Cellphone radiation is dangerous/not dangerous, chapter 8037

Gather 'round, kids, for the next installment of the ever-loving "is cellphone radiation dangerous" saga. Today's special guests are Japan's major cell carriers (NTT DoCoMo, KDDI, Vodafone and TU-KA Cellular Tokyo), who inform us that radio frequency energy from mobile base stations does not affect human cells. They exposed four human cell lines to steady doses of RF radiation at a level about 10 times stronger than the limits set forth in the guidelines for mobile phone base stations, which themselves are again stronger than the emissions from the average phone. All of which sounds very promising, and if only it weren't for that nagging fact that the entire study was funded by the cell carriers, and used research techniques developed by the cell carriers, we might be tempted to put an end to this saga for good — but we'll leave our tinfoil hats on until we see some independent studies confirm this.

[gopi @ Dec 19th 2005 1:20AM]

It's non-ionizing radiation. It's not supposed to have an effect on cells directly. However, our bodies are quite a lot more complicated than lines of cells.

I did read one piece of research that claimed microwaves made the blood-brain barrier more porous for proteins, which would then be able to cause pitting and other brain damage. That sort of effect, in my opinion, is much more likely - and much harder to really test out.

Of course, it's also possible that cellphones are good for your brain. Seems perfectly plausible that they could heat it in a way that sped things up in good ways.

[MixingMaster3000 @ Dec 19th 2005 1:20AM]

Have you ever heard of Minemata? Well in Japan a factory was putting chemical waste (mercury) into the sea. In the end humans started to get Mercury poisoning (which effects your nerves and you loose control of your muscles) and babies were born deformed. People pointed the blame at the factory, so the factory did some tests. They said that it was not their mercury causing all this havoc. Now we know that it was the havoc. But the point of me telling you this is that, for years tests have shown that mobile phones are dangerous, and all of a sudden mobile phone companies say they are not. Does anyone else see a repeat of Minemata, or something along those lines?

[Robotkid @ Dec 19th 2005 1:20AM]

Yeah...not dangerous. How come when I hold a cell phone up to my head these days I get insane headaches, and my face goes numb?

(no joke.)

Maybe I should see a doctor... :(

[Ryan @ Dec 19th 2005 1:20AM]

Hmm.. I always assumed that absorbing transition metals would turn you into the T-1000.

[Whiplash @ Dec 19th 2005 1:20AM]

Personally, if it's THIS hard to tell if humans are affected by cell phones, with millions and millions of them in use... then it's probably not an issue. Either that or the numbers of people who are affected are so small, and the circumstances so unique, that holding a popcicle up to your heads probably has the same odds of affecting you. Lighten up
Chicken Little, every life changing invention has caused fear at first.

[steve @ Dec 19th 2005 1:20AM]

The study loses a lot of its meaning when it comes directly from the wireless phone companies...

There's a good article out there (sorry, I don't have the URL) that I read about doctors in america who want to study cell phone radiation, but the only companies who'll fund it are the phone companies, and they basically squelch anyone's tests who come out finding that cell radiation is damaging...

Unsurprising really, but those idealistic folks among us might not realize how bad it really is...

[Frans @ Dec 19th 2005 1:20AM]

Read the Reuters news release. I wonder how the researchers relate their findings to the EU Reflex and Lai/Sing results (double DNA breaks in vitro), to the many other problems than proliferation and DNA breaks, to the lumping of red blood cells by use of a cell phone, to the many anamneses of patients who are found to be healthy but for serious complaints related to radiofrequent radiation (dect, wlan, wifi, c2000, tetra, digitale babyphones, digital amateurs, dvb-t etcetera)? Did they reduce 40.000 to 20.000 to leave out the breaks? Or some other trick? And even if the results are true, than there must be another reason for the suffering of many people from radiation sickness. Researchers should check for what is real, not find what is not there. The moon is full, half or sometimes you don't see it at all. What is the use of checking the moon when absent? The goal of research should be to find out what is the moon and why is it full, half or gone. Radiation sickness is a fact, the research should find out how can it be, how does it work? It is not useful to say you don't see it, if many people are suffering.

[toupsz @ Dec 19th 2005 1:20AM]

This from the country that still believes there's no link between smoking and lung cancer...
-Zach

[aj @ Dec 19th 2005 1:20AM]

These guys (www.aegisguard.com) produce the only effective mobile phone anti-radiation products in the world. Used by military and corporations. Use them or regret it later.

[pat @ Dec 19th 2005 1:20AM]

I never understand these "cellphones cause cancer" type posts.

Lets assume for a moment that they do.
Then why wouldn't stuff like wifi or similar do much the same?

If everyone ate healthily, exercised and whatnot i'm sure that you'd be fine. I'll still hang out for a while till we have more anti-carcinogen type things till I get rid of my landline phone.

[Frans @ Dec 19th 2005 1:20AM]

Yes stuff like WIFI, WLAN, C2000, TETRA, DVB-T, digital babyphones etcetera do the same.

The problem is not only more cancer (double DNA breaks), but also the headache and numb face (see above), disturbance of the cognitive function, lumping of red blood cells, interference with electro-chemical processes in the body, distortion of subtle balances of hormones etcetera.

This has nothing to do with healthy food, but with permanent doses of electromagnetic radiation even low-density.

BMW has limited the density for the DECT-frequency to 100 mikroWatt/m2 to prevent dizzyness, nausea and headaches.

The ICNIRP, WHO, Health Councils still advise limits like 10.000.000 and 20.000.000 mikroWatt/m2. They do not listen to the people who suffer from radiation sickness. The mobile operators, governments and health organisations have doubts, but they do everything they can to hide the non-thermal effects of radiofrequent radiation. The research in Japan is an example. It is normal medical science to take the suffering as a starting point and try to find out more about radiation sickness. These Japanese operators try to prove safety by finding nothing. That is rather useless.

[PHAROH DETROIT @ Dec 19th 2005 1:20AM]

USE A EARPIEACE, SAFESEX

[jcz @ Dec 19th 2005 1:20AM]

where did you get the image in article from ?

[paul @ Dec 19th 2005 1:20AM]

If you want to have more details about the effects of the mobile phone radio waves effect, check IEEE report http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/publicfeature/aug00/prad.html and read through the lines. Germans made a more pragmatic test and analysed the effect of the radiation over the brain in a tomograph; the outcome (heat conversion) speaks for itself. However, since mobiles are used for a mere 8-10 years, we'll have to wait another 5 to 10 years to validate a decent answer. However, wouldn't expect the mobile comm. giants to suggest that mobile comm. radiation is dangerous. Phillip Morris did not that either for a considerable time...