You probably heard that Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa has taken over Teddy Kennedy’s gavel on the HELP Committee, but did you know that Harkin is also chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (Labor HHS Subcommittee)?
He’s holding a hearing today at 2pm to discuss the health effects of using a cell phone (although this report says Specter is holding the hearing). Given how much people on Capitol Hill use their cell phones (they might as well be glued to their heads) it cannot be a subject that Congress wants to face. And what do they plan on doing about it if it turns out that cell phones pose an unacceptable risk of brain cancer? Wouldn’t that be the mother of all class action lawsuits? Or would the telcos get retroactive immunity for that too?
I haven’t had my cell phone activated in years and I don’t like to talk for even a short time on anyone else’s cell phone. Johnnie Cochran and Teddy Kennedy are two of the most famous people to die of brain cancer, both of whom had reason to wonder if their excessive cell phone use was the cause.
I don’t like anyone I care about using cell phones, and I am glad that the kids focus mainly on texting, which keeps the radiation away from their heads. Here is the National Cancer Institute’s FAQ on the issue.
Ok, let’s go through this.
(1) it is entirely possible that cellphones cause cancer.
(2) it really should be looked into.
(3) that doesn’t excuse this:
“Johnnie Cochran and Teddy Kennedy are two of the most famous people to die of brain cancer, both of whom had reason to wonder if their excessive cell phone use was the cause.”
Two people dying of brain cancer does not mean that cell phones cause brain cancer. It’s not reasonable speculation.
they both felt that cell phones were potentially at fault.
It’s been years since I’ve read anything new about this but I remember that at the time, no studies on the issue had been done at all and the cellular industry was rushing to fund several studies that would “prove” they were safe. Of course if those studies cast doubt about the safety of the phones, they would never make them public. No one else (like the governments of any major countries) were doing any unbiased studies. Maybe it’s time for that.
I’m glad I hate talking on the phone.
When you buy a new phone, read the documentation. There’s a long legal disclaimer saying you may be at risk for brain cancer and to use at your own risk, essentially.
Texting is good.
The important thing about cell phones and cancer is that it would be an issue related to field strength.
It’s possible I’m wrong about this, but I’m pretty sure that field strength (like gravity) is proportionate to the inverse of the radius (distance from source) sqaured. So the field strength at 2 cm is 1/4 the strength it is at 1 cm. At 3 cm it is 1/9 the strength. You can hold most phones 4 or 5 cm away and still hear fine, but I’m sure people in super-secret DC-land never do this.
But even a small increase in distance between the handset and the head can make a huge difference in how much microwave energy is being blasted into your cranium. This makes Bluetooth devices (which use very weak radio frequencies) much more attractive (even though they look not at all attractive, IHMO).
However, texting still seems to be the way to go.
on the good vs bad list here.
Some people claim that they are dangerous but I think if use it according to the limits then there is no harm.
these spam accounts are getting ridiculous.
Kind of interesting in a way. They consistently sound like either hired help who are not well versed in English or a very sophisticated version of a Turing test program.
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Seems to be promoting the Apple iPhone all over the Internet.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."that might be of interest.
Surely people who are on the phone all the time like politicians use headsets? Which should make them no more harmful than texting — assuming there is any harm involved at all.
Unless you’re claiming a massive conspiracy, there should be obvious correlations by now between frequency of cell use and medical outcomes. There don’t seem to be any that justify suggesting that they played a role in any celebrity’s illness. As a usually reliable spotter of logical fallacies you know better than to use high-media figures to discount the statistical realities.
Hah!!
I guess you haven’t been in DC lately. Yes, you’ll see a large number of people wearing wireless earpieces, but the vast majority of people still use the cell receiver to talk and listen.
This is a tricky thing to study since the technology is still so recent. The first independent studies are only coming out now.
I hope the NIH report isn’t politicized, but they’d be damn sure to check with the White House before releasing a report that would cripple the telcos.
Well, the recentness of the technology is one of the things that makes attributing it to Kennedy’s illness such a leap in the dark.
I didn’t attribute it to cell phone use, I said that he was concerned that cells might have been the cause. And, if you are looking for people whose cancer was caused by cell phones, you’d want to look at early adopters you used their phones far more than normal. Cochran and Kennedy fit that criteria.
You exposed your own naivete suggesting the media, dependent on cell company advertising, would expose stories hurtful to their advertisers. Sheesh. That’s Media 101!
What are the odds that such an immunity was indeed embedded in the telco immunity bill?