New Studies, Cellphone Manufacturer Legalese Revive Brain Cancer Debate [Cancer]

Well, crap. Feels like cellphones cause brain cancer again.

Or do they? Blarg!

The latest troubling study, and corporations’ own cellphone instruction manuals, says they may. Again.

Randall Stross, writing for the most recent York Times reports on the most recent ” do they or don’t they?” findings:

But the legal departments of cellphone manufacturers slip a warning about holding the phone against your head or body into the fine print of the little slip that you simply toss aside when unpacking your phone. Apple, as an instance, doesn’t want iPhones to return closer than 5/8 of an inch; Research In Motion, BlackBerry’s manufacturer, remains to be more cautious: keep a distance of about an inch.

Continuing on, Stross writes that the manufacturer’s consumer guidelines were dropped at his attention by Devra Davis, an epidemiologist and author of ” Disconnect,” a book on cellphone radiation. Overall, the common number of brain-related cancer cases has not increased since the introduction of cellphones to society. That said, there’s a caveat: brain cancer within the 20-to-29 age group has actually increased in that period, while dropping within the older population. Confusing!

Furthermore, Henry Lai, a researcher with the University of Washington, currently maintains a database of 400 papers regarding radiofrequency radiation and damaged brain DNA. What has he found in all that data?

He found that 28% of studies with cellphone industry funding showed some style of effect, while 67% of studies without such funding did so. ” That’s not trivial,” he said.

As always, these researchers say you are able to mitigate your risk by way of hands free headsets, the phone’s speaker, or texting. But don’t you dare keep that phone to your pocket for too long! Which can cause radiation-related mutation too! Gah! My potentially tumor-filled head is spinning!

Whatever the case can be, I’m going to continue to text while driving my car. That’s still safe, right?

Image: A supporter of San Francisco’s new law to require cellphone retailers to disclose radiation levels wears a button during a contemporary hearing at City Hall. [ The Big Apple Times ]

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This post is tagged: cellphone manufacturers, hands free headsets, instruction manuals, research in motion, university of washington