Phones and radiation

Last October the FCC approved a new cordless phone technology in the USA. It’s called DECT… yep, the same DECT those of us in Europe and Australia and elsewhere have been using for about a decade.

As it happens there’s been research floating around that identifies DECT as causing tumours. Is it true? A lot of the information is coming out of the anti-mobile phone tower or anti-powerline movements, which the cynic in me says is just speculation. Likewise, much of the research into radiation from GSM and other mobile phones originates with the phone companies. Vested interests galore.

Even the research from elsewhere seems to be inconclusive, since it’s not an easy thing to detect.

My conclusion is: I don’t know. One could dismiss the risks out of hand, but I always have in mind the stories of my mother as a teenager in the 1960s, getting her foot measured in shoe shops by the use of X-rays. What seems like a useful, safe technology now might seem ludicrously dangerous in decades to come.

So I don’t avoid use of my DECT cordless phone and my GSM mobile phone completely, especially since they’re so damn convenient. But nor do I keep a phone bolted to my head all day. Moderation, as with all things, is the key.

2 thoughts on “Phones and radiation

  1. Tim McVeigh

    They’re “cool”.

    All the kids start them in school.

    They’re in the movies & TV all the time.

    Early medical studies say they’re dangerous to your health.

    The companies selling them say the reports are inconclusive rubbish.

    What am I talking about?

    A. None of the below.
    B. Mobile phones.
    C. Cigarettes.
    D: G-strings.

  2. Philip

    Good grief, the article on the linked website includes a warning that a phone transmission’s signals “pulses penetrate right through their walls”

    Who would have thought… radio signals through walls.

    And I believe the acronym stands for Digital Enhanced Cordless Technology, not digital electronic cordless phones, as stated in the link.

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