I take anything the “news” tells me with a pinch of salt these days. Very little of it is actually useful or even important. If a murderer took his own life after that of his victim’s, then why report the crime on TV? Since the criminal is no longer a threat, reporting the story is not so much of a public service announcement, but more a sick form of entertainment.
Sometimes, however, there are actually stories that should serve the public such as this one from the Independent that states “using handsets for 10 years or more can double the risk of brain cancer”.
Over the last couple of decades, smokers have been outcast by society because of the “deadly dangers” of secondhand smoke, but now there’s evidence that mobile phones are more dangerous than smoking!
What exactly is the risk of brain cancer?
A quick look at the National Cancer Institute website tells us that there were 6.4 incidents of brain cancer for every 100,000 people in the U.S between 1990 and 2002. The actual mortality rate was 4.5.
That’s just 0.0045%.
Although, “top neurosurgeon” Professor Khurana’s findings have not been proven or even peer-reviewed yet, if we’re to assume he is correct, then using a cell phone for 10 years will increase your chances of dying from brain cancer to 0.009%.
Mobile phones could kill far more people than smoking or asbestos
So does this mean the chances of dying from smoking or asbestos poisoning is less than 0.009%? Well, I can’t comment on asbestos, but according to the article, there are three times more cell phone users than smokers, so with the information given, we should assume that the maximum risk of dying from cigarettes is 0.009% times 3, which is 0.027%.
Media spin makes me dizzy
Throwing fancy words like “top neurosurgeon”, “professor”, “evidence”, “definitively proven” at us, mixed with shocking assertions about “death”, is nothing more than media spin to make you believe this is a serious issue.
What we can see now, however, is that nothing here has been proven (the article itself admits this in a roundabout way), and even if it had, it shows that a) the risk of dying from brain cancer is only 0.009%, and b) the risk of dying from smoking (based on the information in this article) is only 0.027%, and we can only assume that the risk of dying from secondhand smoke is even lower than that!
This all makes me want to eat more gyoza!
Hat tip to Japundit.
