Friday, July 25, 2008

Is your mobile phone ZAPPING your brain?

DUH! Of course it is! Isn't it obvious already?

That's as far as my opinion is concerned anyway. :)
And I don't think I'm alone with that view.


So far, although many researchers have hinted on the link between the phone radiation and brain tumors, you still don't see a Surgeon General's sticker on the side of your phone do you? That's because its either there really still is no conclusive evidence of the fact, or, that the industry including us users are in a state of denial.

I vote the latter.

But looks like finally, somebody is saying different now!

The LA times blog discussed yesterday, an Associate Press report that the University of Pittsburgh director of cancer research, Dr. Ronald B. Berberman has finally done what nobody else has dared to do: Publish a warning about the possible risk of cancer from frequent cell phone use.

Its actually a warning published to Berberman's faculty and staff, and not a general public warning. But that is seen as a bold step.... and is based on some initial, unpublished data.


Hope Jean-Luc's personal communicator doesn't give him breast cancer!

What does it mean to all of us?
  • Keep it away from children -- you don't want to risk messing up their still-growing young minds
  • Use the speaker phone function or hands-free / bluetooth headset
  • If you really must talk long, use a land line, please!


I know what you're thinking. Doesn't the bluetooth hands-free emit radiation as well? Think of it this way:
  • The bluetooth set only needs to be powerful enough to reach your phone up to 10m away
  • Your phone needs to communicate to the nearest base station from anything between 1.5km to up to 40km away! That's a lot more radiation it will have to put out to reach such a distance
  • Its the case of the lesser of the 2 evils anyway



So what do YOU think? We've lived with the tai-kor-tai for many decades now. For the younger ones, its been there since day one of their lives... and cannot imagine life without it. Is it worth the risk? Can we just junk the phone and return to sending smoke signals? HOW?

Leave me a comment.... would love to hear from you!

3 commented:

Anonymous said...

I recently received an excel file with a video in it (wonder how they do it).

To illustrate the level of microwave generated by mobiles, 4 mobiles are placed in a cross formation (east, south, west, north). In the middle, several un-cooked pop corns. Then the phones rang and within 10 seconds, POP goes the corn!

Amazing, I felt my brains pop just by watching that short clip...

What do I think? I think I'm going to Carrefour to buy some corn and give it a shot... watch this space.

If I'm not back by Monday, the microwave may have blown away more than the corn....

Anonymous said...

This is a hoax - http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/94863?comment_start=66&comment_count=20

Center Parted said...

Hi Jay,

Yeah, when it first came out, I thought it was a hoax too. But in truth, its an advertising campaign for hands-free kits!

Not bad, they got 17 million people's attention!

Here are the culprits:
http://cardosystems.com/pop/