{"id":118,"date":"2013-07-08T12:49:39","date_gmt":"2013-07-08T12:49:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joshmitteldorf.peachpuff-wolverine-566518.hostingersite.com\/?p=118"},"modified":"2013-12-06T17:50:35","modified_gmt":"2013-12-06T17:50:35","slug":"cell-phones-and-cancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/joshmitteldorf\/2013\/07\/08\/cell-phones-and-cancer\/","title":{"rendered":"Cell phones and cancer"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the 21st Century, we live in a sea of radio waves. \u00a0No one wants to think that this might have consequences for our health – there are enough things to worry about that are more within our power to change. \u00a0We get plenty of encouragement not to think about the subject from the news media which, come to think of it, are not so easily distinguished from the telecomm companies. \u00a0The danger is real, if not so easy to quantify, and common sense suggests we might mitigate the largest sources of risk with minimal inconvenience.<\/em><\/p>\n

It was twelve years ago that a neighbor asked me if she should worry about exposing her teenage children to cell phone radiation. \u00a0I put on my physicist\u2019s hat and patiently explained to her the difference between ionizing and non-ionizing radiation. \u00a0Radiation comes in little quantum packets, and the type of radiation corresponds to how much energy is in each packet. \u00a0UV, X-rays, gamma rays and cosmic rays all pack enough energy in each photon that they can damage the complex and delicate chemicals, including DNA, on which our life depends. \u00a0Radio waves are low-energy radiation. \u00a0Each single packet lacks the punch to break a chemical bond, and so the only way they can affect our chemistry is if many of them act together. \u00a0This (I explained) is called \u201cheating\u201d. \u00a0Unless a radio signal is strong enough to change our temperature, then it can\u2019t be doing any damage.<\/p>\n

I was not alone in accepting this theoretical \u201cproof\u201d that non-ionizing radation can\u2019t hurt us. \u00a0Throughout the 20th Century, as radio technology was being developed with wider applications in more bands of the spectrum, scientists and regulators universally assumed it was (biologically) a benign technology.<\/p>\n

No one, in good conscience, can think that way any more. \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Studies of health hazards linked to microwaves have left the threshold of plausible deniability far behind, and it is only through an extensive program of censorship and scientific disinformation that the subject has been kept from the mainstream of public discourse. \u00a0Devra Davis<\/a> has worked tirelessly to advocate and educate on the connection between cell phone use and brain cancer.<\/p>\n

So far, there has been no public health catastrophe, but (as Davis explains), there is a time lag of up to ten years before cancer develops, and the rapid rise in the use of cell phones may take a much larger toll in the coming decade.<\/p>\n

Three important and very different questions arise:<\/p>\n