Live data from Hacker News

Cellphone-Cancer Link Found in Government Study

wsj.com

41–50 of 163 posts

Re: Cellphone-Cancer Link Found in Government Study

#41

Ok this is the first study that says there is a link, but let's assume for a moment that what it says is correct and it has the same effect in humans: Would the same also be true for wifi? According to Wikipedia the average cell phone TX power is 500 mW vs 200 mW for 802.11n [0]. Cell phones usually operate at lower frequency than wifi, however wifi (at 2.4Ghz) is at the same frequency as microwave ovens. In the stud…

There are many factors. I had a friend studying the induced magnetic field and it's effects on tissues (vs frequency etc) long time ago. The conclusion was that there are overall cancer related and other brain related problems. It was her postdoc, and she also had access to the city subway lines for more tests.

So from the people I've known doing research and other anegdotal evidence, there is a link.

It still perplexes me how most of the studies in the end conclude there is overall no human-related high risk.

So maybe cellphones+ other generators are like peanut allergies, to some are fine, to others they are fatal.

It's too complex of a subject anyways. ... Edited for minor misspell

Re: Cellphone-Cancer Link Found in Government Study

#43
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the reason why people worry about cell phones and not other radio equipment is that they are transmitting very close to the body. Remember, EM intensity falls off as 1/r^2 so proximity makes a big difference.

...and I'm reading this with my laptop sitting on my lap..

The wifi antenna in a laptop is in the monitor. Even in your lap it is still much further from your body than the antenna on your phone when you have it to your ear.

Re: Cellphone-Cancer Link Found in Government Study

#44

It's important to note that according to official dogma, non-ionising radiation can not cause cancer. I've heard my own concerns about non-ionising radiation dismissed (even belittled) so many times that I've lost count. Most often this comes from educated people who think that their education constitutes the whole of all knowledge about the universe and that there is nothing left to be discovered. But one should und…

Anyone with even a cursory understanding of the scientific method shouldn't be bandying around words like 'proof'. Science is always provisional and new evidence can always overturn a theory.

Sadly many areas of debate attract cranks in larger than usual numbers and the health effects of electromagnetic radiation is one of them. So people get rather weary of fighting the same battles again and again and tend to become a little flippant in their replies.

Re: Cellphone-Cancer Link Found in Government Study

#45
Cellphones or Wi-Fi today are like cigarettes in the '50s. A huge lobby pretend they are just fine, people are in denial because they love them and we lack of longitudinal data about their effects on health.

But thanks to further research, and time, we are starting to understand better the effects of cellphone radiation on health. The World Health Organization already had a rapport in 2011 about cellphones possible dangers: http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/05/31/who.cell.phones/

Meanwhile, people should learn to use cellphones in a healthy way, and not living 24/24h with them (during sleep, for example). And at home would be better using cables instead of Wi-Fi...

Re: Cellphone-Cancer Link Found in Government Study

#46

It's important to note that according to official dogma, non-ionising radiation can not cause cancer. I've heard my own concerns about non-ionising radiation dismissed (even belittled) so many times that I've lost count. Most often this comes from educated people who think that their education constitutes the whole of all knowledge about the universe and that there is nothing left to be discovered. But one should und…

I guess a better way to say it is: Non-ionizing radiation can't cause cancer the way UV, x-ray or gamma rays cause cancer. We haven't found any other way radiation can cause cancer yet.

Re: Cellphone-Cancer Link Found in Government Study

#47

It's important to note that according to official dogma, non-ionising radiation can not cause cancer. I've heard my own concerns about non-ionising radiation dismissed (even belittled) so many times that I've lost count. Most often this comes from educated people who think that their education constitutes the whole of all knowledge about the universe and that there is nothing left to be discovered. But one should und…

> And I've never (even before the biology work) assumed the "non-ionising radiation can not cause cancer" to be a true statement. You can only come to that conclusion if you assume that ionisation effects are the only pathways that can cause cancer.

...and it is not justified to make that assumption, because there is reason to believe that there is another possible pathway. DNA is known to be conductive, and it is known that due to the shape of DNA in chromosomes it can act as a fractal antenna and non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation can induce currents in it.

It's also know that damage to DNA can change the conductivity of the damaged section. Some major researchers suspect that part of the mechanism cells use to detect and repair DNA damage makes use of this by looking for sections of DNA where the conductivity is not what it should be.

If this does turn out to be part of how damage is detected, then it is possible that currents induced by non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation when the DNA acts as a fractal antenna could confuse the repair mechanism causing it to fail to recognize and repair damage that would normally be found and dealt with.

Here is a submission from a little over a year ago about the fractal antenna aspect of DNA: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9447964

See my comment in that discussion for some more information on the possibility that this is connected to DNA repair and a link to one of the major research groups that is looking into this stuff (Jacqueline Barton's group at Caltech).

Re: Cellphone-Cancer Link Found in Government Study

#49

Study proves cell phone radiation makes you live longer! What about the huge, decades long study run by various governments with hundreds of thousands of people showing no association?

yeah. one would say that even before study, this

http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/dcpc/images/cancer_2020/brain_othe...

and this

http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/dcpc/images/cancer_2020/leukemia_i...

would show at least some acceleration

the only thing that really moved the average:

http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/dcpc/images/cancer_2020/all_sites_...

was this, I think related to HIV:

http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/dcpc/images/cancer_2020/kaposi_sar...

Re: Cellphone-Cancer Link Found in Government Study

#50
post #26

Ok this is the first study that says there is a link, but let's assume for a moment that what it says is correct and it has the same effect in humans: Would the same also be true for wifi? According to Wikipedia the average cell phone TX power is 500 mW vs 200 mW for 802.11n [0]. Cell phones usually operate at lower frequency than wifi, however wifi (at 2.4Ghz) is at the same frequency as microwave ovens. In the stud…

> this is the first study that says there is a link From 2011: WHO: Cell phone use can increase possible cancer risk [1] " Radiation from cell phones can possibly cause cancer, according to the World Health Organization. The agency now lists mobile phone use in the same 'carcinogenic hazard' category as lead, engine exhaust and chloroform. " Before its announcement Tuesday, WHO had assured consumers that no adverse h…

Not really. That carcinogenic hazard hazard category is a favorite of scaremonger reporters. Lead, engine exhaust and chloroform sound scary but they aren't known to cause cancer. This is Class 2B - "This category is used for agents for which there is limited evidence of carcinogenicity in humans and less than sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals." [1]

https://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_tab...

Post reply on HN