It's only reason to be RF frequency is to avoid activating nerves. Pain or muscle. The threshold is about 100 kHz.
Bipolar RF works the same, but more like resistance welding. It doesn't cut except with specialized electrode configurations.
I also develop ultrasonic blades. The ultrasound has nothing to do with the action, just chosen as a frequency you won't hear and get annoye
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Note that they also show the rate of cancer based on the initial population of 90 subjects, regardless of how many died during the study.
For example [nih.gov], there were no heart cancers in the control group after two years, but only 25 of the original 90 rats were still alive. In the group with the highest level of exposure there was 1 cancer in the 60 that survived. Did the radiation cause that cancer? Or does the rate of cancer go up with age? Draw your own conclusions.
Aw jeez, life extension here we come... (Score:2)
Any second now we'll have rich people sleeping in sarcophaguses made of powered-on cell phones, Peter Thiel is probably finishing his up by now...
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The summary neglects to mention that the strongest result of the one study was that the rats exposed to microwave radiation had SIGNIFICANTLY longer lifepans than the ones not exposed..
Perhaps this was because the rats with higher cellphone usage enjoyed higher social status, and therefore better longevity.
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Or idiots.
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Re:DEJA VU (Score:4, Funny)
That's proof that cell phones cause Deja Vu.
Re:DEJA VU (Score:5, Funny)
Yes. There is clear evidence that research causes cancer in rats.
Non-ionizing radiation can be harmful (Score:2)
Just because its ionizing does not mean its not harmful. Otherwise the effect of UV from sunlight would not be harmful. But evidence has shown RF burns to be harmful even though they are not ionizing in nature. The reality is these waves can interact with the body even though its not ionizing. The whole mantra that "if its not ionizing, its safe" is contradicted by numerous studies and evidence and is certainly not based on a good understanding of things.
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> Just because its ionizing does not mean its not harmful. Otherwise the effect of UV from sunlight would not be harmful
1) I think you mean non-ionizing.
2) UV is ionizing radiation.
> The whole mantra that "if its not ionizing, its safe" is contradicted by numerous studies and evidence and is certainly not based on a good understanding of things.
There needs to be some kind of cause for it. We know how ionizing radiation causes cancer: it damages DNA. Non-ionizing radiation is physically incapable of
Re:Non-ionizing radiation can be harmful (Score:4, Informative)
not quite true, heating sufficiently can break chemical bonds. For example, a well known consequence of working around military radar equipment is higher than average rate of tumors in eye and testicles.
Cell phones obviously can heat tissue, a little.
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There was actually an accident in the early 90s when a group of (american) soldiers where killed by a wrong configured radar system. Don't find a link for that, but I found this: https://www.independent.co.uk/... [independent.co.uk]
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So hot tubs cause cancer now... Oh no...
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If you swallow an entire hot tub's worth of water, you may drown.
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Wasn't there a 'study' a while ago linking hot drinks to cancer?
I'm not sure why you've put 'quotes' around the word study, but the answer is, partially, yes. Drinking very hot tea has been shown [bmj.com] to marginally increase incidence of oesophageal cancers, albeit only in smokers or people who regularly drink alcohol.
So if you swallow the water, a hot tub 'may cause cancer'... doubly so if you fill it with coffee...
Only if you're smoking and/or drinking whilst in the tub, or if your tub is located in California [slashdot.org] ...
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So hot tubs cause cancer now
How many hours/day would you say you walk around with a hot tub in your pocket ?
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So hot tubs cause cancer now
How many hours/day would you say you walk around with a hot tub in your pocket ?
I've been accused of having hot tub in my pocket when I was just happy to see someone.
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Hot tubs kill people via hundreds of actual vectors none of which are cancer.
My damn hot tub has never killed anybody. My gun is sitting on the table in the same room as the hot tub and it has never killed anybody, either.
I assume they are keeping a murderous eye on each other!
Re: Non-ionizing radiation can be harmful (Score:2)
not quite true, heating sufficiently can break chemical bonds.
If you are being heated enough to break chemical bonds, cancer is going to be the least of your concerns.
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But that is exactly what is happening in radar installation technicians, the organs without large internal blood movement for cooling, e.g. eyballs, become more susceptible to tumors and cancer and it is do to heating
Re: Non-ionizing radiation can be harmful (Score:2)
But that is exactly what is happening in radar installation technicians, the organs without large internal blood movement for cooling, e.g. eyballs, become more susceptible to tumors and cancer and it is do to heating
[Citation needed]
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no amount of cell phone exposure will add heat faster than normal heat loss occurs
...or anything like the amount caused by going outdoors in the sun.
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Cancer can be caused by agents that don't cause DNA damage directly. For example, agents that interfere with DNA repair, increase permeability to toxic substances, or cause an inflammatory response all can cause cancer. Microwave radiation can potentially do all of those by interfering with enzyme activity or membrane functions.
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Chemical bonds are already vibrating aggressively. Adding more energy to them causes a change of state, not a change of structure. The point at which you're breaking apart chemical bonds occurs in plasma, which requires temperature and pressure not very different than the sun.
You can make structures more susceptible to damage by heating them, but by the time your DNA is that hot you're already dead.
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Chemicla bbonds break up all ghe time, no extraordinary heat, aka plasma, required.
Go back to school.
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Yeah, ionic ones. Covalent bonds (like the ones found in DNA) don't break up without undergoing chemical reaction.
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Just because its ionizing does not mean its not harmful. Otherwise the effect of UV from sunlight would not be harmful.
A portion of the UV from sunlight is ionizing, and a portion thereof is not absorbed by the atmosphere.
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The body needs a certain amount of sunlight to function properly. Vitamins, psyche etc.
And an adult can drown in just a few inches of water. As usual, it's about proportion.
All EM Waves Interact (Score:3)
The reality is these waves can interact with the body even though its not ionizing.
Any EM wave will interact with the body because, being made of matter, a human body consists of charged particles. That is not the issue, the issue is whether this interaction is dangerous. The problem is that, as yet, there is no understood mechanism as to how EM waves which have too little energy to break chemical bonds could cause cancer and without this the warning that "correlation does not imply causation" is very important to remember.
This certainly seems to be interesting but medical research ha
Re:All EM Waves Interact (Score:4, Interesting)
Simply probability outcomes like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]. You alter one of those pegs and the outcome alters. Cell division is not like making a cheese sandwich, that outcome counting millions of moleculeshttps://michaelgr.wordpress.com/2008/04/06/how-many-atoms-to-encode-the-human-genome/ in the correct sequence, must replicate in the correct sequence, otherwise bad things might happen, dependent upon which part of the sequence was in error.
So damage could be routine but the bit of DNA damage is the bit that defines the shape of you nose, buried in DNA in bit of skin in your big toe and you toe does not care what the DNA instructions are for your nose. The more damage, the more pegs altered, the more likely a specific range of DNA damage is going to occur, the ones which prevent bad cell death (dysfunctional cells should self destruct) and allow unhindered cell replication (instead of just replacing a dying cell breeding out of control, sort of like those crazy religious sects, hmm, is that why they call them a cancer on human society) and of course not be rejected by the immune system (too much DNA damage and the cell no longer recognised).
In fact every single rat could have suffered genetic damage just that the cells died, the cells did not reproduce, the cells were eaten by the immune system, the damage did not impact the functionality of that cell (watch out though more errors can accumulate). The older the more likely as basically you keep rolling dice and eventually you get bad numbers. Alter the dice, induce a bias for negative outcomes and you will likely get negative outcomes sooner. Yep, cell replication is the trigger for cancer and lots of stuff can alter that probability outcome, the more antagonists to successful cell replication, the sooner you get a negative outcome.
Suck it up baby, life itself is a dice roll or at least a random variability outcome during cell reproduction, sometimes shit happens. You strive to improve those odds, rather than making them worse.
Not Enough Energy (Score:2)
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It is possible that the radio waves do not actually cause cancer, but that they just promote the growth of existing cancer, or interfere with the mechanisms that would normally kill it.
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That is the definition of ionizing radiation. RF radiation can't selectively knock apart the atoms in molecules until it reach a certain quantum energy level. Below that level, all the radiation does (if absorbed) is heat up the molecules (makes the atoms vibrate faster). Radiation which can knock apart atoms is called ionizing radiation. Radiation which cannot is called non-ionizing.
The boundary betwee
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You are only consider stable cell state, how about cell division state, where the cell is dividing at a molecular level, you are adding energy to that and it is happening all of the time, hence probability outcomes catch up to you. Disrupt that molecular cell division and replication and you are rolling the die, just suck it up, happen at any time from any damage, some acts produce more risk than others, the fewer risks you take the better your probability outcomes of successful molecular cell division and
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But they don't have to little energy to break chemical bonds, how did you come to that idea?
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But they don't have to little energy to break chemical bonds, how did you come to that idea?
If radio waves had enough energy to break the chemical bonds in our bodies then exposure to visible light or infrared radiation, both of which have more energy than radio, would do the same only more-so making visible light and room temperature deadly to us.
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Radio waves penetrate deeper, though.
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then exposure to visible light or infrared radiation, both of which have more energy than radio, would do the same
Yes, exactly. And IR and UV exactly do that. Never had a sun burn? Never heard about skin cancer?
UV and IR are NOT visible light! (Score:2)
Yes, exactly. And IR and UV exactly do that.
Which is why I said visible light. Indeed UV, not IR, has enough energy to break bonds that causes the damage. This is why you do not get sunburn from a regular light bulb and why there is no known mechanism for radio waves to give you cancer.
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Radio waves is "everything".
UV light is a radio wave ...
Most radar systems work in spectrums that can give you cancer.
There are thousands of cases reported.
The wave length of mobile phone is in the micro wave range: that can cause cancer.
Actually the article you comment on is about a cancer study wich confirms that phone radio waves can cause cancer, you probably missed that.
Re: Non-ionizing radiation can be harmful (Score:3)
In fact I am assured that my comment, that a superset beyond already-proven carcinogens in our scientific knowledge base will in fact be proven harmful to human life in my lifetime, is true. I only need one.
Well, yes, you only need one, because you're not saying anything of value. Your claim is "there's something dangerous out there", and the response to that is "yeah, no shit". Come back when you figure out which things are dangerous and can prove it.
Now the World (Score:2)
Can you imagine the world wide withdrawal epidemic
Just my 2 cents
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Just wait until someone notices how much worse AM and FM radio bands are for you.
Who's the asshole (Score:4, Funny)
who keeps buying cell phones for rats!?
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who keeps buying cell phones for rats!?
I believe an Ig Nobel was awarded for a paper proving that research scientist are the leading cause of cancer in rats.
The article doesn't seem to say where this research was performed, but I am guessing California.
Lots of stuff causes cancer in California, but doesn't cause cancer elsewhere. There must be some unknown secondary environmental cause in California. What does California have, that other places don't . . . ?
Getting back to humans . . . the Nordic countries have been using cell phones for th
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Have to compensate for Chernobyl first, radioactive and poisonous particles rained down over large parts of Scandinavia.
Surströmming probably compensates for both radioactive and active radio effects, IF one can stand the stench and taste. Not rotten BTW.
A perfect example of quack science... (Score:3, Insightful)
This is how we know cell phones are safe: they emit the radio energy of a standard flashlight, 0.6 watts to 3 watts. Radio towers, buried in the heart of cities, emit up to 50,000 watts. Even miles away, that's vastly more photons going through your body. And there is absolutely no indication whatsoever of any increase in cancer around such radio towers as you live nearer to them.
The same thing goes for cell-phone towers, which emit a minimum of 500 watts, and can go up to thousands of watts of radio waves to reach your little phone. Absolutely zero evidence whatsoever of any increased cancer risk.
Long term epidemiological studies have shown that non-ionizing radiation has no observable health hazard. It makes perfect sense why. The tiny amount of interactions warm the body to such a small degree, you get ten thousand times the warming effect in a hot shower. (Need I mention natural ground radiation, which actually can do chromosomal damage?)
I can understand why non-scientific BS might be acceptable on Pinterest. But slashdot? What has this site become? News for Luddites?
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" Radio towers, buried in the heart of cities, emit up to 50,000 watts. Even miles away"
May I introduce you to the concept of the near field vs the far field? In the near-field, you can get much much higher electric field gradients even with a few watts of power if you're less than a wavelength away.
Picture it this way: that's the area where your "photon" is still being "built" out of an electric and magnetic field, and is still being adapted to the impedance of free air.
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The cancer risk of pointing a "standard 3 watt" flashlight at your face at close range year after year for hours per day hasn't really been carefully evaluated yet either, you know.
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But did they really play tag or just a simplified version of it?
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Also, I strongly advise against you gambling anything important on that whole "proximity to broadcast radio towers never impacted cancer statistics" fantasy.
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Ducks quack too, that doesn't make them Luddites. (Score:4, Insightful)
Every time this subject comes up, somebody says the same foolish things. Looking at studies like this does not make one a Luddite. On the contrary, it seems that there are those with a rabid zealous passion to defend the technology whatever the cost, science be damned.
First common mistake - "blah blah blah, it's not ionizing". True. High frequency, high energy bands, UV and gamma, cause ionization and they damage DNA and cause cancer. Radar, radio, mm - they are not ionizing, but they do have other effects on cells. Mechanisms at the cytosolic, nucleosomic, and cytoskeletal levels are not well characterized, but the gross effects are well known, even used therapeutically and as research tools on cell cultures. There are many causes of malignant transformation in cells, including non-biological vectors such as chemicals and even direct physical energy transfer (trauma - momentum & kinetic energy). Low frequency EM might not be unequivocally proven to cause cancer, but it does unequivocally stimulate cell proliferation and migration, necessary prodromes of malignant transformation.
Two - do the math. Remember, the inverse square law. Watts by themselves do not mean much. Field or flux must be known. So, using your examples, and knowing that surface of a sphere is 4 x pi x r-squared, and doing some rough rounded off calculations:
Cell phone, 0.6 watts at your ear, 4 inches or 10 cm from center of your brain - that is a flux of about 0.6 w / 1200 cm-sq = 0.0005 or half a milliwatt per cm-sq.
Radio tower, 50K watts 500 feet away from your house (in which is the center of your brain) - that is a flux of about 50K w / 2.7B cm-sq = 0.00002 milliwatt per cm-sq.
You cell phone thus has about 25 times more exposure per given time than that radio tower.
If you spent one hour talking on your cell phone, it would impart the same energy exposure to your pituitary or pons as living 500 feet away from the tower for a whole day.
"Long term epidemiological studies have shown that non-ionizing radiation has no observable health hazard . . ." You might be correct about that, and that ultimately is what matters for public health, but that does not negate that there are biological effects of radio frequency. Hot water burns and can kill, but that does not mean we shoudn't have hot water heaters and take baths or cook food. It just means that hot water at home must be used responsibly and safely. That is what research like this ultimately gets at. Do not derogate something as "quack science" until you actually know the full "spectrum" of the science.
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True, fair enough, well said.
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Memo to Luddites: Don't go around hugging and licking high-power broadcast antennas, and you'll probably not have a 'shorter lifespan'.
Re: A perfect example of quack science... (Score:2)
I dunno about you, but photons do not go through my body, as my body is not made of air, nor of clear glass
All electromagnetic energy is composed of photons. You didn't tell is what your body IS made of but it doesn't really matter much.
Hm... (Score:4, Insightful)
Looking at the data they released, I think the "equivocal" conclusion was more honest. It doesn't look like the tumor incidence results would survive correction for multiple comparisons.
The findings that do look like they remain significant are that the male rats exposed to RF survived longer. It doesn't appear that the study was long enough to see significance in the female rats, but they were also showing that tendency.
The tumor results are complicated by that longer survival as well. They don't look like they were corrected for that effect.
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What they found was that rats who live longer have more cancer.
Fancy that.
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But the majority of the examples I saw showed fewer rats with tumors at 6W of exposure than at 0W. The numbers were all pretty small, and the total number of male rats (the one study I looked at) was something like ~100.
In virtually no tumor example did the # of tumors go up with the radiation exposure.
Old news ... (Score:2)
We know that since around 1994 ...
The bad news? (Score:3)
I can't afford a friends and family account for all the rats around my neighborhood. /s
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Re: The bad news? (Score:2)
I can't afford a friends and family account for all the rats around my neighborhood
They should qualify for the federal broadband subsidy program, so that should being the price down to a manageable level. Just make sure to get them to sign the petition against having the FCC revoke the subsidy.
Easy fix (Score:2)
Simple, stop putting rats in your pockets.
"Cell phone"? Bluetooth? Wifi? 2.4ghz? 5ghz? (Score:5, Interesting)
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2 feet from your brain for 8 hours a night, then add on the hours it is within a feet of your brain per day.
Good news: you wont see it coming.
The rats don't need 8 hours of sleep. They drink a lot of coffee.
5W/kg ? (Score:2)
They were testing with 5W per kg of rat/mice for 9 hours a day. This means 250-500W strong mobile phone for human. Is it realistic?
Dupe (Score:2)
We already talked about this last month [slashdot.org]
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Yes, but the previous time the discussion was premature as it was in reference to a draft of the report of the study that somehow had been leaked to alarmist media.
Until the next study comes out (Score:2)
Don't
Do
Don't
Do
Don't
Do
Rabbit Season
Duck Season!
*KABLAM!*
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
I know I know (Score:2)
Of course there's evidence of a link. (Score:2)
There's always evidence on both sides of a question in science, particularly when it comes to yes/no questions about the behavior of complex systems.
The Sherlock Holmes model of knowledge where all the clues fall into a perfect pattern with no contradictions or loose ends is a myth -- or at very least an exaggeration. Real life is like a jigsaw puzzle where there are always pieces that don't fit anywhere, don't seem right, or are missing altogether.
And that's not even counting the effects of *chance*. 5%
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proof of a negative (Score:2)
>> "I can't see proof of a negative ever arising from future studies," Melnick says.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence
How? (Score:2)
By what biological mechanism?
THAT is what we fund these things for.
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No, we don't understand the mechanism of many poisons but still can provably show such are harmful with controlled experiment.
We might find RF harmful without understanding the mechanism by controlled experiments.
Favorite Defense of NIMBY (Score:2)
What about thermal radiation inside the body? (Score:2)
If a human body radiates like a blackbody radiator at the skin temperature, 30-35 degrees Celsius, doesn't the molecules deeper inside our bodies in a 37 degrees environment, emit and absorb copious amounts of radiation?
Blackbody radiation has a long and fat tail in the region of lower frequencies than the frequency of maximium intensity. Does not our body already bath in a continuous radiati
Awright, That's It!!! (Score:2)
Since there is no 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear cell phones, you must turn all of your cell phones in by the end of the day. Cell towers will all be deactivated at midnight. Further, wifi will be outlawed, and all those methods of connecting computers will be required to use ethernet cables forthwith. We can't have this public health menace killing millions on a regular basis, we must act. We're going back to land lines and other wire-based solutions where these signals don't radiate through ou
Cellphone Radiation Causes Cancer In Rats (Score:2)
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Failed what? To work? To limit transmit power to a more or less arbitrary value?
Your idea of confirmation is weird unless CBC did a large scale long time screening for cancer in rats exposed to radio waves.
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Also: correlation does not not equal causation.