Junk Science - Cell Phones

[Xiahou]

Are you equating hitting your fingers on a keypad to having a microwave emitter next to your head?

In that there's no evidence of either causing cancer, nor does it even make sense that they could ever do so? Yes.

1. CANCER: WHAT EINSTEIN KNEW ABOUT CELL PHONES.
By now everyone has heard the news frenzy over Ronald Herberman, Director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, advising faculty and staff to limit cell phone use because there is no proof that it's not a cancer risk. Nonsense! All cancer agents act by disrupting chemical bonds. In a classic 2001 op-ed LBL physicist Robert Cahn explained that Einstein won the 1905 Nobel Prize in Physics for showing that cell phones can't cause cancer. The threshold energy of the photoelectric effect, for which Einstein won the prize, lies at the extreme blue end of the visible spectrum in the near ultraviolet. The same near-ultraviolet rays can also cause skin cancer. Red light is too weak to cause cancer. Cell-phone radiation is 10,000 times weaker.

link

Or if you want something that explains it more in a little more depth, look here.

[Viking]

link

Appears as much of an overstatement. In science, there is always room for surprises. There is also some controversy surrounding radars, whether they are able to cause children born with damaged limbs or not; and radars does indeed operate with much longer wavelengths than red.

[Xiahou]

Appears as much of an overstatement. In science, there is always room for surprises. There is also some controversy surrounding radars, whether they are able to cause children born with damaged limbs or not; and radars does indeed operate with much longer wavelengths than red.

I'd love to read about that. Got any links?

The science is pretty simple. If radiation is non-ionizing, it's not strong enough to be able to strip ions from a cell's molecules. This is what can lead to cancer. If radiation is non-ionizing, then that radiation won't cause cancer. It's basic physics.

[Viking]

I'd love to read about that. Got any links?

The science is pretty simple. If radiation is non-ionizing, it's not strong enough to be able to strip ions from a cell's molecules. This is what can lead to cancer. If radiation is non-ionizing, then that radiation won't cause cancer. It's basic physics.

Hmm, this BBC link is the best I am able to come up with; and it is most uncertain what caused the birth defects. Appears to be mainly a national issue..

[rory_20_uk]

I'd love to read about that. Got any links?

The science is pretty simple. If radiation is non-ionizing, it's not strong enough to be able to strip ions from a cell's molecules. This is what can lead to cancer. If radiation is non-ionizing, then that radiation won't cause cancer. It's basic physics.

Not quite that simple.

There are those that state that large enough magnetic fields (i.e. power lines) can alter very subtly the body's biochemistry as ions will be slightly polarised by the field. Over a long enough timespan this could cause damage to individuals. I imagine that the reasoning about phones has the same basis.

Offhand I've no links - sorry.

[Xiahou]

Not quite that simple.

There are those that state that large enough magnetic fields (i.e. power lines) can alter very subtly the body's biochemistry as ions will be slightly polarised by the field. Over a long enough timespan this could cause damage to individuals. I imagine that the reasoning about phones has the same basis.

Offhand I've no links - sorry.

I'm not sure that I understand you. Ions, by definition are positive or negative- how do magnetic fields polarize them?

Regardless, if EMF causes cancer it is by an entirely unknown mechanism as studies show EMF does not cause any harmful levels of cell damage. There are a few small studies that indicate a minimal correlation, but many don't isolate other possible causes adequately. I tend to doubt studies that try to show a link- you can't avoid electro-magnetic fields. Anything that uses electric gives them off and they permeate the air as TV and radio signals. If they have any significant effect on cancer, we'd all have died from it by now.

[Craterus]

To be fair, this is the reason I don't use a mobile phone. I think I probably will after a few more years have passed. Maybe 20 since the first mobile phones and if no-one's died of anything caused by them, I'll get one.

[Viking]

I'm not sure that I understand you. Ions, by definition are positive or negative- how do magnetic fields polarize them?

If I understood what he meant by 'polarization', then think of water which is neutral, yet dipolar.

[Husar]

If I understood what he meant by 'polarization', then think of water which is neutral, yet dipolar.

Uh, wait a second, water is not an ion, water is a molecule that consists of several atoms, now atoms can be positive or negative and then they are called ions. Basically putting a cellphone to your head heats your head up because the electromagnetic field affects the water in your body, just like a microwave oven, only weaker and on a different frequency but I read about up to 1°C more temperature. Whether this effect is unhealthy or not I do not allow myself to judge, the heat shouldn't be since the summer also heats me up as does a fever, too much of it is bad as we all know of course.
Then again, is there anything that does NOT cause cancer?

And in other, related news, they found that very high doses of vitamin C would actually reduce the amount of cancer cells in mice or rats, which sounds similar to what a certain Dr. Rath has been saying for years but he was dismissed as a junk scientist.
I'm curious where this ends.