Cell Phones can be harmful :(

[Grendeel]

Long term studies are the only real way to determine if cell phones can cause health issues.  The majority of people have denied the correlations, but studies are now coming in with some negative results.  A book was written about it as listed and discussed in this article:

http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2010/10/10/disconnect_cell_phone_interview/index.html


The money quote from the article

She reveals the unsettling fact that many new cellphones now come with the small-print warning that they are to be kept at least one-inch from the ear (presumably for safety reasons) and many insurance companies refuse to insure cellphone companies against health-related claims

When the free market starts acknowledging the issue, you now its a real one

[Docsamson]

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6055PJ20100106

"A study in mice suggests using cellphones may help prevent some of the brain-wasting effects of Alzheimer's disease, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday."

This was using large doses of cellphone radiation over short periods of time, to simulate the accumulated effects of long-term moderate exposure.  I wouldn't take insurance companies refusing to insure cellphone companies for health-related claims as much of a strike, as the entire goal of a private insurance company is to maximize profits.  The best way to do this is to exclude coverage from as many things as possible, even if the actual science behind it is tenuous at best, or falsified at worst.  It's not like any of those companies are really getting a reduction in rate, they're just getting exclusions tacked onto their coverage (and usually rate hikes because they're now a "high risk employer").

[Grendeel]

How do you address the studies and data collected done on humans?   The more a cell phone is used the higher rate of brain cancer occurs...among other findings.   Id tend to put more weight behind human studies than mice.

With respect to the mice study, lets look at kemo therapy.  Targeted over a short period of time it has showed positive effects on cancer, but i think we can safely say, if it was done every day for 20 years, i dont think that would stay as a positive effect.  Its possible targeted short term exposure to electromagnetic waves might be a health benefit, but lets not confuse that with generalized exposure over prolonged periods of time. 

As for insurance companies, the bottom line for them is money.  If something is specifically excluded in coverage, its because it wont make a profit for them.  Presumably the claims to date....or projected claims will be a financial liability.  If it wasnt, they would still be covering it.   So to me that certainly does tell me the insurance companies know there is an issue with cell phones.  Putting warning labels on a product is also confirmation of health issues

Ignore it if you want.  I was just pointing it out cause i have always believed there are issues with cell phones and health.  This book and the studies provide further proof, and as time goes by, imo, it will become even clearer

[Docsamson]

How do you address the studies and data collected done on humans?   The more a cell phone is used the higher rate of brain cancer occurs...among other findings.   Id tend to put more weight behind human studies than mice.

With respect to the mice study, lets look at kemo therapy.  Targeted over a short period of time it has showed positive effects on cancer, but i think we can safely say, if it was done every day for 20 years, i dont think that would stay as a positive effect.  Its possible targeted short term exposure to electromagnetic waves might be a health benefit, but lets not confuse that with generalized exposure over prolonged periods of time. 

As for insurance companies, the bottom line for them is money.  If something is specifically excluded in coverage, its because it wont make a profit for them.  Presumably the claims to date....or projected claims will be a financial liability.  If it wasnt, they would still be covering it.   So to me that certainly does tell me the insurance companies know there is an issue with cell phones.  Putting warning labels on a product is also confirmation of health issues

Ignore it if you want.  I was just pointing it out cause i have always believed there are issues with cell phones and health.  This book and the studies provide further proof, and as time goes by, imo, it will become even clearer

Chemo shows a positive effect on cancer because it kills everything.  If we could deliver pure bleach to the cancer cells with the precision of chemo, it'd have nearly the same effect: killing everything it touches, dangerous or otherwise.  The entire goal of modern chemo is to reduce toxicity while maintaining efficacy.  This is because the toxicity of the chemo itself is the only reason it kills cancer.  For a better comparison of generalized exposure, you'd have to look at something like old-school smoke detectors that used radon, or americium coatings for "glow in the dark" watch faces.

As for insurance exclusions, it's not necessarily because it won't make a profit for them.  They could roll coverage for HIV medication into everybody's insurance, and make a profit.  However, the margins are slim.  It's not always that it won't make a profit, or break even, sometimes it's just because it isn't profitable enough.  This is also the reason why they dig for anything and everything possible to classify as a pre-existing condition:  If it existed before you were covered, and you knew about it, you have to pay them the same premium as everyone else, but they can now exclude a giant range of treatments that would be available to another person who was not aware of the very same condition.

For studies that directly link brain tumor development or promotion to cellphone use, I'd like to see them.  According to the American Cancer Society, the majority of studies done have found no correlation between the two, with the one study that *did* discover one having major issues, namely a large number of their users reporting impossibly high levels of cellphone usage(http://www.cancer.org/Cancer/CancerCauses/OtherCarcinogens/AtHome/cellular-phones).  In addition, the energy put out by the RF waves of a cellphone cannot damage DNA.  This is proven.  Cancer is caused by mutated or damaged DNA.  The current assumption, therefore, is that cellphones cannot cause cancer on their own, as the energy they put out does not trigger the cause of cancer.  Now, this does not rule out the possibility that excessive cellphone usage can promote tumor growth, but the current ever-changing world of cellphones is making data hard to gather.  For example, usage is increasing, but the energy put out by phones is decreasing.  Long-term studies have been done, the largest being a 20-year tracking of 420,000 people in Denmark (which showed no increase in risk of cancer among the heavier cellphone users), but none have been done on children.

Effectively, even if there was a link, it's impossible to prove right now: there is not enough data.  Also, the energy level of cellphone frequencies is the same level as FM radio towers.   You've been absorbing the same equivalence in energy for the past 50 years, orders of magnitudes more if you live near a broadcast tower.

[un4]

I = ^P/_A = ^P/_(4πr²)

Phone|Head
Radio tower                                                                        Head.

[Grendeel]

Heh  Equation looks good Un4 ...no clue what it means though

There is tons of studies done that suggest there is a correlation to cell phone use and brain damage.  Several i found that were even peer reviewed.     The wireless industry flooded the world with studies they did.  Now more independent ones are filtering through and are easily found if one wants to look for them.

Theres even one, done by several people (including ones from cal/Berkeley),  that takes the 13 country data and shows why it proves that there is damage to the brain.  You know, that study where an embargo was placed on the scientists analyzing  the data.   Numerous newspapers got some leaked data and reported the correlation.  Yet when  the embargo was lifted and the final analysis was released, the overall conclusion was that there wasn't a correlation.   Asked about the contradictory data in the study, the response was: (that information had been corrupted, or gathered with bias...or something to that effect).   Funny how the negative data was discredited.  Also funny is that the study was over 1/4 funded by the wireless industry and they got the best possible report possible.


Some of which u can find at these places

http://brain-surgery.us/mobilephone.html

# In 2008 & 2009, with the new availability of longer "followup" data, four independent groups of researchers published peer-reviewed papers supporting the conclusion that prolonged usage of mobile phones can increase the risk of the user developing a brain tumour on the same side of the head as that used for mobile telephony:

    * Peter Kan et al. [USA] in Journal of Neurooncology (2008)
    * Vini Khurana et al. [Australia, Austria & Sweden] in Surgical Neurology (2009)
    * Yueh-Ying Han et al. [USA] in Surgical Neurology (2009)
    * Seung-Kwon Myung et al. [Korea & USA] in Journal of Clinical Oncology (2009).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone_radiation_and_health

The Australian Centre for Radiofrequency Bioeffects Research (ACRBR) which said

Until now there have been concerns that mobile phones were causing increases in brain tumours. Interphone is both large and rigorous enough to address this claim, and it has not provided any convincing scientific evidence of an association between mobile phone use and the development of glioma or meningioma. While the study demonstrates some weak evidence of an association with the highest tenth of cumulative call time (but only in those who started mobile phone use most recently), the authors conclude that biases and errors limit the strength of any conclusions in this group. It now seems clear that if there was an effect of mobile phone use on brain tumour risks in adults, this is likely to be too small to be detectable by even a large multinational study of the size of Interphone

The contradictory analysis of the 13 country study

http://electromagnetichealth.org/electromagnetic-health-blog/risk-of-brain-cancer-from-cell-phone-use-underestimated/

That's just a few and there is plenty more

This world debate reminds me of how the public struggled to get tobacco considered a dangerous product.

[Docsamson]

The real solution here is to get a cell plan with unlimited texting, and become a text monster.  Or use your speakerphone.  The upside with there being far more cellphone users (and towers, as a result) is that call volume per person has actually gone down, while texting has skyrocketed.  People, especially younger users who are more likely to be on their cellphones more often, are switching to texting.  Also, bluetooth headsets are a great option.  Even lower in energy than cellphone frequencies, iirc, and generally better for you.  Personally, I'm still waiting for more conclusive data to throw my lot in with either side, because there is a lot of conflicting data (even from studies not sponsored by cellphone companies), and a lot of the studies done have had some pretty beefy constraints placed on them, as well as amazingly large amounts of radiation.  Some of the areas where they're reporting an increase in tumor possibility revolve around 5+ hours of cellphone use per day, every day, with no speakerphone/headset use.  At that many hours, you should probably be using a headset anyways to prevent permanent damage to your shoulder.

[Oilslick]

Heh  Equation looks good Un4 ...no clue what it means though

Simple really, like pretty much all forms of radiation (whether it be the extremely weak electromagnetic signals from a cell phone or high energy gamma or even worse: neutron radiation) - the amount to which you are exposed falls off as 1 over the distance squared.

Meaning: doubling the distance quarters the exposure.

Most physicists or geneticists that understand physics kind of laugh at these studies though - cell phone radiation is not even close to being at the debroglie wavelengths required to interact negatively on genetic material - and therefore simply cannot cause cancer in the same manner that other forms can.  Other illnesses...possibly...

[un4]

Dingdingding!

Oil wins the Inverse Square Law Identification Prize!

[Grendeel]

As time goes by more and more warnings are starting to emerge.  Now the leading cancer research authority (from WHO) has expressed there concerns.

The world's leading authority on cancer research has declared the radiofrequency electromagnetic fields emitted by devices such as cellphones are possibly carcinogenic, a major step that is raising new questions about cellphone safety.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer, which is part of the World Health Organization, made the announcement on Tuesday after 31 leading experts from 14 countries met in France to review the existing evidence.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health/new-health/conditions/cancer/other-cancers/who-agency-warns-cellphone-use-possibly-carcinogenic/article2041461/

Its hard to dismiss the concerns of so many leading experts from so many different countries.