WARNING! Cell phones are found to emit bullshit.
[Article stolen directly from Bob Park's Whats New and rewritten a fair bit too]
Dec 2009 - From San Francisco to Maine there is a campaign to require cancer warning labels on cell phones… Newsflash: Fact, cell/mobile phone radiation doesn’t cause cancer!
Cancer causing agents break chemical bonds, they damage DNA creating mutant strands of DNA which lead to cancer.
Microwave photons emitted by cell/mobile telephones do not have anything like enough energy to break chemical bonds, they would each need to be millions of times more energetic to come close. This fact is not open to debate, it is a fact.
In 1989, Paul Brodeur, a staff writer for the New Yorker newspaper and not a scientist, claimed in a series of sensational articles that electromagnetic-fields from power lines cause childhood leukemia. Electromagnetic-fields from power lines are many magnitudes less energetic than cell/mobile phone energy, really very puny and a very-very long way from being energetic enough to break chemical bonds, damage DNA and cause cancer.
Brodeur, however, is no scientist, he understood none of this. When virtually every scientist in the world agreed that it was impossible and he was wrong Brodeur took their unanimity as proof of a massive cover-up.
Other anti-science know-nothings followed Brodeur’s lead, shifting their attack from electromagnetic-fields from power lines to cell/mobile phone radiation.
Cell/mobile phones have since spread to almost the entire population and yet there is no corresponding increase in brain cancer, none whatsoever.
Case closed.
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1. CELL PHONES: KEEP YOUR HEAD OUT OF THE MICROWAVE OVEN.
Several readers admonished me for my unqualified assertion in last week’s
WN that “cell phone radiation does not cause cancer.” They point out that
microwave photons may not eject photoelectrons but they do excite molecular
vibrations (heat). That’s why your microwave oven has a safety interlock on
the door. So does the miniscule energy deposited by the cell phone cook
your brain? No! Rapid blood circulation keeps the brain temperature at
that of the blood, which is regulated by the hypothalamus at the base of
the brain. Thermoregulation is a high priority for the brain. That’s why
marathoners run hard for more than two hours, often hatless beneath a
midday summer sun, yet their rise in blood temperature is about that of a
mild fever.
2. WARNINGS: MAINE LEGISLATURE AGREES TO TAKE UP CELL-PHONE WARNING LABELS.
State Rep. Andrea Boland (D) is pushing for the state to become the first
to require cell phone makers to put warnings on packaging like those on
cigarettes. The bill was filed in October but is on a fast track. It’s
considered “emergency legislation” because there are 900,000 cell phones in
the state. Rep. Bolden’s concern was based on a 2006 study in Sweden
showing a correlation between brain tumors and heavy cell phone use.
However, a Danish study that came out in December found that the rates of
brain cancer in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden had remained stable
from 1974 two 2003. Such studies are possible in Scandinavia where record-
keeping is an obsession. If the effect is real, the frequency of brain
cancers should have turned up sharply in 2000. An estimated 277 million
people use cell phones in the US. I doubt if such a label would reduce that
number significantly. Scientific truth becomes something to be negotiated.
3. THERE’S HOPE: IF YOU’RE A DEMENTED MOUSE WITH A CELL PHONE.
A study by the Florida Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center found that cell
phone radiation protected the memories of mice genetically altered to get
Alzheimer’s disease. The study was led by Prof. Gary Arendash who
previously found that coffee could protect against Alzheimer’s. Hmm, I
can’t remember if I’ve had my Coffee. If exposure to microwaves is started
when the Alzheimer’s mice are young adults, before signs of memory
impairment are apparent, their cognitive ability is protected. The mice had
been genetically altered to develop beta-amyloid plaques characteristic of
Alzheimer’s as they aged.
