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| Limit exposure to mobile phones: French experts | |||
| 2009-10-16 | |||
| Sigh. Well, Al, it looks like Global Worming is drying up. Here's your next ambulance to chase and cow to milk to help you pay for your insane electric bills and transportation fuel costs. French health watchdogs, in a precautionary move, recommended on Thursday reducing exposure to mobile phones and other portable wireless devices. The guidelines are an interim step pending the outcome of wider research into any impacts from health from radio frequency fields. "The time for inaction has passed," Martin Guespereau, director of the French Health and Security Agency (Afsset), said at a press conference. "Let's not wait until the indications become pathologies before moving forward with limiting exposure," he said. More than 1,000 studies were reviewed by Afsset, focussing on mobile phones, Wifi emitters, microwave ovens, cordless home phones and other gadgets that use frequencies of between 9 kilohertz (kHz) and 300 gigahertz (gHz). I wonder how much grant money has been thrown at this. Most of the studies did not show any negative impacts. Not enough, apparently. Some research, however, did point to possible health problems, including cell damage, reduced male fertility and a lower blood flow to the brain. Lower blood flow to the brain seems plausible. Leaves me wondering how the folks with male fertility problems are using their phones, however. Probably better check for correlations with vibrate mode. Emphasising caution, Guespereau also pointed out that cellphones have been widely used for barely a decade, not long enough to study long-term impacts from constant exposure.
Given the uncertainty, the agency said further research was needed to determine potential health impacts and in the meantime advised the public to exercise caution. "If environmental exposure can be reduced, it should be," the agency said in a statement. It referred to a principle it called ALARA -- "As Low As Reasonably Achievable."
For cellphone networks, Afsset suggested France's three competing telecoms giants share local transmitters to reduce the tally of relay stations. An interim European Union study released earlier this year concluded that cellphone use is unlikely to cause cancer, but said that the effects of long term use and on children were unknown. Quick, someone tell Nancy! A comprehensive review of the potential health consequences of mobile phone use -- known as the Interphone Study -- overseen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) is set to be released before the end of the year, a spokesperson said Thursday. | |||
| Posted by:gorb |
| #4 #3 Mr. Wife is screwed, then. How will I tell the difference? Posted by: trailing wife I would assume by his satisfied smile while softly snoring? |
| Posted by: Frank G 2009-10-16 22:26 |
| #3 Mr. Wife is screwed, then. How will I tell the difference? |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2009-10-16 22:00 |
| #2 Ms. Lotp is an adult, but if we had young children at this point I'd be very careful about cell phone or wireless telephone handset use. I'm not a neuroscientist but I follow the research literature some due to my own specialty. A lot of brain circuitry doesn't finalize until late in adolescence or even early 20s. Electromagnetic energy that might not affect adults at all could have real effects on kids and teens. I'm not all that sanguine about constant bluetooth use, either. shrug |
| Posted by: lotp 2009-10-16 20:30 |
| #1 not long enough to study long-term impacts But plenty long enough for the fascists in gov't to use them as an excuse to increase control and taxes. |
| Posted by: AlanC 2009-10-16 10:21 |