20 ms·
No increased risk of brain tumours for mobile phone users, new study finds
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jeffbee 5y agoAnd yet it's still impossible to get a new 5G or even LTE radio site approved in the city of Berkeley. Thanks, crystal-worshipping hippies.
- rafale 5y agoIt's good we are not all the same, as to not put all of our eggs in one basket, that's why humans have varying tendency toward conservatism and liberalism. Maybe in 30 years we will notice something interesting about Berkeley's population and a multivariate study could even isolate the effect of 5G. But probably not.
- BoxOfRain 5y agoI agree, ideological diversity is important for the same reason genetic diversity is important: the results of protracted inbreeding are almost always catastrophic. The price of tolerating a lot of woo-woo and other nonsense buys us a society where we don't end up forcing people to recant heliocentric astronomy.
- ninkendo 5y agoIf you’re actually curious about the topic, this is an even-handed (reasonably well-informed) take on the matter from physicist Sabine Hossenfelder: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBsP-bmDLOo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBsP-bmDLOo One of the interesting points in the video is that 5G’s high frequency band of 24-48GHz is _not_ well understood with studies. The typical cell phone radiation/cancer studies deal with the much lower-frequency bands (hundreds of MHz or 1-5GHz), but that doesn’t necessarily transfer to the new higher frequencies. Per the video, it is known that frequencies that high can warm the skin and irritate the eyes if they’re at really high power, but it’s not known exactly what power threshold for such millimeter waves is considered “safe”, and the number of studies isn’t sufficient to completely dismiss any safety concerns. She’s not saying “5G isn’t safe”, but rather “5G hasn’t been completely determined safe yet because more studies are needed for the newer mm-wave spectrum” and “studies showing the safety of previous generations of cell phone radiation don’t necessarily apply to the new frequency band.” It’s not necessarily alarm-worthy, but it’s more nuanced than just “crystal-worshipping hippies”…
- jeffbee 5y agoIf you think those frequencies are bad, you're not going to believe how high the frequencies are that are emitted by your computer display, at 1000s of times the power of a communications radio.
- ninkendo 5y agoI never said anything was bad. I don’t worry about 5G at all, you’re projecting an argument I’m not making. I just said there’s nuance to the discussion (nuance which you’re apparently not seeing), and I'm not a crystal worshipping hippie.
- hackernewds 5y agoThe logical connection is that assuming you don't worry about computer monitors and your television, inferring that we should take pause and analyse mm-waves in depth seems like a misplaced focus
- ncmncm 5y agoYour computer monitors and television are not, in fact, radiating substantial modulated microwave and mm wave radiation. In the US, the FCC would have something to say about anybody shipping stuff that did.
- yolo69420 5y agoWe've known the basic physics answer to this for ages, yet even my old physics teacher in high school used to say that he's careful around a lot of electromagnetic radiation like WIFI router at home because he can't be sure it doesn't have an impact. Empirical evidence always helps, but in the discussion around science results etc. people always seem to forget that there's another important type of evidence, which is the mechanical understanding of a model/system. You don't really need empirical evidence to know what happens when you throw a ball in the air inside a locked box. Technically the laws of physics could magically change and produce a different outcome, but using your understanding of the mechanics of the underlying system you can predict that the ball is going to fall inside the box with a very low error rate. Still relevant since this applies to the new covid vaccines as well for example. People worrying about their potential negative effects are worrying for nothing, since even lacking long term empirical evidence we know how they work and have a deep mechanical understanding of mRNA vaccines, and they are not going to cause issues, period.
- oneshoe 5y agoDid I miss why the study was only done on women?
- lol768 5y agoI assume it was simply down to having a pre-existing, conveniently-accessible large set of potential participants to analyse, in the form of those involved in the UK Million Women Study (sponsored again by Oxford), who had been asked about their phone use all the way back in 2001.
- kergonath 5y agoA bit late. The “controversy” has left thousands of pages with spurious but believable arguments, unfounded hypotheses, and fallacious reasoning, along with more or less conclusive studies that can be used to argue for any point of view. Politics and opinions move too fast. Science does catch up eventually, but by then a lot of people end up with ossified beliefs with a significant emotional investment that are hard to challenge. That said, I’ll take any good study. It’s useful to have more data even with no new insight.
- Gnarl 5y agoStudy highlights: device usage 1 - 20 minutes per WEEK. Study population born 1935-1950, less likely as users of tech. No actual exposure data. Can't take this seriously.
- badkitty99 5y ago
- arcticbull 5y agoLuckily there are boatloads of other studies that show the exact same outcome. Here's one from 2016 [1] Overall evaluations show that the current evidence for a causal association between cancer and exposure to mobile radiation is weak and unconvincing. Some of the studies establishing association had significant limitations and weaknesses and, therefore, remain unreliable. Studies have highlighted that using these phones for about 10 years is unlikely to cause cancer. I agree. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4922278 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4922278
- xwdv 5y ago20 minutes per week is probably accurate for how much a person keeps a phone right next to their head these days. It’s not for device usage.
- SigmundA 5y agoCareful you might have to explain inverse-square law.
- dragontamer 5y agoRadio is emitted in 3-dimensions, right? So its inverse-cube law?
- ncmncm 5y agoNo.
- erdos4d 5y agoDoesn't a person get more EM radiation from living under high tension lines than from a phone anyway? If there are no cancer clusters around them, I don't see how this idea ever got legs in the first place.
- aaaaaaaaata 5y agoSize of wave matters.
- SigmundA 5y agoWhich is why microwaves are known to be safe because they are lower frequency than even light so the only known biological effect is heating which is purely a function of watts per kg exposure.
- ncmncm 5y agoMicrowaves are not, in fact, known to be safe. About all we can have confidence about is that entirely unmodulated low-power microwaves seem to have little effect, and the modulation already used for the various generations of cell phones cause not very much trouble. We have certainty that exposure to some E-M field modulations have profound effects.
- SigmundA 5y agoThe only known effect of microwaves is heating which is purely based on power hence why we cook food with them. They are also good at transmitting information quickly so we also use them at 4 orders of magnitude lower power in your cellphone. Its does heat the side of your head up a tiny bit about the same as if you held a small flashing LED light up to it. So yes microwaves are indeed known to be safe at cell/wifi power levels unless you have data that shows otherwise then we need to figure how it causes damage in a non-thermal way.
- ncmncm 5y ago
- 60secz 5y agoWho even holds their phone to their head anymore? Everyone I see only uses bluetooth. Seriously, how can you understand the inverse square law and be afraid of EM?
- blueflow 5y agoDid you think that through? I mean, a Bluetooth sender right in your ear...
- 01100011 5y agoQuite a difference in power output I think.
- jthrowsitaway 5y agoTrue, but the amount of radiation required for a Bluetooth headset is less than the amount required to communicate with a cell tower.
- kennywinker 5y agoThere are too many unknowns in biology for me to 100% dismiss the idea. I use a phone, I'm not worried about it - but it also wouldn't surprise me if there were mechanisms we are not yet aware of at play. e.g. specific frequencies that can do harm even at low levels. I also know we don't have good quality baselines. Cell phones have only been here for 30-ish years, during a time when the resolution and detail at which we delineate and diagnose disease has gone up dramatically. There are diseases and conditions we know about today that didn't know about then. Until we understand all the mechanisms of those diseases - it's bad science to entirely dismiss EM radiation because of "inverse square law".
- gruez 5y ago>There are too many unknowns in biology for me to 100% dismiss the idea. You're moving the goalposts. "[not] being afraid of EM" =/= "100% dismiss the idea [of cell phones causing cancer]".
- sobriquet9 5y agoAbsence of evidence is not evidence of absence. That said, if we start with the premise that > Mobile phones emit radio frequency waves which, if absorbed by tissues, can cause heating and damage then there is no need to do a study. Knowing transmitted power, frequency, distance, SAR, and thermal conductivity of human tissues we can calculate how big the change in temperature can be (should be way less than one degree, not enough to cause any damage).
- ncmncm 5y agoAssuming that the only possible effect is heating guarantees not learning anything. Modulated E-M radiation has been demonstrated to produce profound biological effects that cannot be accounted for by heating. Each of an infinite variety of modulations has its own effect, most of them probably negligible. The ones that do have effect are the ones that are interesting. Back in the 80s, I attended a talk in Hungary where an American biologist showed growing beetle larvae to 4x normal size under magnetic stimulation. No heating there. At the time somebody in the US was succeeding, over many decades, in suppressing almost all research into biological effects of E-M exposure. About the only person with a free hand was George Becker, author of The Body Electric, because he worked for the Veterans Administration on what they hoped would lead to limb regeneration. Every controlled study of microwave exposure I have encountered used entirely unmodulated radiation at a single frequency, which is where we would expect the least effect.
- sobriquet9 5y agoI'm not sure how modulation could have an effect, but there certainly were studies that used modulated signals: > The studies used 2G and 3G frequencies and modulations still used in voice calls and texting in the United States https://www.niehs.nih.gov/news/newsroom/releases/2018/february2/index.cfm https://www.niehs.nih.gov/news/newsroom/releases/2018/februa...
- ncmncm 5y agoBeing unsure is better, anyway, than feeling sure of something false.
- ncmncm 5y agoThat's a lucky outcome of a very public, impromptu experiment. Each new version has a different modulation profile. Biological effects of E-M exposure at sub-heating levels depend utterly on modulation. Analog, gen 2, gen 3, gen 4, now gen 5, are all different and on a random collection of frequency bands. Gen 5 uses a band not used before. There is no reason to think results from one modulation scheme and frequency band would match those from another.
- zaroth 5y agoWhat does “There’s no reason to think…” mean in this argument? What burden of proof does this line of reasoning impose? We are supposed to provide the absence of an effect every time a modulation scheme changes, or otherwise must assume just the latest scheme is somehow a novel deadly cocktail?
- ncmncm 5y agoIt means that negative results for existing phones tells you literally nothing about effects of 5G phones. We are embarking on another very large-scale experiment on the general public, whose consequences will not be known for, most likely, decades, unless any harm is actually very large. Assuming it is not a novel deadly cocktail makes exactly as much sense as assuming it is one. We are in a condition of total ignorance, and have done nothing to reduce that ignorance.
- hnplj 5y ago
- drdrey 5y agoJust looking at macro trends: cell phone usage has exploded, have we seen a similar explosion in brain tumors over the last two decades or so? Anybody knows where to get this data?
- ncmncm 5y agoAll kinds of tumors have exploded in recent decades. Nobody knows why, specifically. We know of lots of mutagenic and teratogenic toxins recently introduced, including BPA and its analogs, thousands of pesticides, PFAs, hormone analogs, you name it, that pervade our water systems, food sources, and lived environments.
- Strilanc 5y agoCould you give a source for that?
- ncmncm 5y agoWhat, that we are all exposed to BPAs, PFAs, and thousands of other poorly-understood industrial chemicals? That many nobody can avoid are known to be teratogenic at very low concentration?
- joshuahedlund 5y agoI think parent comment is asking for a source for: > All kinds of tumors have exploded in recent decades
- michaelmrose 5y agoCancer certainly did explode. The number of people living into their 70s and 80s increased very substantially between 1960 and now. https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2020/demo/p25-1145.pdf https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publicatio... Cancer is what you die of if something else doesn't get you first.
- larsrc 5y agoCancer is not the only possible side effect. A very well known and dramatic one, but not the only one.
- kavehkhorram 5y agoInteresting, but not too sure the connection here.
- queuep 5y agoI usually have my phone under my pillow when I sleep, is this a bad idea? I’ve done this the last 10 years or so. I always scroll websites until I fall asleep, and then my phone ends up somewhere in the bed, usually under my pillow
- ncmncm 5y agoNobody can say, with any justifiable confidence, whether it is a bad idea. Maybe you will find out. But there is quite a lot of research suggesting that doomscrolling in bed is psychologically harmful. Leave the phone in the other room, for sanity's sake.
- reincarnate0x14 5y agoStaring at electronic displays is generally considered unhelpful for trying to get to sleep due to both the light and rapid-attention span activities, having it under the pillow is probably equally harmless as the dozen other EMF sources around your bedroom. Unless the lithium battery catches fire. That might be bad for you.
- AngryData 5y agoI have yet to see any evidence for it doing harm or seen anything pointing towards a mechanism for harm. Not only is your phone transceiver pretty weak, usually 3W or less, but it is also running far below even visible light on the EM spectrum. If we aren't concerned about a 3 watt LED shining light on you, I don't think there is any reason to worry about far less energetic EM waves. And people have been trying to find proof of harmful effects from low level radio emissions since radio transceivers were invented. If there is an effect at all, which has yet to be shown, it must be absolutely minuscule to go completely unknown despite endless studies on it.
- ncmncm 5y agoYour ignorance of an effect is not the same as lack of effect. And, your demonstrated entire ignorance of the mechanism of absorption of radio-frequency electromagnetic radiation in living tissue inspires no confidence in your judgment. Nothing so reliably induces non-biologists to insist they are certain of facts no competent biologist would confidently speculate on as talk of microwave radiation.
- Terry_Roll 5y agoStill wont have a mobile pressed to my ear on a call as it causes a very subtle brain fog, same goes for bluetooth devices.
- Melatonic 5y agoDo people even put their mobile phone up to their head enough any more that we are worried about this? I would be more worried at this point about cancer risk to my other regions...... Not really all that worried at all though - just saying
- james4k 5y agoWe really need studies on the 5G small cell radios that are right outside people's apartment windows. Would also like to know if wearing bluetooth headphones all day is a risk.
- hadlock 5y agoThe amount of time I spend actually talking on my phone has dropped by about 90% since ~2004. Now that we've entered the covid/pandemic WFH era my phone mostly lives on a desk/table 18-24" from me. Mostly using 5ghz local wifi. The radiation profile has changed dramatically.
- ncmncm 5y agoSuch changes have made it hard to deduce any results, positive or negative, from the public experiment.
- nuvious 5y agoWe had a physics teacher who thought cell phones may cause brain damage and my immediate thought was to ask him about the electron well discussion we had had previously when discussing ionizing radiation and how the mechanism for damage from cell phone waves was basically impossible. He still stuck to his concern but didn't offer up a proposed mechanism for harm. The radio waves used for cell phones are between about 800 and 2000 Mhz. Visible light which we all know is not a concern is 490 to 790...terahertz. You don't get to ionizing radiation until you get to roughly 2400 terahertz which is roughly 10 eV. Was very frustrating learning all that physics just for dumbasses to claim your brain was getting fried so they could sell you a sticker with a metal screen for $40 that does nothing.
- forum_ghost 5y ago1 watt laser can burn through your eyeball. 1 watt regular LED is a fun Christmas decoration. Details matter. There are theories that radio waves can activate small nerve fibres that are located closely to the edge of your skin, where EMF can penetrate, even if only couple millimetres deep. Those nerve fibres are often located near the mast cells, which form part of your innantr immune system, and have a two-way communication with your CNS via these fibers. Constant inflammation driven by mast cells is a proven cause of autoimmune disease and increased risks of cancer, osteoporosis, many other chronic illness. It’s not just ionisation that can do that. That’s only one mechanism. Induce enough inflammation and you could have risks of cancer go up, and not only locally, like skin cancer, but systemically as well, because the immune cells release mediators into the systemic circulation, and in rare cases even causes anaphylaxis, like with solar urticaria: https://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/what-is-solar-urticaria https://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/what-is-s...
- EggPlexSinclair 5y ago
- EggPlexSinclair 5y ago
- j0ba 5y agoI'm still not convinced invisible LEDs don't cause cancer either.
- tangent-man 5y agohttps://ehtrust.org/science/top-experimental-epidemiological-studies/ https://ehtrust.org/science/top-experimental-epidemiological...