Do cellphones actually give you cancer?

[AVGresponding]

Really? This again? The answer is no. Everyone can now get on with their lives.

As anything else, this topic needs to be evaluated and studied using rigorous methods, and using logical fallacies should be avoided at all costs. On both sides.

I'm sorry, but nobody can't bluntly claim "the answer is no". There is no proof of that. If you're claiming it, then you're not being honest.
Now, the fact there is no proof the answer is no doesn't make the opposite true. It's basic logic really, but it seems to elude most people for some reason. So, as we said in this thread, there is also no conclusive proof that cellphone use increases the risk of getting a cancer.

Just saying. Humility never hurts, and at this point, the claim "cellphone use doesn't increase the risk of getting cancer" is just unknown. All we could say this far is that the probability looks pretty low with the (relatively short) hindsight we have. This has nothing to do with the corpus of scientific knowledge we otherwise have on a number of fundamental topics. This one is clearly not an established scientific knowledge. Oh, and the fact many lunatics are claiming the opposite - which, as another blunt claim, is also plain stupid - doesn't make this wrong per se. This is a logical fallacy commonly used these days.

There's nothing wrong saying that we just don't know, but that the risk so far looks pretty low, so we accept it and move on. Which shouldn't in itself prevent further *rigorous* research being done on it until we get something conclusive.

This pretty much sums it up. I'd add that one of the causes of confusion on this type of subject often arises from the lack of understanding of what the statistics actually mean.
A headline grabbing "60% increase in risk" tells you very little without the knowledge of the base risk level, it's a relative figure and not an absolute one.

A brief google shows male brain cancer affects 1 in 69 UK males, which equates to an absolute risk of roughly 1.45%. Increasing that by 60% gives an absolute risk of around 2.32%, but the figure most people take away is the 60%.
On top of that, the 1.45% figure would include people with cancers caused by RF if indeed it does, which would put the background rate at about 0.9%, and the increased rate at 1.45%.

With all the other factors at play I'd be surprised if there was any useful signal to noise ratio here. May as well say that living longer causes cancer.

[pickle9000]

Is there anything that does not cause cancer?

[TimFox]

Everything in California causes cancer, which is why the statutory notification on everything (including screwdrivers) is totally useless, since the legitimate notices are ignored by the intended audience as yet another notice.

[Ben321]

Remember a while ago, when people were literally BURNING DOWN cellphone towers, because they thought they were equipped with 5G technology that would give them cancer?

[Psi]

Q: Do cellphones actually give you cancer?

A: Yes, if you throw one in a blender and make a smoothie out of it, you will get cancer.

 

[SL4P]

If cancer’s what you’re looking for, it would be a lot easier to take up smoking.

[Gyro]

It's everyday living that gives you cancer. It is a sneaky predator that only stops stalking you once you're dead.

[borjam]

There are well-documented accidental doses from high-power military radar exposure (far field), including cataracts (again, probably thermal).

Some time ago I was searching for references and what I found was radar operators developing cancer. Operators are usually far from the antenna or the microwave transmitter and the cause was insuficient protection from X-rays coming from vacuum tubes.

[Haenk]

There are well-documented accidental doses from high-power military radar exposure (far field), including cataracts (again, probably thermal).

Some time ago I was searching for references and what I found was radar operators developing cancer. Operators are usually far from the antenna or the microwave transmitter and the cause was insuficient protection from X-rays coming from vacuum tubes.

There was a huge legal settlement in Germany - those radar operators were not aware of the dangers and fixed things in front of the dish while the system was running - on a regular base.
Obviously, there are more than 3000 cases in Germany alone.
Link (in german...):

https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/bundeswehr-muss-krebserkrankung-von-radarmechaniker-anerkennen-a-1032692.html

[TimFox]

This is only an abstract, but it is an early study from 1965 about cataracts (not cancer).
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00039896.1965.10664195?journalCode=vzeh20
I remember reading elsewhere that occupational cataracts in glassblowers (from infrared radiation out of the furnace) and microwave exposure gave cataract problems on opposite sides of the lenses.

[Rick Law]

Prior cell phone use causing little or no cancer causing effect is well established.  But effects of prior technologies is not a good predictor of effects of the new technologies.

A perfect analogy is:  You have been touching the outside of the tea kettle for years, and you never got burn.   Now you replaced it with a brand new tea kettle that delivers hotter water with a different technology.  Are you sure you will not get burn touching the outside of this new kettle because touching the old one was fine?
 
With EM waves, frequency is energy.  Higher the frequency, the more the energy.  In the last 30 years of cell phone, it was not much more than 2GHz.  With true 5G, when fully implemented, it will be much higher frequency (20+ GHz) and directionally focused (it will not decrease by the square of distance).

20+ GHz is getting nearer to the point where the individual photons (energy packets) can cause some damage to a molecule - getting there but not that strong as compare to say dental X Ray which would be over a billion times higher in frequency (energy per photon).  Add to that, cell signals are weak (fewer photons).  So, photons (packets of energy) from the 5G tower may wiggle your DNA molecules a bit but knocking your DNA molecules out of shape is not a worry.

That said, your body is absorbing the energy, a more focused and "hotter" beam more energetic than the weak 2G/3G/4G signals.  What is the effect of heating say the temple area of your brain (which is where your phone is when the speaker is at your ear).  What if you just heat it a little bit let it cool, and do it again;  Day in, day out, again and again.  There is no study out there (I know of) that says it will definitely cause harm, nor is there a study out there (I know of) that says it will definitely NOT cause harm.

Life is full of risks.  Just walking down the street to a pizza joint is risk - a truck tire may blow and you got hit by a piece of rubber that fracture your skull - dying over a bite of pepperoni and cheesed.  But we never worry that much about rubber shooting out of a blown tire walking around town.  So, why should 5G be any different.  Nothing is risk free.  5G EM waves, or the damn truck passing by...

Personally, I worry a lot more about the lost of privacy than the risk of cancer by these new generation of phones.

[Bud]

Remember a while ago, when people were literally BURNING DOWN cellphone towers, because they thought they were equipped with 5G technology that would give them cancer?

How you can burn down a metal tower?

[Terry Bites]

There you have it. News outlets are so often mistaken. Journalsts (mostly innumerate and proud of it) do poor rerseach into things they know nothing about. They will shop arround for the fake scientist bullshiiter that supports thier fictional account. Excuse me sir... do you have the measurements or are you just saying that! Opinions are not facts, but they do generate hours of media bickering- thats what news is now. If the facts don't fit the story, then you'll have to find the alterative facts AKA "shit I made up".

Anyhow, RF is thermal radiation not ionisisng radiation- so it can cook your eyes and brain meat, but it wont directly damage DNA. Maybe the gravy does. Lets find out!
My neighbours are fervently against the evils of phone antennas. So I showed them a back of a takeaway menu comparison between the Iphone stuck to their head and the tower 100m away. Even with antenna gain, the inverse square law shows the phone to be far more brain frying than the mast.

Theres a strong causal link between sunshine and skin cancer. Its not a problem with the infra red. Beer is bad for you. (thats got to be lie, I like beer)
It occurred to me while I was on the London underground, that all phones are screaming for mummy flooding the waveguide of the train and tunnel with RF- thats a worrying idea. Is it true. When do the phones just give up?
BTW, when you hear that sound of scotch tape ripping from the roll you're making X-rays. God help amazons slave army.

Remeber the poweline lukaemia link. Its not the EM but the Corona discharge that makes toxic molecules and ionises other nasty molecules so they stick to your preciuos parts. Utilites companies spent billions proving what they aready knew. Its not the EM or "cylcotron" action inside your cells. Somehow they didn't bother with corona where evil chemistry. UV and X-rays abound.

The small amount X-rays propduced in a magnetrons and klystrons have energies lower than 50Kev.
 Low energy X-rays wont go up a wavguide to any extent and will get lost in a circulator or swich. The magnetron is providing RF to the Dish, so the low energy X-rays were likley not comming out that way. If you put your head inside the RF module (metal shieded no doubt) you might have a problem.  Here we have a German newpaper article, but no figures from a study to look at. Was it science or politics at play, or more probably fear of futher litgation? There may have been an increase in cancers in the operators for reasons not examined. We will never know.

[Rick Law]

...
How you can burn down a metal tower?

Heat can significantly lower the strength of the metal.  That is how ancient metal forging works: heat it enough and you can shape it with a hammer operated by mere human strength.

So burn the base enough, the tower wont be able to hold its own weight up.

[TimFox]

In general, non-noble metals (including iron and aluminum) can burn if heated to a high enough temperature.  Cast iron buildings in the 19th century were inflammable, and required terra cotta insulation to be fireproof.

[james_s]

Everything in California causes cancer, which is why the statutory notification on everything (including screwdrivers) is totally useless, since the legitimate notices are ignored by the intended audience as yet another notice.

Prop 65 is the poster child of stupid feel-good legislation, it was based on good intentions but as is typical it was not really thought through and in practice is completely pointless other than as a source of laughs. Since the warning is on virtually everything, with no regards to the quantity of the potentially toxic ingredient(s) it is totally useless and tells you nothing. Since there is no penalty for applying the warning to something that does not actually require it, and there is a penalty for not putting the warning on something that does, it's much easier to just slap it on everything to cover your bases. I'm not sure if California legislators are actually so inept that they don't realize their state is the laughing stock of the rest of the country or they just don't care I really don't know.

[james_s]

Heat can significantly lower the strength of the metal.  That is how ancient metal forging works: heat it enough and you can shape it with a hammer operated by mere human strength.

So burn the base enough, the tower wont be able to hold its own weight up.

The same way the towers collapsed on 9/11 despite the oft quoted fact that jet fuel doesn't burn hot enough to melt steel. You don't need to melt the steel, it softens and loses a substantial amount of strength well below the melting point and gravity does the rest. There's lots of flammable wire insulation and other substances in the core of a mobile phone tower so it's not hard to believe it could catch fire and collapse.

[Kasper]

When stuff like this comes up, I think about how long it took to definitively declare smoking causes cancer.

Absence of evidence is not proof of absence.

[0culus]

Call me when someone makes a cell phone with a klystron PA. 

[0culus]

When stuff like this comes up, I think about how long it took to definitively declare smoking causes cancer.

Absence of evidence is not proof of absence.

Yeah, but the EIRP of a cellular phone is so low compared to say, a radar, that it's not going to heat flesh a noticeable amount. Other interactions might be up in the air....however I once read an Israeli study about how sweat glands function as mm wave antennas. I actually came across it when searching for 8510C VNA documentation because the researchers apparently used one.  I should have saved it, as I can't find the actual study anymore.

[Bud]

...
How you can burn down a metal tower?

Heat can significantly lower the strength of the metal.  That is how ancient metal forging works: heat it enough and you can shape it with a hammer operated by mere human strength.

So burn the base enough, the tower wont be able to hold its own weight up.

I challenge anyone to burn a metal tower and post a picture. 

[borjam]

With EM waves, frequency is energy.  Higher the frequency, the more the energy.  In the last 30 years of cell phone, it was not much more than 2GHz.  With true 5G, when fully implemented, it will be much higher frequency (20+ GHz) and directionally focused (it will not decrease by the square of distance).

20+ GHz is getting nearer to the point where the individual photons (energy packets) can cause some damage to a molecule - getting there but not that strong as compare to say dental X Ray which would be over a billion times higher in frequency (energy per photon).  Add to that, cell signals are weak (fewer photons).  So, photons (packets of energy) from the 5G tower may wiggle your DNA molecules a bit but knocking your DNA molecules out of shape is not a worry.

So what about good old visible light? I imagine it will kinda dissolve your molecules and stuff, right?

The limit between ionizing and non ionizing radiation is well known since the past century. Wow, that sounds like ancient! And it is well known (despite some delusional hallucinations mentioned hypothetical non described "non thermal effects" about strange effects of non ionizing radiation. Yes, some authors preach about non thermal effects but in a way that "hey, they do exist, bro!" in the same way they could be advocating little green men living in their fridge.

Yet it curiously focuses on cell phones, like microwaves were invented in the 90's and nobody mentions the stronger television broadcast signals and other radio frequency applications, yada yada.

[borjam]

Yeah, but the EIRP of a cellular phone is so low compared to say, a radar, that it's not going to heat flesh a noticeable amount. Other interactions might be up in the air....however I once read an Israeli study about how sweat glands function as mm wave antennas. I actually came across it when searching for 8510C VNA documentation because the researchers apparently used one.  I should have saved it, as I can't find the actual study anymore.

What I find amazing about reports of radar induced damage is, they affect operators who are obviusly shielded from the radar antenna and can certainly be affected by X-Ray leakage from the display unit.

What about sailors or people who live near the short and especially ports?

A smallish radar on a civilian trawler can put out pulses of 45 KW at around 10 GHz.

[Someone]

...
How you can burn down a metal tower?

Heat can significantly lower the strength of the metal.  That is how ancient metal forging works: heat it enough and you can shape it with a hammer operated by mere human strength.

So burn the base enough, the tower wont be able to hold its own weight up.

I challenge anyone to burn a metal tower and post a picture. 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-22/cranbourne-west-tower-fire-investigation/12277080
Tower, yes
Metal, yes
Fire, yes....

if you want to be pedantic thats almost certainly cable insulation burning, and not the metal. But everyone else is pretty much, yep, thats a mobile phone base station on fire, all the way up the pole.

[james_s]

Given the absolutely massive increase in mobile phone usage around the globe over the past 30 years or so I would expect a similarly massive increase in whatever health effects they might cause. Of all of the potential effects, there is only one very obvious one that kills a lot of people and that is distracted driving caused indirectly by mobile phones. It is obvious to me that they are not causing a measurable increase in cancer.