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The real issue with cell phones isn't radiation it's texting

^I've read discussions on that specific report. Best explanation thus far is that the MW's heated thermally sensitive portions of the cells, which in turn caused the increased activity. Basically, a byproduct of the only know reaction of living tissue to microwaves: thermal. Entirely possible, but a long stretch from that to cancer.

I don't know, plug in the numbers into the RF exposure calculator and find out. I'm not sure what power a typical TV station broadcasts at. I'm not claiming to know all the answers.

30KW is a fair number. In the US it ranges from 20KW for most licensed stations to 50KW for superstations. However, that's individual broadcasters. Many antennas will mount multiple stations, one on top of the other, with a cumulative output in the 100KW range. Such stations operate at max power for almost all of their uptime, unlike a mobile which only operates at max in severely adverse signal conditions (roughly -110 db). So while 0.8-1.6 watts is the tested limit listed by the FCC, most cellphones will be operating in the 0.1-0.2 watt range most of the time.

Regarding antenna placement, as said previously, most modern cellphones put the antenna in the base of the phone, and this is usually taken into account in FCC SAR ratings, which is why you can have some phones at the 1.6W/kg limit, while others at half that.

Plugging all that in to your calculator (nice find, I really didn't want to run the calculations manually), we still run into something close to what you reported previously, that cellphones irradiate tissue at a distance of 1-2 inches to a similar dosage that high power unit does at 100-200 feet. Given that we largely agree on that point, what does that say about my earlier assertion? It pretty much confirms what I was saying. RF workers (and in the case of office towers with broadcast facilities, possibly unassociated workers) are exposed to similar levels as cellphone users. Possibly a 3rd group as well, high-tension power line workers, which due to operational necessity, often work on or right next to active lines (often from helicopters to avoid grounding and therefore electrocuting themselves) at a proximity almost as close as mobiles. However, I coludn't dig up the precise EMF emissions of a high voltage power line, so it may or may not generate enough power to be relevant.

Of those three groups, it would be easiest to separate out the RF and line engineers. Of those remaining two, which have much higher exposure times than even the heaviest cellphone user (8+ hour shift versus 3 or so hours reported as a "heavy user" in most phone studies), there is no statistical variance in cancer rates from the general population. That combined with the fact there is no conceivable physics that could bridge the gap from thermal heating to cancer, leaves one to conclude that it is highly unlikely there is any link, or a link that will be uncovered in the future.
 
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They had a teenager here in the uk that killed a pensioner whilst driving & texting. Cant remember what she got in terms of sentence.

Having said that I'm always having to pull my husband back onto the kerb as he's often on the internet with his phone and just walks into the road. Or the other annoying thing is having to move out the way when walking because people are too busy looking at their phone to see where they are going.

In terms of the radiation from phones. We havent been using them long enough to determine the effects of radiation according to a report on the BBC the other day. Maybe in 10-20yrs time we'll be able to see but i would imagine the radiation dose is becoming increasingly less as more & more of us tend to text rather than call people nowadays.

Mind you if you believe everything the medical experts say about food, drink etc then we wouldnt be eating, drinking or doing anything for fear of getting some life-threatening illness caused by certain foods or certain amount of drinks.
 
What exactly is the "effect on the brain" that has been allegedly measured?

Nothing alleged about it. It's been measured. The only question is whether it causes cancer or not. This study doesn't answer that question. However, it's been posited that the cell phone RF is slowly cooking the brain like a microwave oven.

The scientists found that metabolism in the brain region closest to the antenna — in the orbitofrontal cortex and temporal pole — was about 7% higher when the cellphone was on.

"The important thing to remember about a cellphone is that it's really a microwave radiation antennae. The amount of radiation you get from it is directly related to distance it is from the head," says Black, who recommends plugging in a headset.
Found here.

Mr Awe
Interesting. They apparently did take into consideration other possible sources of stimulation (such as the actual conversation), so the effect does seem to be related to the radiation. It would be hilarious if it ended up having a positive repercussions.

Super powers!! Cool!

Mr Awe
 
Given that we largely agree on that point, what does that say about my earlier assertion?

That combined with the fact there is no conceivable physics that could bridge the gap from thermal heating to cancer, leaves one to conclude that it is highly unlikely there is any link, or a link that will be uncovered in the future.

So, we agree in the main on the exposure. I disagree that there is "no conceivable physics . . . to cancer." What is inconceivable one day is common knowledge next year. Such is science. I don't know for a fact that there is a connection. But, I for one can concieve that microwaving your brain, even on low, could potentially lead to cancer, especially over a prolonged time.

And, again, while I don't know if there is a connection to cancer, I do know that there has been insufficient LONG TERM research in general between RF and cancer. A lack of evidence now is essentially due to a lack of sufficient LONG TERM research. The scientific consensus is this:
The current consensus of the scientific community is that short term studies have found little evidence to suggest possible dangers to human health from cellular base stations. However, for risks such as cancer, significant long term studies (of ten years or more) must be performed before any definitive conclusions can be drawn about RF safety.

Quite simply, we don't know what the long term effects are. I don't know, and you don't know. No one knows. Personally, I want to be careful with my brain.

Mr Awe
 
Radio waves are non-ionizing radiation, so they can't cause cancer, even if stand right next to a radio tower.

Cell phone use does result in a lot of car accidents and pedestrian deaths/injuries, though. That is not the fault of the phones but of the idiots who don't know when to put them away.

So the people at the WHO are crazy?

I'd say "overly cautious", I think all they've seen is that the areas of the brain nearest to cellphone tend to be a bit more active than normal but no direct link between cell-phone and cancer.

There's still a lot of science to consider, the biggest one being that cell-phones use non-ionizing radiation meaning that the radiation they emit isn't small enough to knock electrons out of atoms, causing damage to cells and the creation of free-radicals which can cause cancer. It's also important to note the radiation emitted by cell-phone is similar to the radiation being emitted by cordless phones and we're bathed in microwave/EM radiation from radio and TV towers all over the place. Cell-phones have also been in rising popular use for 20-30 years now and I would think that if phones caused serious problems in terms of brain cancer there'd be an epidemic of brain cancer.

Some studies do show that there could be a link but this could be the "radiation" from the phone coupled with something else like biological component.

But, yeah, even when the WHO said there "could be" a link said that many more deaths are caused by people talking/texting while driving than are caused by health effects from cell-phone radiation exposure.
 
What exactly is the "effect on the brain" that has been allegedly measured?

Nothing alleged about it. It's been measured. The only question is whether it causes cancer or not. This study doesn't answer that question. However, it's been posited that the cell phone RF is slowly cooking the brain like a microwave oven.

No. No. No.

The microwaves given off by your phone are nowhere near powerful enough to "cook" anything. Consider that your microwave oven is powered by a your household 110v (in America) current and operates at around 1000 watts depending on the model.

Your phone is powered by a 4v battery and a power range of about 2 watts, so it has 2% of the power of your microwave oven an 1/500th of the energy.

The microwaves from your phone aren't powerful enough to "cook" anything. Microwave ovens cook by using the right frequency of microwaves to excite water and fat molecules in food which generates heat, your microwave oven also needs to use a fan to "scatter" the microwaves around the cooking area as microwaves move in a very linear fashion. The "problem" is just that the area nearest to the phone's antenna show some more activity and that's about it. More activity, by definition, means they're moving more and, thus, are "generating heat" but that they're being "cooked" is stretching things quite a bit.
 
What exactly is the "effect on the brain" that has been allegedly measured?

Nothing alleged about it. It's been measured. The only question is whether it causes cancer or not. This study doesn't answer that question. However, it's been posited that the cell phone RF is slowly cooking the brain like a microwave oven.

No. No. No.

The microwaves given off by your phone are nowhere near powerful enough to "cook" anything. Consider that your microwave oven is powered by a your household 110v (in America) current and operates at around 1000 watts depending on the model.

Your phone is powered by a 4v battery and a power range of about 2 watts, so it has 2% of the power of your microwave oven an 1/500th of the energy.

Trekker, you need to read the entire thread. We've discussed how distance is the supreme factor. A one watt transmitter an inch from your brain delivers about the same effective exposure as standing 100-200 feet from a 30,000 watt transmitter.

Mr Awe
 
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