Pittsburgh Cancer Center Warns of Cell Phone Risks

RevWaldo contributes a link to an AP story carried by Google, according to which "The head of a prominent cancer research institute issued an unprecedented warning to his faculty and staff Wednesday: Limit cell phone use because of the possible risk of cancer. The warning from Dr. Ronald B. Herberman, director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, is contrary to numerous studies that don't find a link between cancer and cell phone use, and a public lack of worry by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration." RevWaldo continues: "One possible solution offered? 'Use a wireless headset.' No risk of EM exposure from one of them, no sirree!"

On the bright side...

Sure, cell phone use might give you cancer, but on the bright side there are hundreds of other compounds just in the air in Pittsburgh that will give you cancer much quicker, so there's really no need for concern.

yep

Use a wireless headset and keep the phone in your front pocket. The poor mans vasectomy.

Re:yep

Or just use Speakerphone. Rather than annoying everyone around you with 1/2 of a conversation, why not annoy them with the whole thing?

Re:yep

Will a tinfoil hat protect me?

Do what I do!

I carry around my landline and have a huge roll of wire. It's worked for me so #$FDaf#$# NO CARRIER

Re:Do what I do!

Hey, how'd you hit the Submit button? Is that some sort of "mobile" dial-up you're using?

I bet you're really fun at parties.

how so? he ruins all the jokes!

Wireless headsets work

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that a cell phone transmitter (having to reach from the phone to the tower) is on the order of one watt, while your Bluetooth headset (having to reach only a few feet) is on the order of one milliwatt.

Which would you rather have up to your head?

Re:Wireless headsets work

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that a cell phone transmitter (having to reach from the phone to the tower) is on the order of one watt, while your Bluetooth headset (having to reach only a few feet) is on the order of one milliwatt.

Which would you rather have up to your head?"

Well, having the cell phone to my head makes me look like I'm talking on the phone.

Having a bluetooth headset makes me look like I am talking to the voices in my head, or Dorkutis of Borg, depending on which side is seen.

So I'd rather use the phone, because the risk of brain cancer is probably an order of magnitude less than the damage to my image from using an item that is both dorky and pretentious at the same time.

Re:Not 1 watt! Try 350mw!

Correct, and the 2.5 mW devices(class 2) have a range of about 10 meters. I believe this includes the common bluetooth headset.

Re:Wireless headsets work

It has been previously reported that cell phones have RF leakage that travels right up the corded headset. So instead of the antenna being near the side-back of your head, it goes right into your ear.

I am just trying to help the paranoid a bit! :)

I'd go for it.

ANYTHING that cuts down on cell phone use is a win on my part. Even if it doesn't have a shred of evidence behind it.

Don't just shut up and drive. Just shut up. And while you're at it - get off my lawn.

Re:I'd go for it.

If people drove on my lawn I'd be pissed off too,

Man of science, my ass...

Does he have ANY justification, other than "there *might* be a risk"?

So, if I tell him the sun MIGHT not come up tomorrow, will he not bother going to work? After all, I can't prove that the sun isn't coming up tomorrow - there's always some chance it won't.

Precautionary Principle: Hide from everything

It's called the Precautionary Principle. If the effects MIGHT be large, taking precautions are justified. However, this is sometimes applied when the probability is miniscule, or when the connection between cause and effect is questionable.

In this case, the probability of getting cancer is small, the causes of most cancers are unknown, and the mechanisms by which EM energy might cause cancer are unlikely. And the solutions do not seem well considered, particularly the one involving replacing one EM device with three (the wireless link to the headset means the cellphone is transmitting both to the cell phone system and to the headset, on different frequencies; the headset's speaker might also be an EM device while the speaker on the cellphone might not be, so it could be a 1-to-4 EM change).

What about the speaker in a normal handset?

The speaker in my desk phone is an EM-emitting device. Maybe I should be worried about that! I think I may need some grant money to study the health side-effects of me having to answer the phone.

No risk of EM exposure from one of them, no sirree

The fact is, most Bluetooth headsets are Class 2 devices, which have a maximum power of 2.5 mW. This is orders of magnitude less than the emissions from a cell phone, which can peak at 500 mW.

If the emissions from a cell phone are simply "questionable" in terms of cancer, there's no way a signal with 100x less power is. But on the flip side, the power difference between the two is so large that you COULD see them claiming cell emissions are "bad" while not seeing any problem with the much lower power emitted by Bluetooth Class 2 devices.

Ugh, I really hate stories like this

On one hand, you've got the moonbats who see conspiracies everywhere and are all about what THEY don't what you to know THEY'RE doing, though they aren't quite sure who THEY are, but THEY are most certainly out to get us.

On the other hand, well, just look at all the shit we've been lied to about. Is it plausible that the cell phone industry went to market with products whose impacts weren't fully researched with consequences they themselves never dreamed of? Gee, let's see if we can think of another industry with a similar nasty surprise...oh, right, Big Tobacco. I seem to recall them insisting for years that there was no link between ciggies and cancer. I don't seem to recall too many consequences for these people lying to us, for obfuscating the debate with deliberately fabricated bullshit masquerading as science, and thus condemning more people to death.

The part that really pisses me off here is if there really is a cancer risk, you know damn well the cell companies will do their damnedest to cover it up and pretend there's nothing wrong, even while people continue to die. In fact, it would be utterly surprising if they did anything but this.

Argumenum ad Verecudiam

The fact that he's an expert on this subject does not mean he is always right about this subject.

FUD and ethics

The tips include warnings not to use your phone on a bus, so as not to passively expose others. I'll take that as text book FUD. In the video footage that accompanies the news piece here [kdka.com], when asked why there's a lack of evidence to support such advice the answer is that "you [don't] want to have enough sick or dead people, before you take action, to prevent harm...". Apparently, there's not enough data about cell phones leading to death simply because we don't want people to die. The current evidence infers that we should have minimal concerns for this issue. Does that make this public health warning unethical, or just proactively cautious? A brief review of the clinical research is here [cancer.gov]. I personally think this is worth losing his position over. In my view panic-inducing pseudo-concern ends up with a backlash against science. We should trust our MDs to advise us for our health, and this is not currently a health issue. If the research changes that in a decade, we can talk about it then.

Lets study ham radio operators

Most of them (and perhaps their neighbors) have been in high RF fields for as many years as they have been licensed. I remember my station was on the second floor, so an AC safety ground was easy, but an RF ground was only possible at the lowest of frequencies. In fact if the ground wire is 1/4 wavelength long, it looks like an open circuit. So I used to have many problems where I would touch my equipment and get a very minor RF burn "ouch."

Moreover, in these cases, the exponential nature of EM fields with distance does not apply as energy appears at the station as well as at an antenna that might be far away.

I do have to note, that most of these problems have occurred in the 1.8Mhz to 50Mhz specturm, perhaps in the worst case only a 17th of the frequency that cell phones operate on. But hams have also routinely used UHF handheld transcievers for many many years, which is much more comparable to the cellular situation.

I don't know of any study relating ham radio to cancer, but then probably no one has ever studied it. But the national ham organization, the ARRL, http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/rfexpose.html [arrl.org], has been increasingly warning about potential hazards to hams, which I think is a good thing as it least in encourages proper technical practices.

Crap science and too many sheep

OK, this is about the thousandth bogus report on this. Based on the dramatic increase in cellular use, and long term it has been used over, there is NO STATISTICAL CORRELEATION to cell phone use and cancer. Not by individual use studies, not by geographiucal correleation of users to cancer outbreaks, nothing.

Brain tumors numbers are up mostly because WE'RE ACTUALLY MORE CAPABLE OF FINDING THEM vs 30 years ago...

No mathematical model has yet been proposed to show any correlation between radio waves from publically accessible technology (obviously excluding X-rays here...) of ANY KIND, including exposure to microwave ovens, high power transmitters, TV, and more. The only thing we're somewhat sure of is that close proximity to extremely high voltage lines "could" be hazardous, but even there they're not 100% sure...

In fact, though cancer detection rates seem to be up, again, mostly due to our ability to better detect it, and due to an increased population of elderly and longer life spans, on the whole, it's believed we've actually reduced the likelyhood of cancer across the board aven with our increase in exposure to these waves.

Cancer is a DNA level response. They have not shown that DNA even respons to these frequncies of emission that I have heard. Does this guy know otherwise, and can he prove it? (cuz others have disproved it)

Granted, I'd be happier if the cell phone use culture was adjusted dramatically, especially use while driving and while in quiet environments, but crap science like this just pisses me off. I'm also sick and tired of the pharmacitical and medical industry in general, proposing medicines that cost more, and have worse side effects than current medice we have today, spending billionjs in marketing to people who have no medical knowledge or rational decision making ability, and billions "buying" doctors to prescribe the crap.

If the cure for a headache makes my nose bleed, my vision blurry, prevents me from driving a car, causes stomach ulcers, and could cause my kidneys to fail or heart to stop, i'll deal with the headache!

Also, even if it has a 1:10,000 chance of causing me cancer, I've got a 1:100 chance of being killed in my car, should I stop driving now too?

Holy crap I RTFA...

Wow...

And what a doozy... nothing says... WAIT, STOP, CANCER RISK!

----------------

A 2008 University of Utah analysis looked at nine studies -- including some Herberman cites -- with thousands of brain tumor patients and concludes "we found no overall increased risk of brain tumors among cellular phone users. The potential elevated risk of brain tumors after long-term cellular phone use awaits confirmation by future studies."

Studies last year in France and Norway concluded the same thing.

"If there is a risk from these products -- and at this point we do not know that there is -- it is probably very small," the Food and Drug Administration says on an agency Web site.

Still, Herberman cites a "growing body of literature linking long-term cell phone use to possible adverse health effects including cancer."

"Although the evidence is still controversial, I am convinced that there are sufficient data to warrant issuing an advisory to share some precautionary advice on cell phone use," he wrote in his memo.

A driving force behind the memo was Devra Lee Davis, the director of the university's center for environmental oncology.

"The question is do you want to play Russian roulette with your brain," she said in an interview from her cell phone while using the hands-free speaker phone as recommended. "I don't know that cell phones are dangerous. But I don't know that they are safe."

----------------

Here's the quote I love:

"I don't know that cell phones are dangerous. But I don't know that they are safe."

Whooo, brill!

-AI

Re:Judging from my evening commute ...

putting shielding around the antenna blocks the wireless signal. That's why it's called shielding. It shields.

And the extendable antenna doesn't move the transmission away from your head, the antenna transmits over the entire length, not just the tip. Extendable antennas increase reception by increasing the overall length of the antenna. My old sprint PCS phone was 1/4 wavelenth when collapsed and 5/8 wavelength when extended.

Re:I must be a scientist...

The wireless headset is probably a much lower power transmitter than the one in the phone.

No, you must be clueless

Bluetooth RF emissions are way way way lower than cell phones. Give it some thought. Bluetooth has an operating range of about 30-50 feet or so. Cell phones can reach cell towers that are miles away.