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Comment by boltofblue | Hacker News Reader

"Putting this iPhone 4 in your pocket will likely couple more energy into your body (you bag of salt water, you) than did the first generation model. Yep, I predict it will be worse."

I hope this isn't dangerous to your health.

He is buying one, so I assume not.

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"While certain media outlets continue to claim that regular cell phone use is unlikely to cause brain cancer, you should know that Interphone found "heavy users" of cell phones were found to have an approximately doubled risk of glioma, a life threatening and often-fatal brain tumor, after 10 years of cell phone use.

What was the definition of a heavy user?

About two hours … a month!

When this study was conducted (1999-2004), cell phone use had not yet exploded to the extent it has today. Now, the results are clearly outdated, because in the decade that's passed since the study was begun, cell phone use has grown exponentially and it is not at all unusual for people to use a cell phone for two hours or more a day!

What this means is that if you use your cell phone for two hours a month or more, you may be doubling your risk of a potentially fatal brain tumor. Use your cell phone significantly more than that, and your risk is likely much, much higher."

http://emf.mercola.com/sites/emf/archive/2010/06/10/how-the-...

None of the studies I've ever seen on this have proposed a mechanism by which radiation from a cellular phone causes cancer, which seems to be a bit of a hurdle given that some novel mechanism would be necessary (as far as I'm aware, the radiation emitted by a cell phone is well below -- orders of magnitude below -- the necessary level of energy to break chemical bonds, which is, well, sort of a prerequisite for radiation to cause cancer).

You appear to have your facts wrong. From the study[1]:

> Eligible cases were all patients with a glioma or meningioma of the brain diagnosed in the study regions during study periods of 2–4 years between 2000 and 2004.

So participants in the study lasted between 2 and 4 years. Since elevated rates of cancer were only found in the group with the highest usage[2], this means people with >=1640 hours of talk time, which means between 68 and 34 hours per month.

Not two hours per month. And this is easy to sanity check; here's the study again:

> Corresponding values for [median lifetime cumulative call time] glioma controls were 100 h lifetime, 2.5 h/month and about 2000 calls.

So the median user used about 2.5 hours per month, not the heavy user.

Now, let's hear them out a bit more:

> Overall, no increase in risk of glioma or meningioma was observed with use of mobile phones. There were suggestions of an increased risk of glioma at the highest exposure levels, but biases and error prevent a causal interpretation. The possible effects of long-term heavy use of mobile phones require further investigation.

It's also worth noting that you're using the word double somewhat duplicitously. Yes, the study found double the glioma rate in very heavy users (as discussed, much more than two hours per month), but it also found that the rest of cellphone users are less likely to get cancer than average.

If we take your causal analysis seriously, then we should also take this seriously: low to moderate cell phone usage grants instant partial immunity to brain cancer.

So, because the cancer rate in the study population excluding the highest usage group was .7 of what it is in the normal population, a rate of 1.4 times the normal population among heavy users is double the rate seen in the rest of the study population.

[1]:http://www.oxfordjournals.org/our_journals/ije/press_release... [2]:http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/2010...

edited to add: Upon reflection, my analysis of the talk time is slightly wrong. The study means >=1640 hours lifetime cell phone usage. You can still use your cellphone 2.5 hours per month for 54 years before you reach this threshold.

I don't know about this particular study, but many of these cell phone radiation studies are statistically flawed in that they start with cancer patients and then ask them about cell phone use. If you do that, you are almost guaranteed to find something if you ask enough questions.

It is important to compare the amount of radiation here though... I'm pretty sure new phones are a bit more efficient with their signals, battery life has increased phenomenally and this must be partly due to lower power usage. Although with phones like the iPhone, you've got several types of wireless going at the same time...

Anyone got recent, non-biased studies on the same?

As you seem to be well informed about the topic: Do you know if it is usual for cellphone designers to use the optional headset/headphone combination as an extended antenna and if so if it is still better to prefer it to a bluetooth based solution? I think this is something a lot of people would like to know as heavy cellphone use ia often unavoidable these days.

Almost all phone manufacturers use headset cable as FM antenna. On the other hand there is almost no way how it could be used as antenna for anything other than FM. (antennas for GSM/GPS/WiFi/whatever bands are carefully designed devices with tight tolerances and not pieces of wire of some approximate length)

Purely anecdotal but when on site at Nokia and Sony Ericsson >5 years ago it seemed that nearly everyone used the wired headset so I started too. More recently I don't see that as much.

Sorry, quote marks were not prominent enough - that was all a quote from the link, not my analysis.

So, is it the case that the existing risk was negligible, or would you conclude from the explosion in cellphone use in the interim (without a corresponding vast increase in such tumors) that the study was wrong?

I have a 3GS, and every time I pick up call from desk phone (with iPhone at the desk), I will experience interference. Now, I need to put my 3GS around half meter away every time there's call to office line. I wonder if anyone experience this also.

It is the same kind of chatter you might be able to hear in speakers when the phone is nearby? That's a standard GSM thing -- GSM uses specific RF frequencies which induce the noise. ("GSM chatter" is a reasonably common name for this.)

This is one of the reasons I prefer CDMA. It is really, really annoying to be in a public address setting (i.e. a church, auditorium, stadium) and hear peoples' phones in the sound system. Yes, it is a sign of a miswired installation, but in my experience it only happens with GSM phones.

I have a 3GS and I find that I need to place it about a metre from my computer's speakers to avoid audible interference. All my previous phones have done this as well (last before the 3GS was a Sony Ericsson w800i), but they didn't need to be placed as far away from the speakers before the interference could no longer he heard.

Get some speakers that are properly shielded and have ferrite beads on the speaker connection.

My JBL Pro speakers never have interference from my iPhone.

It's probably time I upgrade my speakers, I've had them for some time now. It's a Klipsch 2.1 set from about 3 years ago. I was under the impression that Klipsch was a reasonably good quality brand, but I guess they're missing these ferrite beads you speak of. Something to keep in mind for when I do upgrade, thanks.

I agree, you must change your lifestyle if you want to use the iPhone.

I have even remodeled my home to include a bedroom dedicated to my iPhone.

Totally worth it.

That's interesting. It suggests that your iphone is typically on a 2G GSM network, rather than a 3G UMTS/HSPA network. GSM is known for causing audio interference because the TDMA transmission window cycles at about 200Hz.

Does your 3GS say '3G' on the status bar while it's interfering with your speakers?

Usually at home, I see the little wifi symbol as it's hooking on to my router, but if I turn off wifi, your suspicion appears to be correct, I can see that it's on 2G at home. So yeah, that probably has a lot to do with the issue, thanks for the info. My carrier doesn't have the greatest 3G coverage in all areas, but they're currently IMO, the best of a not so great bunch of options in my country.

In my office room, hardly get the 3G status, but the phone signal is full. I had no problem with my previous phone (Dopod).

Was your Dopod GSM, UMTS, or CDMA? UMTS and CDMA phones won't do generate audio-domain interference. Any 2G GSM phone, from the most expertly-designed Nokia or Ericsson to the worst Huawei will interfere with your speakers.

Why would the iPhone be any different to any other phone, in that regards. They all emit radio waves, the iPhone doesn't emit any stronger than any other phone, by much anyway.

The radio on the phone uses the least power it can while still maintaining a good connection to the tower. A faulty antenna will make the radio increase its transmission power.

This is my major concern about the iPhone 4 and why I have planned to skip it: since when is holding a phone by its antenna a good thing? I'd like reassurance there is no health danger, especially after reading this:

Warning: Your Cell Phone May Be Hazardous to Your Health http://www.gq.com/cars-gear/gear-and-gadgets/201002/warning-...

This is my major concern about the iPhone 4 and why I have planned to skip it: since when is holding a phone by its antenna a good thing?

Since the EM radiation you receive from your desk lamp is a thousand times more energetic?

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