The recent scare about the risk of brain cancer from the use of mobile phones bears a certain similarity to those long-running scares we have suffered on the risk from using the oral contraceptive pill and the risk from pylons carrying high-voltage power lines ("Health experts say mobile phones may cause cancer", The Herald, June 1).
As in all such controversies, it may take many years before enough data is gathered to give meaningful and reliable statistics to quantify the risks involved.
In the meantime, can we give meaningful advice to people? Especially, can we advise parents who have been scared by the (quite reasonable) advice that children’s brains are more likely to be vulnerable to harmful effects of radio-frequency radiation from mobile phones? The answer is yes.
If we assume that a phone held to the ear is 2cm from the listener’s nearest brain tissue, then we know from basic physics that if the listener switches to speakerphone and holds the phone at a comfortable distance of 63cm from his head, the radiation dose received by that tissue will be reduced to a mere one-thousandth. Since the evidence so far available suggests we are facing a fairly low risk of damage from mobile phone use, this simple manoeuvre to reduce the risk by one thousand-fold will, I hope, reassure even the most cautious users that they can be safe from brain cancer.
They may, of course, not be so safe from the effects of allowing those around them to hear their conversations.
Dr Willie Wilson,
57 Gallowhill Road,
Lenzie.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article