Study Shows Cell Phones Safe 210
PreacherTom writes "In a move worthy of the Mythbusters, scientists in Denmark tracked over 420,000 cell phone users over the course of 21 years in an attempt to determine if the urban legend that cell phone use causes cancer is true. Their results: the RF energy produced by the phones did not correlate to an increased incidence of the disease. Please note that this doesn't make chatting on the highway at 85 mph any more safe." From the article: 'This so-called Danish cohort "is probably the strongest study out there because of the outstanding registries they keep,' said Joshua Muscat of Pennsylvania State University, who also has studied cell phones and cancer. 'As the body of evidence accumulates, people can become more reassured that these devices are safe, but the final word is not there yet,' Muscat added."
They didnt let the facts get in the way before, (Score:5, Interesting)
_other_ parts of the body (Score:4, Interesting)
Evil Cancer Death Radiation! (Score:3, Interesting)
and other bullshit.
People want to believe in this stuff cause it sounds dangerous. Advocacy groups get funding, lawyers make money, politicians can scare people. Who's gonna listen to a bunch of boring Danish statistics?
Even the WHO subscribes to the 'precautionary principle'. Forget about it - its all futile! [webhotel.tut.fi]
Mythbusters == science (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Stupid (Score:3, Interesting)
"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen"
-- Albert Einstein
Re:Sweet Bleeding Jesus! (Score:3, Interesting)
You are right to be frustrated by the kind of reasoning that the OP was using, but not because it's impossible to prove a negative, but because it is impossible to completely prove anything so broad as 'Mobile phones do not cause cancer'. The article talks about taking the best bet, which is just looking at the evidence which is of course what everyone does every day with just about every action.
Pedantry regarding provability is pointless. And that sentence was quite nicely alliterative:)
Questions Safe = Follow People Not Money (Score:1, Interesting)
Understanding the workings of this digital octopus starts with Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association who hired former Rep. Steve Largent (R) of Oklahoma as its president during 2003.
We've all heard the phrase "follow the money" if one wants to learn something, but in this case, we'll follow the Politician.
Steve Largent
1996 - Bob Barr (R-GA) and Steve Largent (R-OK) introduce Anti-Gay / Lesbian H.R. 3396, "Defense of Marriage Act,"
1998 - Congress Drops Anti-Gay/Lesbian "Largent Amendment", sponsored by Oklahoma Republican Steve Largent
1999 - Both the honorable Steve Largent (R. OK), and James Inhofe (R. OK), refuse to answer questions in relation to US military activities within the southern Mexican State of Chiapas. According to a representative of the local district office of Rep. Steve Largent, Mr Joe Adams, had stated in a hand written response, that the information you had requested in relation to subject is classified, and cannot be answered by our office.-see letter to Shawn Garner. Questions sent to Steve Largent, and James Inhofe:
1. who are the drug cartels within the southern Mexican state of Chiapas?
2. How many tons of cocaine and heroin have been confiscated and destroyed within the southern Mexican state of Chiapas?
3. Who are the US backed paramilitaries within the southern Mexican state of Chiapas?
4. How much funding do they get from the federal government?
5. How many members of the SOA are present within the nation of Mexico?
6. How many combat troops are on the ground within the southern Mexican state of chiapas, and the nation of Mexico?
2003 - Republicans take over K Street By Gail Russell Chaddock | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor "Most of the recent new hires in the lobby shops along the K Street corridor, and especially the top ones, have been Republicans, many from the Bush administration and Capitol Hill. Last week, the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association hired former Rep. Steve Largent (R) of Oklahoma as its next president.
Getting the Picture?...Someone who hates individual sexual preference, Gays, Lesbians, and reminiscent of Brown Shirts is now the president of an organization that is going to tell you if cellular telephones are safe.
More information located at:
Citizens Against Second Hand Cellular Phone Radiation
http://www.flyingsnail.com/CASHCPR/cellular.html [flyingsnail.com]
It's not about Cancer. (Score:5, Interesting)
It's about fuzzing the brain.
Please pardon the bold face, but it seems this subject calls for it. . .
The blood-brain barrier becomes permeable when exposed to EM cell phone frequencies. This is shown by injecting dye into the blood of rats and exposing them to cell phone EM. The short version: control groups don't end up with dyed brains while the exposed groups do. This experiment has been repeated numerous times.
--Now aside from an artificially permeable blood-brain barrier making your brain more susceptible to whatever agents happen to be in your blood at the time, the really interesting question people should be instantly asking is, "How does cell phone EM cause this to happen?"
And better yet, "What OTHER cellular responses are stimulated by cell phone EM?"
This isn't rocket science. It's simply a matter of taking the data as it comes, remembering it as you read more articles, and applying it in a logical fashion to form more questions.
Why the heck is everybody so caught up by the Cancer question when there is OBVIOUSLY something else important going on?
-FL
Re:21 years? (Score:1, Interesting)
Think relativity: the frequency is proportional to the quantum energy; specific frequencies act as catalysts to particular reactions.
Spectroscopy is well used in science and medicine, but it seems that using RF to influence metabolic pathways is either unstudied or well suppressed, unless you include the recent announcement of the US army deploying http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,72134-0.ht
Not having been in the path of the US army for at least a few years that doesn't worry me as much as the diathermy I've suffered during surgery. It would take a few cellphones to cook you medium rare. I won't talk about youthful explorations of transmitting masts.
Call me paranoid but I've been playing with radio transmitters for a long time and I prefer my transmitting antennae to be on top of tall poles on the other side of my metal roof.
Neurological damage from exposure to electrical energy has been well documented but is practically impossible to prove in a being it doesn't kill.
Re:_other_ parts of the body (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, if you are a female, one interesting finding the study came up with, was that cell phone use brings a 30% increased risk of Cervical cancer [wikipedia.org], which is usually caused by the sexually transmitted Human Papillomavirus [wikipedia.org].
The researchers suggest, while stressing that this is pure speculation, that women who were quicker to adopt cell phone use, might have been more sexually active with multiple partners than average women, for whatever reason.
The announcement, in Danish, along with some of the statistics, can be found here:
http://www.cancer.dk/cancer/nyheder/artikler/mobil hjerne1.asp [cancer.dk]