Don't give a cell phone to your child, warns expert

[T_i_B]

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/story.jsp?story=599728

No parent should give a child aged eight or under a mobile phone, the chairman of an official safety study said today.

Professor Sir William Stewart, chairman of the National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB), said he believed that mobiles may pose a health risk, although this was not yet proven.

Recent reports from Europe raised concern over possible links between mobile use and tumours in the ear, and any health risk - if it exists - is certain to be greater for children than for adults, he said.

Prof Stewart said that no firm conclusion had been reached on the possible impact of mobile phone technology on the human body. But he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "When you come to giving mobile phones to a three to eight-year-old, that can't possibly be right. "I believe that parents have a responsibility to their children not simply to throw a mobile phone at children and say 'There you go'.

[WildClarySage]

1. uhhhh

doesn't this fall under "common sense"? Give an 8 yr old a cell phone?

[amazona]

6. doesn't seem like common sense to me

People use cell phones just to keep in touch around the various rooms of the house. More practical than a baby monitor which is in just one room when kids are bigger and move around. I would not have assumed it was bad for a kid to have a cell phone in the pocket while playing in the backyard. Sure, you keep an eye out, but you can get distracted for a moment, and being able to call and say, "Where are you?" isn't without value. Although I have to admit I'm not sure about the 3 year old with the cell. I'm just saying what I've seen with other people's kids, none of my own, so I'm shaky on ages. I would have assumed a 3 year old could barely babble.

People giving cell phones to kids may be trying to be extra careful. If this creates a hazard, they should be informed, because I'm not so sure that "common sense" would tell you that kids plus cell phones are bad.

The conservation movement is a breeding ground of communists
and other subversives. We intend to clean them out,
even if it means rounding up every birdwatcher in the country.
--John Mitchell, US Attorney General 1969-72

[egoprofit]

13. i disagree...

what if a kid tries to ride his or her bike while talking on his or her cell phone? that could be extemely dangerous. think that kid would be paying attention to traffic? probably not.... thats the first thing that popped into my head.

[leesa]

2. But they are perfectly safe for you, of course! The cell phone companies

have become the tobacco companies of the fifties and sixties, when the damage they could cause was becoming known.

[noonwitch]

3. Didn't they once think that hair dryers caused brain tumors?

Back in the early 80s, then I never heard anything about it again. Maybe they took asbestos out of them or something?

[Redstone]

4. Hair dryers, electric blankets,

High-tension power lines, and cell phones...the jury's still out, but I used to be involved in electrical engineering, and the physics of these devices could indeed indicate that they could cause disruption at the sub-cellular level in people's bodies.

Not to be a scare-monger - nobody has proven anything yet, as far as I know. But based simply on the science, and not on hysteria, I won't use a blow-drier or live under a power line. I also don't use a cellphone (or 2.4-GHz or above portable phone*) held next to my ear; I always use a headset.

*The higher the frequency, the shorter the electromagnetic waves, and the easier and deeper they penetrate tissue.

Just an opinion.

Redstone

[havocmom]

5. Thank you for your post. What we don't know can kill us and we don't know

a lot! I often wonder about what all the background electronic 'noise' is doing to all of us, but really worry about the kids. So small and so vulnerable to exposure to bad things while their bodies grow so fast. And now, just about everyone gets an ultra sound before birth. Talked to some MD friends who admitted, off the record of course, that they really aren't sure there is no risk of damage to the nervous systems of developing fetuses, but everyone does it anyway, mostly due to risk of lawsuits and the velvet demands of their insurance carriers!

Sometimes I wonder if all the electromagnetic fields we are exposed to constantly might have impact on the ability to focus and concentrate. As a people, we seem to all have a short attention span. We seem to be less able to handle aggravation without overreacting. Could all those fields make us more inclined towards states of chronic agitation?

Just anecdotal, but I am a seamstress and know an awful lot of other seamstresses who develop breast cancer. Seems the # is disproportionate to those I know who have cancer but don't sew. And, yes, I know many, many more people who don't sew (and actually, few who do sew). Since the machines and a woman's chest are in close proximity, I have wondered about the electro magnetic field created by the machines and any likelihood of it contributing to abnormal cell growth in the areas closest to it.

[Redstone]

7. I wouldn't worry about the ultrasound

because it's very low-energy; my wife has had them for both kids. (Though the recent yuppie trend of having "vanity ultrasound fetal portraits" is pretty stupid.)

You're right about our constant electromagnetic exposure. (Though I'm not sure if it's specifically causing us problems with ability to concentrate on...uh...what was it?...Where am I?...Who are all you people?)

I've been in places in and near cities where you feel like you can almost hear the crackle of the microwaves, the air is so saturated with them. It can't be 100% innocuous at that level.

About the sewing machines: That's both scary and entirely plausible. I would strongly suggest that you have someone measure the electrical and magnetic fields that your machine throws out from its motor, make comparisons with other brands, and buy the machine with the best-shielded motor.

Also get the word out to other seamstresses. I'm by no means paranoid or a conspiracy buff, but you cannot be too careful with constant absorption of electrical or magnetic energy. What we do know is that this energy does cause body tissue to heat up, so it could very well be causing other changes as well.

Please do have your sewing maching measured.

Redstone

[havocmom]

8. thanks for the feedback, Redstone & Welcome to the DU!

Looking forward to reading more posts from you. :toast:

Industrial sewing machines have the motor below the table and it have capacitators, :shrug: tho I do not really understand what that means.
I do know that the machines, both commercial and home sewing types, all have a tendency to magnetize small metal objects around them and even parts within, which will create drag and friction and wear on the machines after time. Figure it is doing something to non metal tissue too.

[Redstone]

17. Why, thanks, havocmom

for the nice words. And the beer thingy; I like beer.

Pleased to have made your acquaintance.

Think of a capacitor as a battery on steroids (or amphetamines); it absorbs an electric charge and discharges it very quickly (and usually all at once). This is useful for high-torque motors such as on sewing machines which need the "extra boost" to go from a stop to full speed almost immediately.

Capacitors shouldn't make any difference in the amount of EM radiation from your machine. It's the shielding that counts, so find a machine with the best shielding.

Jeez, I gotta get back to work! Enough of this for one day; posting on these boards gets addictive.


Redstone

[buddysmellgood]

10. That's the logic I've heard from other electrical engineers. Who knows how

how much is too much. Maybe this will cause us to mutate over time. Maybe it's just cooking our brains.

[0007]

19. The jury is still out on microwave ovens also!

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[arikara]

9. I know someone who does hospice care

She is just starting to look after a 20 yr old girl who is dying of brain cancer. They are seeing more and more young people with brain cancer all the time. She says they think that its due to the increased use of cell phones by the young people. Some of them spend hours every day chatting on them.

Seriously, do people really use them to communicate with each other in their own houses? And with the kids in the yards?

[GoSolar]

14. My dad, who is a physicist,

mentioned his fears of using a cell phone to me years ago. He has never used one, and neither have I. He is really concerned about the potential of cancer from using them.

I'm amazed that so many people use them with no concerns...

[Redstone]

16. yeah, they do use them that way

"Seriously, do people really use them to communicate with each other in their own houses? And with the kids in the yards?"

With "unlimited minutes," why not? It's essentially a wireless intercom in these cases. I have to confess to using the (home) phone to call my older son on his cellphone when he's down in the basement rec room with the stereo on because I don't want to have to yell down the stairs.

Of course, I also use email to send files between the computers in the two adjoining rooms of my office, because I'm too damn lazy to drill a hole and run an Ethernet cable through the wall, so you may not want to take my opinion as being worth much.

Still, I do wonder what the hell all those people who are constantly yakking on the cellphones can possible have to say to each other for so many hours of every day.

Redstone

[scarlet_owl]

12. Why on Earth would an eight year old need a cellular phone?

I'm a grown-up and I don't even need one.

[T_i_B]

18. You'd be suprised by how much they get used.

One of the reasons why this story is actually front page news here in the UK.

Kids see their older siblings and their friends texting, taking pictures and phoning each other on mobiles and of course they want one themselves. And of course the parents often give it to them "in case of emergency" or for another similar reason. Children are I think one of the big mobile phone markets in the UK, particularly for accessories such as ringtones and covers. I'm quite used to seeing schoolchildren glued to their handsets texting each other constantly and generally using every possible gimmick their phone has to offer.

[reprobate]

15. I saw a report from the University of Washington on cell fone radiation.

The doctor lecturing cited a Scandinavian study that found large increase in brain tumors correlating with amount of use in cell fones. He said that this was reported to our gov't agencies (OSHA, i think) but they ignored it. Too much influence from business interests.

His recommendations were to limit use particularly for those under 25 whose neurons were still developing, and to keep the antenna away from the head by using a hands free device. Clip the fone to the belt or other attachment at mid body. The body cells there are more mature and less susceptible to radiation.

As someone who has played with radio frequency equipment most of my life, this makes a whole bunch of sense to me.

[0007]

20. Cells phone are indeed noticeable while driving in heavy traffic,

super markets and restaurants. They are a nuisance and a hazard in most cases of use.

[mccoyn]

21. Agreed.

I've noticed in recent years that sometimes when I slow down on the highway the car behind me will move up very close to me, even if there is a free lane he can pass in. Every time I look at the driver and every time the driver has been on a cell phone. This behavior shows to me that at least some people have a slower reaction time while on a cell phone. I've even noticed myself doing this on the few occasions I use a cell phone while driving.

On Washington Journal a while back they were talking about this same issue. One of the guests explained it this way. When you are driving you arn't doing a very complicated task. To successfully drive on a daily basis you don't need your full attention and there is plenty of extra attention to use a cell phone. The problem is when an emergency is developing. This is the time that your full attention is needed from the first second. The basic point is that cell phones don't hinder your ability to drive in normal situations, but they do hinder your ability to drive in an emergency situation. This leads many people to be overconfident in their driving ability since they rarely have to deal with an emergency situation.

[w4rma]

22. Use a headset if you are worried about this. (nt)