There's no easy escape from cellphone risks
There's no easy escape from cellphone risks
By Hiawatha Bray Globe Staff / June 2, 2011
Forget whether your cellphone technology is 3G or 4G. It's time to start worrying about 2B.
That's the World Health Organization's official designation for chemicals or other agents that may cause cancer in humans. And the radio waves streaming from the world's 5 billion cellphones have just been added to the WHO's 2B list.
The ranking means that using your cellphone may pose about as much cancer risk as eating pickled vegetables or drinking coffee, both substances that are also on the list. Coffee's potential as a carcinogen has not hurt Starbucks' revenues. So don't expect to see pay phones sprouting on street corners as panicked consumers discard their iPhones and BlackBerries.
Still, the threat of brain tumors - no matter how slight - is troubling to WHO scientists. Americans average about 20 minutes of cellphone talk time per day, according to data from CTIA, the cellular industry's trade association.
That doesn't sound like a lot. But researchers were alarmed by a study that found an increased incidence of brain tumors in people who used their cellphones for an average of 30 minutes per day.
...
Posted 5 years ago by Monty Solomon in General Telecommunications Forum
