New Evidence that Cellphone RF Emissions Can Cause Cancer

[Yazata]

Here's a preprint in pdf format:

http://biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early...9.full.pdf

It comes from the US 'National Toxicology Program', part of the NIH (National Institutes of Health).

http://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/

They exposed male rats (like me!) to low level RF modulated in two common call-phone formats, at two frequencies that cell-phones typically use. They apparently got help from the National Institutes of Standards and Technology in calibrating intensity levels and stuff.

Their results show a "low incidence" of brain and heart cancers. Despite the low incidence, they say that given the widespread use of cell phones all around the world, this could have major health implications.

I've always considered claims that cell phone emissions can cause cancer to be somewhat doubtful, but this new paper makes me less sure of that.

[Magical Realist]

I vividly imagine a future 30 years from now where everybody with a cellphone will develop brain tumors. It will be just karma for all those "texting while driving" assholes always sitting before me at green lights. # Verizon class action lawsuit... # Luddite's revenge

[C C]

Well back into the former decade, I remember Raoul dismissing the paranoia of cellphone alarmists with studies which cleared the devices of engendering harmful effects. The researchers and statisticians seemed so confident that I similarly jumped onto the bandwagon. However, part of me just couldn't get over wondering: Had they really been in widespread use long enough for such pristine conclusions to be drawn -- to be so thoroughly, quantitatively exonerated?

Add to that the fact they had become so essential and ubiquitous that how could even detrimental health consequences possibly curb their addictive use, at that point in time? Discovering something bad about cellphones in the data and publishing it would have been akin to science uncovering an embarrassment for a politically correct totem, which even most scientists were conditioned to revere. Who would want to risk their reputation / career in the ensuing firestorm of controversy, especially when nothing could put that technological genie back into the bottle, anyway? No matter what threat they posed, scientists themselves wouldn't anymore surrender the convenience or current indispensability of cellphones than the layperson. The popularity of cellphones had surpassed the popularity of sex (in that there were celibates and asexuals who valued them).