Winning the Cell Spin War

How can the issue be handled in a way that best serves consumer interests?

The FCC already puts upper limits on radiation emissions despite the lack of proven adverse impacts.

Proof of harm with out it how can consumer interest be made issue. They do not know where to go with it. Just grasping a straws. I'm not saying the the radiation coming from a cell phone is not harmful. It's that if you can not prove the harm is being done how do you set limits to protect the consumer. Without proof how can you expect manufacturers to accept arbitrary standards for emissions and not fight it. I also do not believe it's not about business. As the ordinance would help some companies that have low emission cell phones.

And all this nonsense gains impulse from altered videos showing popcorn being cooked by four cell phones RECEIVING a call...

And still, there is people who take that as true !

Yahlasit

Low emission cell phone = short range cell phone...

apply gold foil to the outside of cell phones. that will help block the radiation, and improve the perceived value of them at the same time.

That cell phone beam of radiation is going through your head. It is no doubt, that is not a good thing and must mitigated is some manner. To solve this problem, it is called an "invention". On the other hand lets wait until we kill thousands of people before we do anything, you know, our usual way we operation. Everyone has a cell phone stuck in their ear, yet it is harder to reach anyone to day, that ever before.

If the city of San Francisco is suing, there is smoke and smoke is not far from the fire. (business or no business)

Roy H.

You say "wait until we kill thousands of people (with cell phones glued to their ear)" as if its a bad thing?

you can be the first.

What about the neutrino problem!

Millions of those little buggers are going through our bodies every second of every day and nobody is doing a thing about it. Who knows what such a constant barrage of these particles can do to our bodies. Everything, even our DNA is exposed to the effects of these pesky particles.

I fight back and zap them with Tachyons and Anti-Neutrinos. ^{_{(controlled by my supersecret positronic brain.}} Ω^₎

I remember the rationale of many cigarette smokers... "I'm gonna die anyway. If I enjoy (warped perception) smoking, what's it to you?" In the case of smoking, secondary smoking was shown to be harmful. Watch someone die of emphysema. Then tell me how much you appreciate the expressed sentiment.

Everyone should have the right to die by any means they see fit. Just don't endanger my health by doing it (drinking, texting, talking on your cell phone, etc) while driving. And if you insist, don't help raise everyone's health insurance rates by engaging in reckless behavior. Proponents of cell phone use say there is no conclusive evidence. Here's one article. They say it's complex. It might also qualify as obfuscation.

How long will people trust that large corporations have their best interests at heart? And how long will people worship at the alter of technology?

Actually in the largest study, second hand smoke was NOT shown to be harmful.

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/326/7398/1057

Hm-m-m? I never said second hand smoke was fatal; only harmful. I looked at the study and they do not rule that conclusion out. They don't even rule out fatalities due to second hand smoke. They state it is premature to reach that conclusion.

From the article you cite:

Conclusion: The results of the California CPS I cohort do not support a causal relation between exposure to enviromental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality, although they do not rule out a small effect. Given the limitations of the underlying data in this and the other studies of environmental tobacco smoke and the small size of the risk, it seems premature to conclude that environmental tobacco smoke causes death from coronary heart disease and lung cancer.

You're not a smoker by any chance, are you?

I can't at present cite the study, but the statistics show that spouses of smokers << in rural areas>> show no ill effects, but those in urban areas suffer from respiratory problems. Of course, in urban areas, spouses of non-smokers suffer...

Distracted driving does not require a cell phone as any parent who has driven a conscious (?) two year old knows. Cell phones are just the newest and quite significant distraction source drivers are responding to. The tragic part is that every cell phone service comes with a voice mail account. So when driving just turn the phone off!

But from what I see from all of the cancer from cell phone studies, the effect from neutrinos seems to dominate any results found. Stop the neutrino flood!!!

People seem to be prone to jump to conclusions, perhaps because from childhood we are taught to be fearful of anything we don't understand. Of course second hand smoke is harmful. It's obvious, except we now know second hand smoke is "harmful" only if you live where you breathe diesel fumes ;-) Yes, electromagnetic radiation can harm livng cells (think of the mouse in the microwave oven who dies of hyperthermia), but the output of cell phones is pretty low. For most of us, we have been living all our lives exposed to radio, TV, 50 or 60 Hz fields from power lines, plus cosmic rays and, yes, sunlight, a proven to be a harmful form of EM radiation. Using any cell phone, even the lowest power, will result in death if you use it for 80 or so years. BFD

I had a conversation about this subject with someone in the Physics department at the university where I work. A friend of his who is a biophysicist -- or something similar; good credentials at any rate -- said that under normal operation cell phones pose a low risk. But when used in rural areas (when signal strength is low) the phones automatically boost their power, like an AGC circuit, and he said under those conditions they definitely do cause, as he termed it, "cell disruption". But like I said, to each his own. Other people using cell phones is certainly not going to harm my health... just maybe my health insurance rates over the long haul. Not sure where you get the 80 year data point from, though.

"Using any cell phone, even the lowest power, will result in death if you use it for 80 or so years."

My assumption is that most people don't start using cellphones until, say, age ten, and that most people don't live past age 90, hence my "80 year data point" ;-) Similarly, attempting to drink pasteurized milk for 100 years is almost always fatal.

Your cellular phone has an FCC Identification number. This FCC sponsored generator will provide information regarding the SAR (Specific Absorption Rate, which is a way of measuring the amount of radio-frequency energy that is absorbed by the human body) of you particular phone. This is applicable to the USA: I do not know if phones outside USA will have this ID number.

I agree with redfred. Humans, roaches, diplodicus... all organisms have been bombarded with forms of radiation, neutrinos (and perhaps those pesky tachyons), since the dawn of time. I am not concerned about cell phones.

What is worth really understanding in this whole picture is the practice of fear mongering. Classically, this is an activity that is irrational on its face, practiced by criminals to extort money or compliance from persons who would normally not be willing to do or support criminal actions. Most of us think of examples like Nazi Germany, or in more recent times, the whole 911 anti-terror evolution.

That the SF city government is indulging in this practice relating to cell phone emissions is highly unlikely. Most elected officials spend most of their time responding to political pressures. There are definitely people out there who are honestly concerned about microwaves in the environment, and there are likewise huge economic and political interest groups who are very eager to invalidate all such concerns. The question remains: is there any grounds for us to be concerned about these emissions at the power level of a typical cell phone? I am not convinced that we should be complacent about these devices. There is some evidence that research in this area at much higher power levels (microwave ovens, a Swiss study) was successfully suppressed by industry interests using political pressure.

The everyday cell phone user has no way to do his own scientific study on the health effects of prolonged cell phone use. Studies like that take time and special equipment and cost a lot of money. I don't know if such studies have been honestly done. I know we have had problems with the honesty of such product safety studies in other areas (pharmaceuticals). Who is there to work on these issues in the public interest? To me it's definitely an open question and one that will only become more contentious as more and more technologies are pushed forward that could have biological or physiological impacts on people. We need agencies who will faithfully do this work without undue influence from economic or political interests, and that's a tall order.