next sunday's roast: pick your brain

Microwaves dominating our lives:

Admitted, it is no fun to read this report on microwaves and cell phones, mobiles; however, it is an interesting summary of what we should be much more aware of and what we (all?) feared to be(-come) reality for many, many years.

I have picked up on the subject before and had/have to go through all kind of responses like the funny smile or the always aggressive "What do you know!?" from school bus drivers to headteachers and fellow parents that all either love to play with the gadget - the "emergency argument" to "must have one" proves to be the smaller 0.1% exception - or need it as an important element of demonstrating their Zeitgeist understanding and membership or to simply boost their suffering image and that of their ward/family members.

And in my own family? The arguments like "but the others..." or "It can't be that bad..." are dominating and often scotching any discussion; so - as usual - what is left is the vague hope that statistics will hit the others.

The public should know if they are taking a risk with cell phones. What we're doing is a grand world experiment without informed consent."

If all this sounds like some abandoned X-Files script, consider the history of suppression of evidence in the major issues of consumer health over the past half century. Big Tobacco hid the dangers of smoking and the addictiveness of nicotine, supporting its position with countless deceptive studies. Asbestos manufacturers hid evidence that the mineral was dangerous even as tens of thousands of workers died from exposure; the makers of DDT and Agent Orange stood behind their products even as it became clear that the herbicides caused cancer. That the cell-phone industry, which last year posted revenues in the hundreds of billions of dollars, has an incentive to shut down research showing the dangers of cell-phone use is not a radical notion.

It is very worthwhile to read; good luck with taking consequences.

Carpe diem!

apropos radiation!

telegraph: Long-term use of mobile phones "may be linked to cancer"

No, I don't want to discuss this again; but then how long will it take for a flood of reports to pop up all over the place denying any link whatsoever.

Let's just pretend we listen to all these lobbies from tobacco to food, from pharmaceutics to chemistry, from nuclear to coal, or from left to right.

Carpe diem!

p.s.: This article picks up on radiation and heart diseases.

Brain Cancer Linked to Youngsters Using Cellphones

http://www.montrealgazette.com/Health/Brain%20cancer%20linked%20youngsters%20using%20cellphones/1395572/story.html

Mobiles, that is!

Alexander had just been given his first mobile; he is proud as can be, excited to learn all its functions, downloads music and carries his new toy everywhere; he feels grown up by two feet and taken seriously, finally, thanks to that status symbol we so generously allowed him to have.

It is kind of hard having him switch it off at night only to know that he will use it first thing in the morning again and then immediately in the school bus; same as three, four or more of his classmates and the driver having one on stand-by or ear-hung on Bluetooth, too.

That wee school bus follows the back roads to pick up others and take them to school; no reception along an eight mile road, anyway, and very bad reception where those precious little toys find their friends’ masts called BT, Vodafone or even O2 – did that not stand for oxygen, once?

Good? Well, the twice-a-day-trip allows our tiny school girls and boys sitting in that bus and taking a twice-a-day-fifteen-minute-intense-shower of increased radiation from three, four, five or more mobiles that desperately try to find reception by maximising their sending power: They are programmed to do just that in order to overcome the Faraday’s cage shielding effect and the long and disrupted distance to the next sending mast(s). It is so simple, basic physics. The kids might learn about that in Secondary – will that then lead to any consequences? Hope against hope.

This is neither new nor are we the only parents of an eleven year old who are worried – it is a threat where we might be accused one day of having allowed our son or daughter to get brain cancer by neglecting supervision of minors. Worse: the boy might ask: why me, you should have known!?

I know: nothing is proven, too few and too limited studies, little do we know, it won’t hit them all, the risk is minor and who wants to question a billion Dollar industry?

Smoke, smoking, smokers are just going through that stage: who tells us, them or you that it will be any different this time?

This is from a parent who would like to know more, feels he knows better, but fails, anyway.

Carpe diem!