When the latest new health scare/alert sends me into a tizzy I usually turn to my brother in law Myron the psychiatrist/scientist for help. Here is my caveman response ("cm" in bold) to Myrons email. ------------------------------------
Dear Bob
It is true that radio frequency radiation passes into the head from a cell phone,
caveman (cm) - radio frequency radiation into head - me no like
and it is probably true that substituting a Bluetooth earpiece for holding the phone against one's ear exposes the head to even more radiation.
cm- fuggetabout bluetooth
A metal shield is kind of dumb as a protective
strategy,
cm-fuggetabout dumb protective shields
but using a plastic tube to conduct sound to the ear from a little speaker located on one's lap would definitely reduce radiation to the head.
cm: lets get little speakers for our laps
However, one's lap would then be exposed to more radiation. Which region is more important will vary, of course, between people and changes as one ages.
cm: fuggetabout little speakers for our laps
Radio waves do not have enough energy to strip electrons away from
atoms and hence cannot influence ordinary chemical reactions.
cm: me feel better about radio waves
Even visible light cannot do this despite having far higher energy per photon. It is only when one gets into ultraviolet, Xray and gamma ray frequencies that you have ionizing radiation (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ionizing_radiation ).
The radiation from a microwave oven cannot ionize... it only heats.
cm: finally - me happy - I can walk around with a microwave held up to my head or in my pocket without getting cancer
The amount of heat produced by a cell phone is so tiny that I don't think you could
measure the rise in temperature in the ear or anywhere.
cm: me like it when scary things cant be measured
However, for years, doctors have used "diathermy" machines to treat
orthopedic injuries. These emit high-frequency radio waves, like a
microwave oven (in fact, those waves are microwaves) and penetrate
deeper into muscles more rapidly than would a heat lamp or hot wet
towels. The warmth, combined with massage, is supposed to relax the
muscles and reduce pain and inflammation. The intensity of the
diathermy radiation is thousands of times greater than what is emitted
from a cell phone. There has been no evidence of diathermy causing
cancer.
cm: me getting sleepy
Radiation induces cancer by disrupting DNA. It knocks electrons off
the DNA or nearby molecules, making them available for unusual
chemical reactions. Only ionizing radiation can do this. Again,
visible sunlight, which is thousands of times more energetic per
photon than radio, can only heat up one's skin. It is only the
ultraviolet, again far more energetic per photon than, say, green
light, that can ionize anything and cause a sunburn or even induce
tanning.
cm: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
What this boils down to is that rumors, anecdotes, conspiracy theories
and pseudo-scientific polemic constitute the only basis for the
fantasy that cell phones next to the ear are more dangerous than a
cell phone in one's pocket.
As for radio waves, we are flooded with them, such as from radio and
TV broadcasts. A wire can pick up lots of energy from radio waves in
the air, a really lot. A so-called crystal radio set gets all its
energy from the antenna. You string a wire up to capture the radiation
that hits the wire, then pass the electricity through a coil and
capacitor that blocks out over 98% of the power and allows only a
little fraction to pass through... the fraction that is at the
frequency of a particular AM broadcast station. There remains enough
power in this fraction to produce sound in an earphone, with no
amplification, no batteries, no external source of power. There is a
lot of radio energy passing though us all the time, but, like I say,
it is non-ionizing and there is no serious body of evidence showing
any cancer risk.
As for using a little tube to conduct sound into the ear as little
puffs of air, this was how certain headphones in airplanes used to
operate. Nowadays, people plug electronic headphones into jacks on the
armrests, but one used to plug tubes into armrest holes. I think that
the fidelity of sound degrades when it has to pass through a littletube like that, so that it may be more difficult to decipher
conversations using the WaveShield RF1000 compared with a good
Bluetooth headset; and the latter usually includes a noise-cancellingmicrophone that supports hands-free operation when driving, walking or
eating. The little plastic tubes are better in an MRI machine...
that's how the technician talks to you and how they play music to help
you relax and enjoy.
Love, Myron
CM - me waking up in sweat. . . physics exam tomorrow . . . forgot to go to class
So Myron - Is it possible to answer the following true/false question?
Q Do cell-phones, in fact, emit enough radiation to cause cancer?
Yes or No
Thanks
Love Bob
stay tuned . . .
