Comments on: Cell Phones and Cancer, Again

By: Your Brain on a Cell Phone | Will Taft . com

Your Brain on a Cell Phone | Will Taft . com — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 20:02:48 +0000

[...] then a chuckle in an email this week. A person who had read my post about the latest research on cell phones and salivary cancer asked if I had heard that a hands free cell phone device was not safe for your brain. "What [...]

By: Technology Slice

Technology Slice — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 01:27:25 +0000

It’s a little hard to trust these studies when they keep contradicting themselves. A lot of things can cause cancer.

By: Will

Will — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 22:58:59 +0000

You know Anna you are right about the moderation and balance. Yes some homes have problems with the ground underneath emitting radon, I think. I have really adopted the mobile phone habit. I will feel better once I have a Bluetooth headset and a phone that is easier to text on as that will keep it away from my ear more.

By: Anna

Anna — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 00:18:02 +0000

Will I hate talking on the phone. I have cell phone, and I don’t even have it on most of the time, just for emergencies. You are so right about those reports, I find that they are never clear. And most of the time I am confused, this is not good for you this year, but next year new report comes out, its good for you. I just stick with simple rule, moderation and balance, and hopefully it all work out for me on the end. However, I am computer fan, and we do use wireless a lot at home - how much I am willing to sacrifice for my work and hobby, not sure. Does it have health implications, I think yes, but then you add up everything else in the house emitting something, the cumilative effect may be dangerous or not, that I don’t know. Recently someone said that even sitting in the basement is no good, because of radiation from the ground. Great post Will as usual, and you have brought some good points to the table, thanks. Anna

By: Will

Will — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 21:42:00 +0000

Thanks for finding that abstract A! Maybe I’ll put the link in the original post, although it really does not contain the information needed to really understand the study. I agree that an arbitrary cut off for “heavy use” is troublesome. That is actually one of the most important bits of information I would want to know.

If they don’t find any increase in tumors until people surpass and average of 5 hours per day on the phone, that would be very different than if the cutoff point was 1 hour. Especially for someone like me that probably averages 30 minutes per day with the mobile at the ear. It also seems bad that they suggest an even greater risk for rural use and don’t define exactly what that is. I suppose more specific information is available in the full text of the article, but I don’t feel like paying $36.00 for one time access to it.

By: A.

A. — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 20:49:05 +0000

I find the BBC are very bad about not giving original sources of their information. I’ve found the abstract here. It compares 1,266 people without tumours against 402 people with benign tumours and 82 malignant tumours. There was no evidence of a difference between the two groups until they looked at “heavy” users of cell phones. I see a problem with that - an arbitrary decision on what constitutes heavy use. Where is your cut-off between the two groups?

Also the final sentence of the abstract is, “Based on the largest number of benign PGT patients reported to date, our results suggest an association between cellular phone use and PGTs.” It sounds to me that they were including benign tumours in the calculations. I had assumed they would also compare benign vs malignant. If benign tumours are included it is considerably less scary than the media reports, though I admit I wouldn’t want one.

By: Will

Will — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 17:46:40 +0000

Micah - That question is a good one and what JD says makes sense, but who knows for sure. I wonder about the overall exposure as we go about our daily lives. As I noted above, I am really wondering about sitting for hours at a time in the same room as a wireless router.

Thanks for the phone rec., JD. I have that one on my list, although with a few cons.

By: Techfun

Techfun — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 13:45:52 +0000

Micah, living UNDER the cell tower is probably one of the safest places to be. The microwave transmitters are designed to spread out from there so the exposure would probably be least right next to it.

Will, if its available, I highly recommend the LG ENV for your next phone. I’ve had mine now for 6 weeks and I love it. Text messaging is easy with the internal keyboard, the camera is decent, and my Bluetooth headset works better on it than either of my previous two phones

By: Micah

Micah — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 11:16:25 +0000

I would be interested in a study of cancer risks of those living under the cellphone transmitters themselves. Surely these give out more radiation on a continuous basis. I wonder if anybody has studied these?

By: Abhinav Sood

Abhinav Sood — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 02:52:02 +0000

Electromagnetic radiation and microwave radiation are not the same thing. Microwaves, radio waves, X-rays, visible light, etc. are subsets of Electromagnetic radiations.

electromagnetic (EM) spectrum is the range of all possible electromagnetic radiation. The “electromagnetic spectrum” (usually just spectrum) of an object is the characteristic distribution of electromagnetic radiation from that object.

Electromagnetic (EM) radiation, also called light even though it is not always visible, is a self-propagating wave in space with electric and magnetic components. These components oscillate at right angles to each other and to the direction of propagation, and are in phase with each other. Electromagnetic radiation is classified into types according to the frequency of the wave: these types include, in order of increasing frequency, radio waves, microwaves, terahertz radiation, infrared radiation, visible light, ultraviolet radiation, X-rays and gamma rays.

These image links may help.

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