[Kosh]

The fear mongering continues

San Francisco is set to be the first city in the US to require mobile phone retailers to post radiation levels next to handsets they sell.

The board of supervisors, or council, voted 10-1 to approve the measure, with final approval expected next week.

"This is about helping people make informed choices," said the law's chief sponsor, Supervisor Sophie Maxwell.

The mobile phone industry said studies showed cell phone radiation was not harmful to people.

The Federal Communications Commission has adopted limits that set out safe exposure to these kinds of emissions.

The measurement defines the amount of radio waves that people can safely absorb into their bodies when talking on a mobile phone.

Some researchers have claimed such emissions can be linked to cancer and brain tumours but there remains little scientific consensus on the matter.

Cell phones have been in widespread use for more than a decade now and that feared cancer epidemic it was supposed to bring never arrived.....but they now decide to go through with this anyway. Amazing.......

[Turambar]

They need to go for the Mythbusters approach.

Since beaming data through people's brains doesn't cause cancer at current levels, they need to figure out just how much it actually does take to cause cancer, specifically so they can keep it below such levels.

(if it doesn't explode, we'll make it explode)

[Thaeris]

There was a very good article in Popular Science a while back, here's the online version:

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-02/disconnected

Now, I'm not sure how closely it matches the physical article (which I own), but it looks pretty much intact. Apart from reading the article yourselves (which I recommend), here's a notable aspect from research noted in the article:

Gene Expression
Research by Igor Belyaev, an associate professor in the Department of Genetics, Microbiology and Toxicology at Stockholm University, has shown that EMFs can affect gene expression -- the mechanism by which genes are activated and "speak out" -- in human and animal cells. Belyaev exposed human lymphocytes, a type of white blood cell involved in the body's immune response, to EMFs at 915 megahertz, a common cellphone frequency. The samples were taken from healthy people and those reporting EHS symptoms. In cells from both types of subjects, Belyaev observed a stress response that altered gene expression. The stress response induced by EMFs at 915 megahertz disrupted the body's DNA-repair machinery, he concluded, thus making it harder to fix the kind of cellular damage that can lead to cancer. In other research, Belyaev has found that cellphone-frequency EMFs inhibit DNA repair in stem cells; DNA breaks in stem cells are critical to the onset of leukemia and some tumors, including gliomas.

Stress response does indeed cause changes in gene expression; however, says Repacholi, "lots of experiments can find effects, but that doesn't translate into the whole organism, because the whole organism compensates. The gap between a biological effect and an adverse health effect is a big one."

There are five pages in the online article, this was from page #4. Conclusion? It may be reasonable to assume that, while cellular devices do not cause cancer, electromagnetic frequencies interfering with the repair/replication of DNA might be possible as factors which can lead to cancer over a sustained period of time.

[Klaustrophobia]

there's a lot of "might", "can", and "maybe" in there.

[Thaeris]

True, but that's due to the fact that the sort of electromagnetic radiation in question here is not well understood in biological processes. Saying it's simply harmless is idiotic while not looking into further research, as many people seem to enjoy doing - being paranoid about it is equally foolish.

[BloodEagle]

They need to go for the Mythbusters approach.

Since beaming data through people's brains doesn't cause cancer at current levels, they need to figure out just how much it actually does take to cause cancer, specifically so they can keep it below such levels.

(if it doesn't explode, we'll make it explode)

That's.... That's actually not that bad of an idea. .... Huh.

[Thaeris]

You don't solve serious bio-medical problems/concerns in a weekly television program...

[General Battuta]

You don't solve serious bio-medical problems/concerns in a weekly television program...

EXCUSE ME BUT DR. GREGORY HOUSE WOULD LIKE A WORD WITH YOU

[Thaeris]

I knew I missed something...

 

[Kosh]

Conclusion? It may be reasonable to assume that, while cellular devices do not cause cancer, electromagnetic frequencies interfering with the repair/replication of DNA might be possible as factors which can lead to cancer over a sustained period of time.

Luekemia is a type of cancer, isn't it?


I'm generlly pretty skeptical of claims like that simply because EMF is not ionizing.

[Liberator]

As a (sometimes)Ham, I can say that if you stay below the FCC recommended exposure, you should be fine.

[Nuke]

as much as i dont like people constantly irradiating me with theyre cellphones, i actually want to get cancer. then i could get free marijuana and health insurance.