Study Shows Cell Phone Use Poses Danger to Fetuses

BadBoy

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BadBoy
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Study Shows Cell Phone Use Poses Danger to Fetuses

Anyone heard about this? The headline is clearly misrepresenting things, but Doctor Taylor semms to think cell phone use may lead to a decrease in brain activity in a child exposed as a fetus. Also in the text of the link it says France has banned the sale of cell phones to children because of the risks.

I seem to remember that the question of a link between cell phones and cancer has been done before. I didnt know governments were legislating in this area now though.

Scaremongering or right to be carefull?

Edit: Sorry, that was France banned advertising cell phones to children, not selling them to children.
 
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My bet is scaremongering.
No cancer has ever been shown to come from non-ionizing radiation.
There is no mechanism for dna-breaking available.
 
BadBoy said:
Scaremongering or right to be carefull?
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The tests seem to have involved putting the phones on top of mouse cages and seeing what they did. My first thought is then: does a running mobile phone not create low frequency noise that a mouse might find annoying?

One thing I don't understand:
Taylor says the study shows there is a "biological basis" to suggest cellphone exposure can impact pregnancies. He says he is encouraging patients to be cautious with devices and recommends pregnant women hold phones away from the body.
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Err, why? Having a conversation with somebody at arms length is likely to take longer while the distance from any foetus won't have changed so much.

And then there is:
Several countries, including France, have banned advertisers from selling cell phones to children because of the risks.
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I can think of so very good reasons for not selling phones to kids. They have nothing to do with health effects though.
 
gambling_cruiser said:
My bet is scaremongering.
No cancer has ever been shown to come from non-ionizing radiation.
There is no mechanism for dna-breaking available.
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My recollection was that the original non-ionizing claim associated with power lines about childhood leukaemia stood up, all be it weakly, to all the meta-analysis. Whether it was down to some uncontrolled for corrolation, who knows? This topic has been going on since the 60s, or 70s. The excitement is not justified by the available evidence. It's not as if vast sums haven't been spent on investigating the question.
 
BenBurch said:
Of course it's dangerous! The mom gets herself killed driving with the cell phone to her ear and that is very dangerous to the fetus.
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It's even more dangerous when the fetus tries to answer a call while doing something hazardous, like operating a backhoe.
 
The fact has long been noted that scientific experiments are hazardous to caged mammals.

I don't understand why the powers that be keep funding these repetitious experiments.
 
We'd better get rid of radio entirely. Those wavelengths have no use anyways, am I right?:D
 
Tubbythin said:
The tests seem to have involved putting the phones on top of mouse cages and seeing what they did. My first thought is then: does a running mobile phone not create low frequency noise that a mouse might find annoying?

One thing I don't understand:

Err, why? Having a conversation with somebody at arms length is likely to take longer while the distance from any foetus won't have changed so much.

And then there is:

I can think of so very good reasons for not selling phones to kids. They have nothing to do with health effects though.
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I think the tests involved putting phones on the cage of pregnant mice, and then monitoring the children (without the phones).

Seems mice that were exposed to cell phone radiation in the womb appear to have been affected.

The point he makes about the location of your phone is I think meaning dont keep the phone in a pocket that is on your belly. I tend to sit on the train listening to music with my cell in my hand resting on my lap right next to my nuts. I have an irrational fear of doing it and usually move my hpone into a breast pocket.
 
shuttlt said:
My recollection was that the original non-ionizing claim associated with power lines about childhood leukaemia stood up, all be it weakly, to all the meta-analysis. Whether it was down to some uncontrolled for corrolation, who knows? This topic has been going on since the 60s, or 70s. The excitement is not justified by the available evidence. It's not as if vast sums haven't been spent on investigating the question.
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The claim that maybe stood up was, as you say, not clear which variable was involved. That's not the same as saying "the original non-ionizing claim associated with power lines about childhood leukaemia stood up".

http://www.webmd.com/cancer/news/20050602/child-leukemia-again-linked-to-power-lines?page=2
Dickinson suggests that the Draper team's findings are real. But she thinks that living near power lines is linked to something else -- something that really does increase a child's leukemia risk.

"We know the rate of leukemia varies by a factor of two or three between isolated rural areas," Dickinson says. "And this is related to an influx of population that can change pattern of the infections to which a child is exposed."

Sudden exposure of once-isolated children to a lot of new childhood diseases, Dickinson suggests, may be linked to leukemia risk. She suggests that this may be a "confounding factor" in the Draper team's findings.
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I'd like to see a study (maybe there is one?) that looks at the rates of leukemia depending on living by a busy road. A lot of houses that are near power lines are also near busy roads, in the US anyway.

Then there's the fact, the effect is so small:
"A 70% increase in leukemia means that the 1 in 2,000 risk of leukemia becomes a 1 in 1,200 risk," she says. "In the U.K., this means that five extra children might get leukemia. We need to keep this in perspective
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BadBoy said:
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The point he makes about the location of your phone is I think meaning dont keep the phone in a pocket that is on your belly. I tend to sit on the train listening to music with my cell in my hand resting on my lap right next to my nuts. I have an irrational fear of doing it and usually move my hpone into a breast pocket.
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Men can get breast cancer too you know. ;)
 
I carry mine in a shirt pocket.
And had a mammogram for a lump, which didn't show anything much, and went away anyway.
I did kinda enjoy the way the technician managed to rub her chestal area all over me as she adjusted my fat in the clamp. :rolleyes:
 
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You know, for some reason this reminded me of the opening of the movie Machete...

The hero is a cop who is rescuing a woman who has been kidnapped. After breaking into the bad-guy's hideout (and decapitating multiple people) he finds her laying naked on a bed. He carries her out, only to find out it was all a trap. The woman pulls out a cell phone (3 guesses from where... and remember, she was naked) and calls in more evil henchmen.

Now, here I thought this was just a bit of harmless entertainment... little did I know there were people using it as the basis of a scientific study.
 
I seriously doubt that they showed the mice were affected. What they probably have shown is , in a small population of pregnant mice (my bet is a few 10 or so) with a switched off phone , there were less defects/seemed more active/passed a test better than a similarly numbered mice with a switched on phone. Which could be due to anything. I could be wrong, maybe they have varied exposure and showed a direct correlation or even causation, but i am willing to bet : not.
 
Segnosaur said:
You know, for some reason this reminded me of the opening of the movie Machete...

The hero is a cop who is rescuing a woman who has been kidnapped. After breaking into the bad-guy's hideout (and decapitating multiple people) he finds her laying naked on a bed. He carries her out, only to find out it was all a trap. The woman pulls out a cell phone (3 guesses from where... and remember, she was naked) and calls in more evil henchmen.

Now, here I thought this was just a bit of harmless entertainment... little did I know there were people using it as the basis of a scientific study.
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It was nice that her fetus was willing to lend her a cell phone.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
The claim that maybe stood up was, as you say, not clear which variable was involved. That's not the same as saying "the original non-ionizing claim associated with power lines about childhood leukaemia stood up".]/QUOTE]
The original claim was by an epidemiologist, I forget her name, that there was a corrolation between leukemia and power lines. Now, the original study was done with either no funding, or very little, by a lone researcher guestimating the distance between power lines and the homes one kids with leukemia. All the usual things about clusters of cancer cases and texas sharp shooters apply. Somehow the researcher lucked out though and 40 odd years on there is still something borderline worth talking about.

The original claim then got blown out of all porportion by journalists, fringe scientists and people with "alternative" beliefs.

Skeptic Ginger said:
http://www.webmd.com/cancer/news/20050602/child-leukemia-again-linked-to-power-lines?page=2I'd like to see a study (maybe there is one?) that looks at the rates of leukemia depending on living by a busy road. A lot of houses that are near power lines are also near busy roads, in the US anyway.
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Absolutely. This is the obvious thought when you see a statistic like this. Do children in wealthy areas sleep within a couple of metres of a power line? Do children in slums? Are powerlines associated with areas of increased polution? My recollection is that the interesting thing was that the effect stood up to attempts to control for all this.

Now, the fact that nobody has managed, in all the decades between the original epidemialogical study and now, to isolate/explain this weak effect, despite many millions of dollars spent in trying, makes me somewhat doubtful that it is there at all. Even if it does exist, the risk is small and we aren't about to go back to ditch electrical power and wireless communications.

Skeptic Ginger said:
Then there's the fact, the effect is so small:
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Why let that get in the way of a good panic about modernity?
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Cell phones

I'm too new to post a link but go to nature.com where the original paper is available in full and check out the several very critical comments. Or google Aldid "Scientific Reports" and it'll be the first listing. Aldid is the first author.
 
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