Carmel Pine Cone’s Paul Miller – Wrong Again: Apparently Cell Phones Can Cause Head Tumors

Cell Phones Causing Head Tumors
(c) Copyright 2011 David Dilworth

Update May 31, 2011: “Finally-The First Official Recognition that Cell-Phones Could Cause Brain Cancer”

Is Cell Phone Brain Damage Impossible?

It is unfortunate that it is necessary to disprove Paul Miller’s January 14, 2011 (unsigned) editorial in the Carmel Pine Cone with science facts, but like Rush Limbaugh, Miller (R-Jumps-to-Conclusions) gets so mightily exercised that when facts get in his way, he just detours around them.

While his editorial was aimed at smart-meters, and he even raised a good idea (correlation does not equal causation), Miller couldn’t help jumping way beyond the bounds of “truthiness.”

Miller based his editorial on the easily disproven false claim — “there is absolutely no evidence that [man-made electromagnetic radiation] is causing adverse health effects among humans.”

Wrong again Mr. Miller.

So wrong, it is silly.

Because Miller doesn’t seem to clearly understand that high energy forms of electromagnetic radiation are fundamentally different from radio waves that he seems to be focusing upon, we’ll give him the benefit of doubt when noting that no one reasonably disputes that ionizing radiation (x-rays, gamma rays and UV) can break your DNA, cause cancer and kill you in a dozen different ways. It is also unarguable that ultra-violet light causes the deadly skin cancer, damage to human eyes and most other tissues.

On the other end, the low-energy radio-wave part of the electromagnetic range, there is a scientific debate over whether the evidence of radio wave harm is substantial.

Harm: No Risk does not equal No Evidence

While some researchers believe there is no risk and others strongly disagree, unlike Miller, no researcher familiar with the subject of radio waves affecting humans believes there is zero evidence of harm. Even a rapid superficial reading of science news articles gives you that much.

A closer look reveals that leading researchers in this field report that “There are thousands of studies showing biological effects from electromagnetic radiation at exposure levels far below where heating occurs (non-thermal effects).”

(Click here to see some 225 Research papers on harm to humans and human tissue from radio waves.)

This means there is evidence of biological harm from radio waves that is non-ionizing and non-thermal. This is serious news to the scientific community. Curiously, the harm appears to be caused more by the signal (e.g. the radio pulses we make while talking on a cell-phone), rather than just the pure radiation.

Compare that to Miller’s bald-faced anti-scientific assertion “there is absolutely no evidence that [man-made electromagnetic radiation] is causing adverse health effects among humans.”

Miller’s logic takes a wrong turn when he wrongly confuses or conflates three separate concepts :

1. The amount and quality of evidence,
2. The amount and significance of harm the evidence shows, and
3. The amount of risk the harm indicates.

The reasonable debate is whether there is a serious risk from the harm caused by cell-phones, cell-towers, cordless phones and now smart-meters – not whether there is any evidence.

Harm Evidence Far Stronger Than I Thought

Just a few months ago I read a compelling article describing that there was powerful evidence of cell phone radio waves causing head tumors.

In 2008 Interphone researchers reported that after a decade of cell-phone use, the chance of getting a brain tumor on the side of the head where you use the phone goes up as much as 40 percent for adults.

But that study only looked at infrequent cell-phone users – people who use a cell-phone only two (2) hours a month, the equivalent of only four (4) minutes a day.

Do you know anyone who uses a cell-phone that rarely; 4 minutes a day ? Some estimate that a majority of the estimated 2 to 4 Billion (that’s a B) people with cell phones use it more than 4 minutes a day. Many people have a cell-phone to their head about two hours a day – some 30 times more radiation than examined by the study.

The evidence has been accumulating since 1960 when a researcher named Frey (Discoverer of the “Frey Effect“) found serious non-thermal effects from radio waves in the same frequency range used by cell-phones and cell-towers, cord-less phones, “smart”-meters, and wi-fi systems. Since then, the more that (independent – not industry) researchers look, the more harm shows up.

This should be old news, except the Pentagon and Motorola worked hard to suppress the information and all research — I’m guessing this was so that the public wouldn’t interfere with the powerful radiation spread by their radar and microwave antennas. (Kind of contrary to “informed consent.”)

The truly horrible news (or fortunate opportunity) is that cell-phones seemed to have picked exactly the right frequencies  to harm human tissues: 800mhz and 1,900mhz, and “some cellular telephones … generate peak powers of up to 8 watts … modulated at 2 to 217 pulses per second.”

Apparently by moving the cell-phone frequencies just a small amount – we could avoid most of this harm and risk. (I suspect you didn’t notice when cell phone companies changed from analog to digital cell phones in 2008. A change to a less harmful frequency would be even easier.)

Back to Paul Miller’s error: It is understandable that everyday people don’t understand the science, but for a publisher who brags about how many people his newspaper affects – it would be malpractice. Except that it is completely legal for a publisher to make up facts out of thin air that directly contradict the hard won facts of science, or ignore the science that disproves his arguments.

So you might seriously reconsider your use of cell-phones and even WiFi and the cordless phones you use at home – which all use the same frequencies and signals.

However, I do not advise holding your breath waiting for Miller to issue a correction, a retraction or an apology. That wait could kill you today.

-David Dilworth, January 2011

PS and here’s a new article “What’s Wong with ‘Smart’meters?”

Notes:
1. Wikipedia article on Cell phone radiation and health

2. “Multinational Interphone study sponsored by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, in Lyon, France. (Scientists from thirteen countries took part in the study, the United States conspicuously not among them.)” – Gentleman’s Quarterly, Feb, 2010″

3. Interphone Study Critique

4. “… an independent study in Sweden last year concluded that people who started using a cell phone before the age of 20 were five times as likely to develop a brain tumor.” – Ibid

5. Cellphones Cause Brain Tumors, Says New Report by International EMF Collaborative

6. New Evidence identifies strong cell phone-cancer link

7. Swiss Government’s Cautions on Cell-phone use (many detailed technical data and explanations)

8. How Cell-phone Radiation Works

9. 200+ Research papers on harm to humans and human tissue from radio waves.

10. Frequently Asked Questions about Cell Phones by Environmental Working Group

11. Environmental Working Group’s Guide to Reduce Cell Phone Radiation Exposure

12. IEEE report “Radiofrequency Interference With Medical Devices”

13. Environmental Working Group advice on cell phones

14. Limit Your Exposure To Cell Phone Radiation