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The simple fact is that we dont know what this technological revolution (remember, most of this stuff didnt exist 15 years ago so it is really news) will do in the long term. It should be researched, however of course the current administration is opposed to all science, so like all things, we must wait for sanity to return.
There's no REAL scientific evidence that cell phones cause cancer. Correlation is NOT causation.
We also need to be mindful of who is making these claims -- someone from the FDA. Isn't this the same set of folks who couldn't figure out whether salmonella was coming from tomatoes or jalapeños or cilantro? I'd suggest taking this information with a healthy dose of salt, but I wonder if anyone would be upset at my pro-sodium stance....
I'm sorry, but I'm not going to buy into this scare. If you can show me a mechanism in which nonionizing radiation causes physiological problems, you might be on to something. Until then, please stop with the scare-mongering.
I would not even justify it by calling it junk science. It is witch-doctory, voodoo, black magic, pure superstition, not any kind of science at all. We ... that is properly trained scientists, know how electromagnetic radiation interacts with matter and how it causes cancer. There is no way that these low energy electromagnetic waves can have any effect on living material except perhaps heat, a very, very insignificant amount of heat. Those "scientists" who advocate that cell phones are dangerous should have their scholastic records examined and it will be found that they either did not earn those degrees or were the cheaters who stole exams, altered their grade records, had others take their exams for them, etc. Another words, they were the George Bush's of their classes, all cheats.
Well, then so is the stuff inside of your microwave oven (roughly the same wavelength). But I wouldn't stick my head in there. Red light (or blue light, for that matter) doesn't penetrate any appreciable distance into one's body, but microwave radiation from a cell phone does.
I'm not saying that there's any really solid evidence that walking around with a cellphone attached to your head 10 hours a day is physically harmful, but that it's a possibility and due caution should be exercised.
"then the TV generation would have been adversely affected, the cordless phone generation would have been adversely affected, etc, etc."
Ah, but the TV generation didn't walk around with TV sets attached to the side of their heads--and EM radiation works on the basis of the inverse-square law. That is, for every doubling of the distance, the field strength decreases by a factor of 4.
Bottom line is that we just don't have enough data yet to make a call one way or the other.
Yeah, sticking your head inside of a microwave is indeed not a smart thing. That happens to be because you'll cook yourself, though, not because you'll give yourself cancer. The same thing could happen if your cell phone were much more powerful - that is, hundreds of watts (like the average microwave oven) instead of the ~1 watt transmission power of the normal cell phone.
Again, wavelengths in the range of microwaves are nonionizing! Just because radiation in these wavelengths penetrate something doesn't mean they'll do anything more than heat stuff up a little bit. And, while it might obviously seem like a bad idea to be heating things up in your head, our circulation system is wonderful at cooling important things like brains.
I am amused by the people with zero qualifications jumping to call a head of a cancer research organization crazy and voodoo practicing. Interesting, since when do farmer's opinions count as to medical science.
As for LawMichigander's comment: argument from authority carries no weight - a farmer with evidence trumps a Nobel-laureate with opinion every damn time. But if you don't want to believe that, there are plenty of MDs and PhDs calling this guy out as being full of it:
Orac - http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/07/oh_no...
Denialism - http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/2008/07/drop_...
Effect Measure - http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/2008/02/t...
Neurologica - http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=26
While it is very tempting to believe the Bush Administration and their apparatchiks are lying at every turn and that anyone with a PhD after their name who contradicts the Party Line holds the suppressed truth, true skepticism is not that easy. Every claim has to be evaluated, from our friends, from our enemies, and from everyone else - nobody gets a free pass. We have a word for this process of evaluation - science - something Dr. Herberman may want to look into, being in charge of a cancer institute and all.
I can't say there's no link between cell phones and cancer, but to be fair, nobody can because you cannot prove a negative, the same reason science cannot prove there is no god. But like the god argument, the burden is on the believer to support their argument with solid evidence. Herberman needs to put up or shut up.
And John, very simply, the existing peer-reviewed studies are the best available data. They may not be perfect and they may be superseded as we learn more (an amazing property of science), but they are far and away more reliable and believable than someone talking out their ass with no data to support their position. I expect better of you than to buy into this woo without doing a little digging first.