The Dangers of Cell Phone Usage

We were inundated here in Chicago news last week by reports of a scientific study about cell phone usage. The headline read   

Experts Say Cell Phones Possible Cancer Causing Agents   

then proceeded to explain that the headline was misleading at best, and intended mostly to cause fear in the readers and listeners, which they hoped meant that they would watch the news a little longer or read more of the paper to get to the advertisements. What actually happened was that several previous studies were analyzed, and while the vast majority showed no link at all, a couple did. According to the science blog Discover, “the graph showing the results from several tests investigating the links between cell phones and cancer  shows that any connection is very weak, and cannot be statistically distinguished from no connection at all. Of course, it is impossible to rule it out, so there’s that word ‘possibly’.”   

On Wikipedia, you can find a list of other things that are classified as Type 2B carcinogens by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. The list includes being involved with carpentry, the use of gasoline, talc based body powders, and coffee. Yes, that’s right: coffee. Those of you that fill up your tank while on the cell phone drinking coffee should just curl up now and wait for the "Bring out your dead" call.    

I loved the John Stewart Rally to Restore Sanity last summer. It showcased the idea that the use of fear in reporting was causing more problems than the supposedly evil stories they were reporting.  This story last week was another prime example. I guess I’ll continue to get my news from The Daily Show.   

The real dangers of cell phones continue to be that people I don’t want to talk to can reach me more easily (that doesn’t include those of you reading this blog), that I have to listen to inane cell phone conversations at the grocery or book store that no one should have to listen to, including the people on the other end of the conversations, and that these morons still think they can drive safely while talking on the phone, when their attention spans are so short that driving itself is a challenge for them. If I had a Taser, I could fix these problems in a hurry.