Legislator Wants Cancer Warnings For Cell Phones 314
Posted
by
Soulskill
from the reading-this-may-give-you-cancer dept.
from the reading-this-may-give-you-cancer dept.
Cytalk writes "A Maine legislator wants to make the state the first to require cell phones to carry warnings that they can cause brain cancer, although there is no consensus among scientists that they do and industry leaders dispute the claim. The now-ubiquitous devices carry such warnings in some countries, though no US states require them, according to the National Conference of State Legislators. A similar effort is afoot in San Francisco, where Mayor Gavin Newsom wants his city to be the nation’s first to require the warnings."
No proof? (Score:5, Funny)
If you want proof that cell phones cause brain damage, just listen to someone talking on one.
Warning message... (Score:1, Funny)
How about, a warning message before and after the call
Re:Just like California (Score:5, Funny)
I recall smoking cheap cigars and reading the warning label on the packaging. It might cause cancer in the state of California. Glad I smoked 'em in Florida. Made me rest a hell of a lot easier, ya know?
There should be another warning (Score:5, Funny)
"Use of this device while travelling on public transit may cause people to hate you"
Re:Just like California (Score:3, Funny)
For one of the facilities where I work, I had to take site-specific safety training before they would issue me a key. Included in the training was a note that there "may be nitrogen present in the air". This was included due to LN2 tanks being present in the basement, but it's a sorry state of affairs when you have to warn people that they MAY inhale some nitrogen.
Re:Where's the Science? (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds like somebody's got a case of the Mondays...
The first (Score:3, Funny)
Re:the sky is falling! (Score:1, Funny)
Perhaps we need a Maine Representative Andrea Boland causes cancer sticker, for her to attach to the speaker attached to the representative's cellphone? If you ask me, that rep has spent too much time outside in the winter air in Maine.
What's next, Republicans and Democrats demanding "Democrats cause cancer, and Republicans cause cancer," respectively?
Re:the sky is falling! (Score:5, Funny)
Warning: "Politics makes you a fuckhead"
That should totally be made into a T-Shirt
Re:No proof? (Score:2, Funny)
That's not fair, at least listen to someone smart enough not to stand on the thing when they try to make a call.
The end (Score:5, Funny)
We all have to go sometime, son. And you've used all your rollover minutes anyway.
Re:the sky is falling! (Score:5, Funny)
I can prove that Cell phones cause cancer because they are always emitting their GPS signals to the government, and they can remotely activate the voice input on your phone to listen to what you are saying. Luckily, I've got a free open source non-patentable method of keeping them out. You take some regular household tinfoil, and you wrap it around your head, so that it nicely rests on the ears. Make sure you get everything North of your eyebrows covered, and all the way around to the strange marking on that back of your neck from that one night you were abducted. (For those not abducted, just cover the entirety of your neck, to be safe).
Next, you need to take your passport and stick it in the Microwave, because the government put an RFID in there, to keep track of what terrorist states you are visiting. While you're in the kitchen, get a water filter, but not Brita, that is clearly alluding to England which is a close friend to the United States Government. Make sure you filter your water twice, and possibly even Distill it to make sure any and all drugs in the water are not present.
You should start a garden in your basement and grow some wheat (not outside! They'll see your crops on Google and poison them!). You can then turn that wheat into your own flour and use your own non-contaminated water to make dough, which you can then turn into a wide variety of foods.
Last but not least, every time you use your computer, make sure to open a text document and type in "I KNOW YOU'RE WATCHING" so that the FBI/CIA/Military Industrial Complex knows that you know and won't bother watching you. Follow these simple steps and you too can free yourself from the insanity that oppresses the sheeple into doing the corporations bidding. Maybe one day we'll rise against the new world order together, and take back what is rightfully ours **(I don't know what that is yet, but when I figure it out I'll let you know.)
Re:the sky is falling! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:the sky is falling! (Score:4, Funny)
Including Ron Paul
Re:Will this be covered by the public option? (Score:4, Funny)
I heard that secret government labs were working on a special new kind of headset that uses on ordinary _wire_ to connect to a telephone.
I can't imagine how they have solved all the problems of carrying complex audio signals through something as simple as a wire, but I still predict that this new, previously unheard of, "wirelessless" technology may catch on in a big way over the next twenty years.
Re:Its the rollover minutes (Score:3, Funny)
Those older minutes are just as good as the newer ones. Don't give me that look!
Re:NO, guy, try reading, it's bad idea, citations? (Score:3, Funny)
"The evidence is inconclusive at this point, but there are a number of studies that do seem to show that I am the Queen of England."
Re:the sky is falling! (Score:4, Funny)
But... he has people skills!
Consensus is irrelevant (Score:1, Funny)
WHAT’S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 13 Nov 09 Washington, DC
BRAIN CANCER: OF COURSE CELL PHONES ARE DANGEROUS!
Cell phones may lead to neural atrophy as mindless chatter is substituted
for coherent information, but they don't cause brain cancer. This week,
however, a doctoral thesis at a university in Sweden suggested that cell
phones are linked to some brain cancers. It went around the world in
Science Daily on Wednesday. This imaginary link is "discovered" about every
five years or so. Photons induce cancer by the photoelectric effect,
breaking chemical bonds and creating mutant strands of DNA. In 2001, I was
invited to write an editorial on cell phone hazards for the Journal of the
National Cancer Institute (JNCI, Vol. 93, Feb 7, 2001, p. 166). I pointed
out that the photoelectric effect would require photon energies at the
extreme blue end of the visible spectrum, which is why it's the ultraviolet
rays in sunlight that cause skin cancer. Microwave photons are about
10,000 times less energetic. In a classic 2001 op-ed, LBL physicist Robert
Cahn observed that Albert Einstein discovered in 1905 that microwaves
couldn't cause cancer. The cell phone scare was launched in 1993 on the
Larry King Live Show, which is not peer reviewed. It almost strangled the
infant cell-phone industry in its crib, but researchers found nothing.
Re:insanity (Score:3, Funny)
However, there is no major study disproving a link between garden gnomes and cancer. In fact, extensive searching shows no studies at all from which we can infer they are being suppressed. Whether this cover-up is by the government or by corporations is yet to be determined, but in the mean time there is no harm in warning the public that garden gnomes MIGHT cause cancer. And possibly syphilis.
Phillip.
objective measure (Score:1, Funny)
its almost as if they need an objective way of quantifying just how much a substance causes cancer. to do so in a standardised way would get interesting but hey why not. could require a few codes, but still a number might be possible given some reasonable assumptions?
what do you think /.
Re:insanity (Score:3, Funny)
Re:the sky is falling! (Score:1, Funny)
Re:how about... (Score:3, Funny)
How do we know they're not some sort of superior race? Great Danes, if you will.
Re:Just like California (Score:3, Funny)
An ammendment to the bill requires a second tattoo, explaining the dangers of cancer associated with tattooing.
Re:the sky is falling! (Score:3, Funny)
Warning: "Politics makes you a fuckhead"
I think politicians really really should wear this Turing-test T-shirt [thinkgeek.com].
Re:A better warning would be... (Score:4, Funny)
They can't help using their phones while driving. Brain cancer impairs their judgment.
Re:Where's the Science? (Score:3, Funny)
All the people who refuse to use science (i.e. Obser-fucking-vation) to form policy, guide their actions, and make decisions, and would rather use tea leaves, bones, or the dingle-berries they pick out of their ass, need to FUCKING DIE!
Preferably, of brain cancer.
Sadly, they are immune to brain cancer (for reasons that should be obvious).
Telephone sanitizers (Score:3, Funny)
Re:the sky is falling! (Score:5, Funny)
since you thing anything with "radiation" is bad, I have dire warning for you, your ear is less than 30 mm from a 150 watt infrared radiation source! better rip that 3.5 kilogram source off your ear, stuff it into a bio-hazard bag, and incinerate it now! you won't miss the thing, you're not using it anyway.