Can cellphones cause cancer?

mep

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Apr 20, 2010
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I think Joe Jackson said it best with his song “Everything Gives You Cancer.” Things that are promoted today as being healthy will be on the news next week as cancer causing agents. Six weeks after that, they will be back on the news as preventing cancer. It’s an endless cycle. We are all going to die of something; it’s just a race as to what will kill you first. There is even irony involved sometimes. One example would be a vegetarian crossing the street and getting run over by a meat truck.
 

MylesBAstor

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Apr 20, 2010
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Here's the thing. This flies in the face of EVERYTHING we know about the etiology and development of cancer. Solid tumors take 20-30 years to manifest themselves (as opposed to leukemias that can occur 3-5 years after an initial exposure to a carcinogen (ionizing radiation, chemicals or physical such as asbestos)-- eg. see data from the A-bomb survivors) after an initial insult by a carcinogen, in large part because there are multiple genetic events that MUST occur. Which are primary, secondary and tertiary, etc. are open to debate but it is clear one of the earliest changes that must occur in the transformation of a normal cell to a neoplastic site is the development of immortality. Tumor cells contain genetic rearrangements that would be lethal to a normal cell eg. trisomys, missing chromosomes, piece of chromosomes translocated onto other chromosomes, etc.

Second, one must read about the newest advances being made in understanding the development of brain tumors. Some brain tumors such as glioblastomas are the most refractory tumors to treat on earth. Ave. survival times after diagnosis is 9 months :( But the main thing is that it seems that changes must occur within the stem cells in the brain that reside in one particular area of the brain.

Third, even if would say that cell phones are a tumor promoter (see case of TPA and benzpyrene), what is the insult then?

Fourth, Mercola is definitely parochial, ignoring all data that might contradict with her beliefs in addition to ignoring any issues that exist with the studies quoted :(

Last, years ago when was on the staff at Columbia, we investigated the effects of EMF upon cells using a very sensitive assay known as sister chromatid exchanges (SCE). We did not find any effect.
 
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LL21

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Dec 26, 2010
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I am told that Blackberry's being a PDA are able to get away with much higher radiation levels than cell phones...multiples higher. I have been warned by a number of neurosurgeons i have known my whole life to stay off the blackberry unless you're using an earpiece. They have seen too many increased cases of acoustic neuromas and other tumors in the area, and thus have become very uncomfortable over the last 5-10 years.
 

MylesBAstor

Well-Known Member
Apr 20, 2010
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I think Joe Jackson said it best with his song “Everything Gives You Cancer.” Things that are promoted today as being healthy will be on the news next week as cancer causing agents. Six weeks after that, they will be back on the news as preventing cancer. It’s an endless cycle. We are all going to die of something; it’s just a race as to what will kill you first. There is even irony involved sometimes. One example would be a vegetarian crossing the street and getting run over by a meat truck.

Cancer is unquestionably a disease of aging. Live long enough and you'll develop cancer. Think of the billions and billions of times over your lifetime that your DNA has to replicate with absolutely perfect fidelity! Sure we have DNA repair enzymes that take care of some replication errors. Other errors eg. substitution of bases, may occur in noncoding regions of the DNA. But when they occur in critical genes, then you develop cancer. Then throw in the environment that we live in with its chemicals, UV, cosmic rays, radiation from naturally occuring radioisotopes, radioisotopes we put in our atmosphere during above ground nuclear testing years ago, etc. Then throw in our crappy diets....well you get the idea :)
 

audioguy

WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
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Near Atlanta, GA but not too near!
Here's the thing. This flies in the face of EVERYTHING we know about the etiology and development of cancer. Solid tumors take 20-30 years to manifest themselves (as opposed to leukemias that can occur 3-5 years after an initial exposure to a carcinogen (ionizing radiation, chemicals or physical such as asbestos)-- eg. see data from the A-bomb survivors) after an initial insult by a carcinogen, in large part because there are multiple genetic events that MUST occur. Which are primary, secondary and tertiary, etc. are open to debate but it is clear one of the earliest changes that must occur in the transformation of a normal cell to a neoplastic site is the development of immortality. Tumor cells contain genetic rearrangements that would be lethal to a normal cell eg. trisomys, missing chromosomes, piece of chromosomes translocated onto other chromosomes, etc.

Second, one must read about the newest advances being made in understanding the development of brain tumors. Some brain tumors such as glioblastomas are the most refractory tumors to treat on earth. Ave. survival times after diagnosis is 9 months :( But the main thing is that it seems that changes must occur within the stem cells in the brain that reside in one particular area of the brain.

Third, even if would say that cell phones are a tumor promoter (see case of TPA and benzpyrene), what is the insult then?

Fourth, Mercola is definitely parochial, ignoring all data that might contradict with his beliefs in addition to ignoring any issues that exist with the studies quoted :(

Last, years ago when was on the staff at Columbia, we investigated the effects of EMF upon cells using a very sensitive assay known as sister chromatid exchanges (SCE). We did not find any effect.

You, clearly, know a lot more about this stuff than I do but how do we account for this from his article:

One interesting case that can serve as an illustrative warning of the cancer-causing potential of cell phones is that of a young woman with no other predisposing risk factors for cancer who came down with multi-focal breast cancer. The case was revealed in the May issue of the Environmental Health Trust's newsletteri. As it turns out, the young lady had the curious habit of tucking her cell phone into her bra...

Two cancer specialists, Robert Nagourney and John West, concluded there was only one other possibility that might have directly contributed to her breast cancer. "We connected the dots," the patient said. And the dots?quite literally the pattern of the cancer, and distribution of the cancerous cells?lined up perfectly with the shape of her cell phone."


Chance? Accident? or some direct or indirect correlation?
 

MylesBAstor

Well-Known Member
Apr 20, 2010
11,236
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New York City
You, clearly, know a lot more about this stuff than I do but how do we account for this from his article:

One interesting case that can serve as an illustrative warning of the cancer-causing potential of cell phones is that of a young woman with no other predisposing risk factors for cancer who came down with multi-focal breast cancer. The case was revealed in the May issue of the Environmental Health Trust's newsletteri. As it turns out, the young lady had the curious habit of tucking her cell phone into her bra...

Two cancer specialists, Robert Nagourney and John West, concluded there was only one other possibility that might have directly contributed to her breast cancer. "We connected the dots," the patient said. And the dots?quite literally the pattern of the cancer, and distribution of the cancerous cells?lined up perfectly with the shape of her cell phone."


Chance? Accident? or some direct or indirect correlation?

Coincidence? Nothing that they could ID but that doesn't mean there wasn't something that happened in her lifetime. We are relying on memory and we know how reliable that is from epidemiological studies. Or how do we know she didn't have the BRCA or other genes?
 

jdandy2

Member
Jun 13, 2012
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North Florida
I think Dr. Mercola's entire argument can be summed up in her single comment, "This is now believed to be the most plausible theory". Theory is not fact. And that argument about industry supported research versus independent research doesn't hold much water, either. Independent research needs funding, too, and as long as the researchers keep developing another theory the funding continues to flow, and researchers remain employed. There can't possibly be any bias in that, right?
 

Gregadd

WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
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i think it was Jim on the show Taxi who said, " we are all slowly being cooked by microwaves.":rolleyes:
 

MylesBAstor

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Apr 20, 2010
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We are certainly in a "hotter or thicker or more intense" radio frequency radiation environment (man made non-ionizing) than ever before. I think our kids will be the guinea pigs in the long term effects of this.

There is no doubt that the right frequencies and exposures heat the internal parts of the body, and also even the size of the person matters as to how much energy they absorb from these radiation fields.

Then there is of course deeper cell destruction as well.

It is scary since it is an ongoing experiment really.

Tom

RF is used in cancer therapy to raise the temperature of tumors. But the RF, focus, depth penetration eg. frequency, etc. of cell phones has no relationship to clinically used machines. And there isn't a linear relationship between heating and cell death because of HSPs.

I am curious however what you mean by deeper cell destruction.
 

MylesBAstor

Well-Known Member
Apr 20, 2010
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Ioninzing radiation treatment has long been used for cancer therapy as opposed to rf which is a newer idea as far as I can remember. I think the RF is used to "activate" a chemical that is infused into the area or something like that.

In any case, I am not an expert on this stuff, but from my radar days I thought we were told that it destroyed cells ability to do what they do. Not able to expound on it really and defer to your knowledge in this area.

Tom

Did lot's of research in the area and hyperthermia is far from a new concept but of course does not go back to the late 1800s or Madame Curie and Bequerel. Hyperthermia does trace it's roots back to the early 1900s when a physician observed a spontaneous regression of a tumor in a person who had an extremely high temp caused by a fever. That lead to the use of endotoxins to induce fevers and where we are now.

Did research on it as far back as 1976. And the problem with RF or US to heat with is that the biology is in favor of us but the physics isn't eg. It's difficult to heat deep seated tumors accurately. Or it works well with tumor cells in vitro but not nearly as well in vivo. And there's a depth vs. heating trade off on whether you use RF or US.

Hyperthermia as a modality to treat cancer has been largely abandoned except for some small interest. And yes, we looked at combining hyperthermia with chemo drugs and also the subject of my dissertation, hypoxia mediated drugs in the presence or absence of ionizing radiation. It gets pretty heavy into biochemistry :)
 

MylesBAstor

Well-Known Member
Apr 20, 2010
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New York City
Yes, its way beyond this old boy. When I was involved with CT imaging (x-ray) and radiation therapy gear, the only thing I understood was that by bombarding the tumor (with radiation which travel in straight lines) from a circumferance around the body (hence the dognut shape of the machines), say it was in the middle of the body, then the tumor, being in the middle of the body would receive all the radiation rays while the areas surrounding the tumor (the part you dont want to kill) would just receive the one shot through on its way to the middle, ie its like a bike spoked wheel, all the spokes converge in the middle and thus that is where the most radiation intensity takes place...now there is more to it but thats radiation thearpy in a nutshell.

Tom

Good at first approximation :)

Problem is dependent upon size of the field needed which leads to less accuracy. Also many organs are very closely situated - like treating the prostate and having to worry about the proximity of the rectum. Couple that with the problem that tissues have different turnover rates so that you may not realize you have a problem foe several years :(
 

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