Currently, I am on the market for a new cellphone
My current phone, a Katana, has a black blemish in the shape of a line on the screen which makes reading text messages challenging at times. I had upgraded this phone to a Remarq, and don't get me wrong, I like the kwerky board feature for texting (if you know what I'm trying to say with my faulty spelling of quirky). But when I lost that phone and immediately activated one of the old phones I still had, I decided not to re-activate after it turned up under the passenger seat of a friend's car.
The new HTC phones, Evo and Epic, seem very enticing. I like the idea of hotspot sharing and if I ever go with a smart phone, that is the direction I plan to take. As you may already know, I had invested in an iPod Touch's ZTE Peel which Sprint offers at $30 per month, contract free. I stopped that account when I went over my data slightly. That's another appealing factor about smart phone. Unlimited data at less than what the ZTE Peel costs. And, some of the smart phones, namely the Epic, can share a connection with up to five devices.
I've had time to dwell over all the new fancy smart phone on the market and came to the conclusion that when my upgrade bonus comes around, I would definitely choose the Epic. Several weeks have passed since I've made that decision, but my upgrade bonus doesn't kick in until August.
Yesterday I decided to do some research on phones that emit the least amount of radiation, and guess what? It so happens that the Katana was rated as one of those phones. After some consideration, I thought it would be silly to invest in a smart phone when I'm really an iPhone man. I should just wait and see whether Sprint ever manages to incorporate an iPhone into their services. Or whether Apple comes out with a universal iPhone that can function with any cell phone provider. Meanwhile, as I patiently wait for this miracle to occur, I would upgrade my old Katana with regular flip cell phone, like Sanyo's Takoma, or is it Tahoma. I forget. But anyways, my ZTE Peel just sits in the closet waiting for re-activation whenever I decide I need a surplus Internet connection in addition to what I've been using at the library, McDonalds, Starbucks, etc.
Since I've been trying to ween myself off of surfing the web so much, I think I will go in this different direction now, as opposed to upgrading with a smart phone Epic. Honestly, I don't like the idea of adapting to all the new apps which I would then need to get used to in contrast to the apps I have currently running on my iPod touch. But the real decision maker is this, the fact that radio frequencies still are questionable concerning cancer. The LA Times published this article by Shari Roan and Ellen Gabler on June 1, 2011: Cellphone-cancer link bolstered
World Health Organization: limited
Samet: What we have here is a warning from a public health point of view,.. We have half the world's population already using cellphones, and people are using them younger and longer. We clearly need to keep track of this.
Daivd A. Savitz: I find the conclusions surprising given that there is increasingly strong evidence that cellphone use has no association with brain cancer occurrence. With few exceptions, the studies directly addressing the issue indicate the lack of association.
Joel M. Moskowitz: This is a major scientific consensus conference that has basically implicated cell phone radiation with increased tumor risk,.. I think they are particularly concerned about cellhpones just because of the widespread utilization. It's not like it's some esoteric chemical used by industry that they think may be carcinogenic. Everyone is exposed to cellphones.
Pro wireless industry lobbyists: possibly carcinogenic?
John Walls, vice president for CTIA-the Wireless Assn.: Coffee and pickled vegetables are also listed as possibly carinogenic,.. This is not ground breaking. It is a review of what already existed,.. It's not the revelation that some would like to make it out to be.
Cell phone users may be at increased risk for two types of rare tumors and should try to reduce their exposure to the energy emitted by the phones, according to a panel of 31 international scientists convened by an agency within the World Health Organization (WHO).
Studies so far do not show definitively that cell phone use increases that risk, said the authors of the consensus statement issued Tuesday by the WHO. But "limited" scientific evidence exists, they said, to suggest that the radiofrequency energy released by cellphones may increase the risk of glioma, a type of brain cancer, and acoustic neuroma, a noncancerous tumor of the nerve that runs from the ear to the brain.
Both are rare: In the U.S., about 10,000 to 12,000 people develop a glioma each year and about 3,000 develop acoustic neuroma tumors. The risk roughly doubles after a decade of cellphone use, according to some studies. But the number of cellphone users worldwide—there are an estimated 5 billion cellphones—means a potential cancer link should be taken very seriously, said Dr. Jonathan Samet, chairman of the department of preventive medicine at USC's Keck School of Medicine and the chairman of the panel that issued the report.
"What we have here is a warning from a public health point of view," Samet said. "We have half the world's population already using cellphones, and people are using them younger and longer. We clearly need to keep track of this."
Other scientists said they remained skeptical of the link, which is mired in contradictory science, and that they found the decision by the WHO preplexing.
"I find the conclusions surprising given that there is increasingly strong evidence that cellphone use has no association with brain cancer occurrence." said David A. Savitz, a Brown University professor and a researcher on environmental exposures and health. "With few exceptions, the studies directly addressing the issue indicate the lack of association."
Cellphone use was categorized as possibly carcinogenic to humans by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, which develops scientific cancer-prevention strategies for the WHO. The agency's other categories for the risk factors analyzed are: carcinogenic to humans, probably carcinogenic to humans, not classifiable, and probably not carcinogenic to humans.
Scientists have long debated the potential cancer risk linked to cellphone use, but this statement marks the first time an independent group of scientists has taken anything other than a neutral stand.
"This is a major scientific consensus conference that has basically implicated cell phone radiation with increased tumor risk, "said Joel M. Moskowitz, director of the Center for Family and Community Health at UC Berkeley's School of Public Health and a longtime advocate of more research on the potential cellphone-cancer link. "I think they are particularly concerned about cellhpones just because of the widespread utilization. It's not like it's some esoteric chemical used by industry that they think may be carcinogenic. Everyone is exposed to cellphones."
The panel based its conclusions primarily on data from the multi-country Interphone studies that were coordinated by the International AGency for Research on Cancer as well as research by Swedish cancer researcher Lennart Hardell. The Interphone data showed that people who used a cellphone for 10 or more years had a doubled risk of glioma, a cancer that arised in the tissue surrounding and insulating brain cells. One study showed a 40% increase risk of glioma for people who used a cellphone an average of 30 minutes a day over a 10-year period.
A 2004 study put the increased risk of acoustic neuromas at twice the normal risk after 10 years of cellphone use and higher for tumors on the side of the head where the phone is typically placed.
There is too little evidence to draw conclusions about other types of cancer the report stated, including a 2009 study that linked cellphone use and cancer of the salivary gland.
But Savitz said the data are not compelling even for gliomas and acoustic neuromas. The more studies that are published on cellphones and health, he said, the more evidence accumulates that there is no increased cancer risk.
Many scientific questions remain, such as the lifetime risk for people who begin using cellhpones as children and how cancer cells might arise from radio frequency energy. But although the report will probably spur more calls for research, it's not clear how much it will affect government policies, the cellphone industry or consumers, experts said.
Groups representing the wireless industry downplayed the significance of the report, noting that the WHO placed radiofrequency electromagnetic fields in the "possibly carcinogenic" category, along with 265 other risk factors studied, including gasoline and occupational exposure to dry cleaning.
Coffee and pickled vegetables are also listed as "possibly carinogenic," noted John Walls, vice president for CTIA-the Wireless Assn., in a statement.
"This is not ground breaking. It is a review of what already existed," Walls said in an interview. "It's not the revelation that some would like to make it out to be."
The report acknowledged public interest in the issue and listed measures for consumers, such as using headsets, speaker phones or text messaging, to reduce the amount of radiation reaching the brain. Radiofrequency energy drops off quickly, Moskowitz said: Moving a cellphone from 1 inch to 10 inches away from the head reduces radiofrequency energy a hundred fold.
A summary of the panel's findings will be released on line at the WHO website and published in the July 1 issue of the journal Lancet Oncology.