4 ms·

So the question becomes, do you want a little bit of carcinogens in your air? a lot of them? or none (produced by you in your enclosed space/home)? An identica

So the question becomes, do you want a little bit of carcinogens in your air? a lot of them? or none (produced by you in your enclosed space/home)? An identical argument can be made about wireless radiation. Literally, do a search/replace of a lot of the quackery throughout this whole discussion and you've got a standard discussion about banning wifi. e.g. I have heard that standing close to a high power transmitter is dangerous. Therefore, I am in danger because of my neighbour's wifi transmitter. Now someone is going to argue about ionizing potential energy, but the same principals apply for carcinogenic compounds, which are literally all around us. The process of cooking almost invariably even creates new carcinogenic compounds -- do you eschew cooking? Reductionism is almost always garbage science if taken holistically (it has value within a context, however). Are there actual demonstrated correlative studies of recreational burn "advocates"? Of neighbours? Do wildfires lead to mass outbreaks of cancer (or even a statistically discernable incident rates)? No? Then it sounds like an enormous reach of extraterritorial offense.

lingben 13y ago
strawman argument - wireless signals are not dangerous or harmful, no study has shown this, whereas VOCs and other compounds which are a byproduct of wood smoke are carcinogenic.
- corresation 13y ago
  Would you stand in front of an operational radar array? Would you give a good hug to a high power transmitter? In both cases you would quickly find yourself dead, despite it being just "wireless signals". They are high power variants of their low power cousins. The latter isn't dangerous simply as a factor of magnitude. But the same arguments apply. Further it's an interesting note that the classification of something as a carcinogen usually is arrived at via very large levels of exposure, and there are endless tables of "acceptable" exposure to such carcinogenic materials. This fireplace issue would seem to be something that would be studied to death, and strong correlative findings demonstrating a sound case (given how utterly dire and extreme the submission is). Instead you get things like this- http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3002194/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3002194/ I'll skip to the fun part -- wood burning homes did have more incidents of cancer, because they had a higher correlation with smokers (similar to how, for instance, blue jeans probably have a higher incidence of cancer than khakis). Among non-smokers the incident rates of cancer are absolutely identical with non wood burning homes. Isn't that incredible, and doesn't that simply destroy the submission? And this is for frequent users who use it as a primary source of fuel, so a level of exposure dramatically higher than such a recreational user.
  - lingben 13y ago
    Predominant solid-fuel users had an increased risk of lung cancer compared with nonsolid-fuel users (Figure 1). We saw this increased risk among both men and women, in ever- and never-smokers, among whites and Asians, and among studies carried out in Asian and in North American and European countries.
    - corresation 13y ago
      Skip the narrative and look at the data -- never-smokers who predominately used solid-fuel (which in North America means wood) had a cancer rate of 1.01 (where 1 is the non-solid-fuel incidence of cancer). For their sample size that is a statistically irrelevant difference. And remember these are people who are exposed to burning wood for dozens if not hundreds of days a year, and compare that with the narrative of the article that does the oldest trick of proclaiming that something has an association with carcinogens, therefore it is an unhealthy dangerous.

lingben 13y ago

strawman argument - wireless signals are not dangerous or harmful, no study has shown this, whereas VOCs and other compounds which are a byproduct of wood smoke are carcinogenic.

corresation 13y ago
Would you stand in front of an operational radar array? Would you give a good hug to a high power transmitter? In both cases you would quickly find yourself dead, despite it being just "wireless signals". They are high power variants of their low power cousins. The latter isn't dangerous simply as a factor of magnitude. But the same arguments apply. Further it's an interesting note that the classification of something as a carcinogen usually is arrived at via very large levels of exposure, and there are endless tables of "acceptable" exposure to such carcinogenic materials. This fireplace issue would seem to be something that would be studied to death, and strong correlative findings demonstrating a sound case (given how utterly dire and extreme the submission is). Instead you get things like this- http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3002194/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3002194/ I'll skip to the fun part -- wood burning homes did have more incidents of cancer, because they had a higher correlation with smokers (similar to how, for instance, blue jeans probably have a higher incidence of cancer than khakis). Among non-smokers the incident rates of cancer are absolutely identical with non wood burning homes. Isn't that incredible, and doesn't that simply destroy the submission? And this is for frequent users who use it as a primary source of fuel, so a level of exposure dramatically higher than such a recreational user.
- lingben 13y ago
  Predominant solid-fuel users had an increased risk of lung cancer compared with nonsolid-fuel users (Figure 1). We saw this increased risk among both men and women, in ever- and never-smokers, among whites and Asians, and among studies carried out in Asian and in North American and European countries.
  - corresation 13y ago
    Skip the narrative and look at the data -- never-smokers who predominately used solid-fuel (which in North America means wood) had a cancer rate of 1.01 (where 1 is the non-solid-fuel incidence of cancer). For their sample size that is a statistically irrelevant difference. And remember these are people who are exposed to burning wood for dozens if not hundreds of days a year, and compare that with the narrative of the article that does the oldest trick of proclaiming that something has an association with carcinogens, therefore it is an unhealthy dangerous.