Baumblog EST 1968 - A blog for the Baumbachs who originated in Syracuse, NY

Supposedly some scientists at the UN's World Health Organization has reversed earlier recommendations and now say cell phones might cause cancer.

OK, repeat after me. Cell phones cannot cause cancer. Do you know what causes cancer? DNA damage. What damages DNA? Usually, ionizing radiation (you can get it from other means as well, but cell phones supposedly cause EM field issues that cause cancer). You get that exposure from the sun--and from your surroundings, to a degree, depending on where you live.

You don't get it from microwaves. You don't get it from watching TV. You don't get it from cell phones.

First and foremost, radation is a fancy word for light. Radio waves? Light. Heat from your toaster? Light. Difference is the freqency of the light wave, that's all. Ionizing radiation is simply a light wave over the very high end of the electro-magnetic field spectrum. Think gamma rays, x-rays, and ultraviolet rays. Ultraviolet is the threshhold--below this level, EM fields are no longer ionizing.

So, cell phones are in the non-ionizing band. In slightly non-sciency words, cell carrier waves just don't have enough juice to modify your DNA. Thus, no cancer. Perhaps those knuckleheads at WHO should read their own website.

Marc said about 2 hours later

I definitely don't think cell phones and most other types of non-ionizing radiation cause cancer, but I'm not convinced they are terribly healthy for you either. As is true with nearly anything in life, overexposure or indulgence to anything is usually bad and these low end frequency types are certainly causing a stir too (Enjoy the pun). While it can take relatively small doses of ionizing radiation to cause problems, huge doses of non-ionizing are almost sure to be causing some health issues too. Cancer? No, probably not directly, but perhaps in large doses it helps to weaken cells enough to make them more susceptible to the ionizing bad boys.

I just don't have the belief that our increased exposure to non-ionizing is all "good vibrations." Is it going to stop me from using all these awesome things? No, I've got a short life to live and they are friggen cool. I'm glad WHO is looking into it, but I know this will cause another group of people to start spreading cell phones == cancer fallacies.
GJ said about 17 hours later

The simple fact is, we distinguish between non-ionizing and ionizing radiation by the fact that ionizing has the energy to modify DNA. That's not a soft limit. As for it being healthy or not--you have been bathed in it since birth. So have I. There's this thing we call background radiation--it's all around us.

Further, cell phones have been in use for over 20 years. If they caused cancer, we'd have seen a pretty noticeable bump in cancer rates. Only problem is--there is no bump. Nada, nothing. What there is: a fair amount of hysteria pushed by a few unscrupulous authors. These same knuckleheads proposed that power lines caused cancer in the 1970s and 80s. You can guess how well that panned out--but there are lots of uninformed people out there that believe that too.

So, all we have is "feelings" that cell phones are bad for us. That's exactly why the WHO is looking at this, and it's not science.
Marc said about 19 hours later

I think the real problem is the journalists looking to write sensational articles and the idiots that believe them at face value. In additional, the journalists tend to fall in that second category too so they actually believe what they are writing is truth.

Based on the original article, it really pretty clearly says that scientists have never found definitive evidence that cell phones are an issue, but they have found some correlative evidence which is making them investigate. I would read that as is, but most people won't get past the article title and they'll spin it to say cell phones do cause cancer. This particular article isn't all that bad, but I'll bet people like Yahoo and others who use Reuters as their templates will spin it to sound scary (and then slap it on their front page for all to see) :)
GJ said about 21 hours later

It doesn't alter the fact the the WHO, the UN's scientific body, is taking this seriously when most scientists treat it with the same skepticism they reserve for other made-up maladies. I take it as a sign the UN bureaucrats are dictating what work the WHO must do, regardless of its worth in scientific terms. That's the real shame here.
GJ said about 23 hours later

BTW, Marc, your last line proved to be right on the money.