Quote:
Originally Posted by GregTheStig
That's the one I think. I'll read through it all when I get the chance 
Thanks for all the info. The only thing that concerns me is that reported cancer clusters with "no common characteristics" bit. I mean a cluster of cancer is still a cluster of cancer right? I'm sure you can tell I'm not a doctor lol.
Like I said earlier, we are getting an attorney involved so here's to hoping for the best. Thanks a bunch, pman. |
Contrary to popular thought, cancer is not a single disease; rather, it is a cluster of syndromes and diseases under a single, somewhat-unifying banner.
The reason for this? These different cancer syndromes often have different causes and phases of development. Simple examples: lung cancer is closely linked to exposure to smoking, mesothelioma is closely related to asbestos exposure. Extremely (EXTREMELY) high levels of exposure to cell phones are linked to certain CNS tumors, like oligodendrogliomas and astrocytomas.
The WHO reasons that if unrelated cancers are appearing, there may not be a causal link (or that the causal link is rather weak).
Quote:
Originally Posted by 1speedbike
Also.. if you're willing to listen to science, here's my take on it..
The increase in cancer risk comes from a lot of various factors about the radiation itself.
Of all the types of waves which could be damaging your DNA, the radiation from cell towers is at the bottom of the list. If you think of radiation as particles travelling in a sinusoidal pattern (waves), then you can see what I mean. In order to do some serious damage to your DNA, the particles not only need to be travelling fast, but they need to have some serious momentum. In order to have momentum, they need to have sizeable mass.
Alpha radiation is particularly nasty because you have relatively huge alpha particles (which are equivalent to a helium nucleus) battering your cells, ripping through, and taking out chunks of DNA. This is why different types of radiation get assigned RBE values, for which alpha particles are assigned a huge value of 12. RBE stands for relative biological effectiveness, and is a way to gauge how "bad for you" different types of radiation are. However, because of the extraordinarily slow velocity (relative to other waves), this type of radiation does not travel well, and even in air won't get far and won't get deep into your skin. It won't even get through a sheet of aluminum foil.. but damn that foil must be hurtin'
EMF waves (visible light, radio waves, UV, X-rays, gamma rays) on the other hand are made up of photons (particles of light). I'm pretty sure we can't actually calculate a photon's mass (if it has ANY) because it's so tiny, though we know they have momentum. With such a small mass, the momentum of the photon is much smaller than that of an alpha particle, and thus has the smallest RBE value of 1. However, due to their high velocity, they DO travel far and can penetrate the walls of your house.
All isn't lost, however, because typical radio waves have a frequency (and thus energy levels) much lower than those of nasty x-rays and gamma rays. The energy of a photon is directly related to its frequency, and lower energy means lower velocity. Without this energy, they simply don't have the momentum to knock your DNA around.
If you notice:
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Very nice way to reason it out
. Wave-particle theory, I like that! Something to keep in mind the next time I get asked about cell phone radiation.
Also explains why no solid theory has emerged as to HOW RF might result in neoplasia, unlike X-ray, UV and Gamma ray radiation.