What's New Robert L. Park 10 Dec 2010

WHAT=92S NEW   Robert L. Park   Friday, 10 Dec 2010   Washington, DC

1. EMF EXPOSURE:  DOES WAVING OF THE TREES MAKE THE WIND BLOW?  =20
Identifying the cause of disease is the first step in its treatment. =20
Epidemiology, the branch of medicine concerned with causation, seeks to=20
establish correlation between exposure to a possible cause and actual=20
occurance of the disease.   Data must be taken over a period of years to=20
allow for latency; if no effect is seen, a longer latency period is=20
assumed.  Since there is no record of individual usage, people are asked =
to=20
recall what they did years earlier.  Exposure to electromagnetic fields=20
(EMF) in modern society is ubiquitous, but with the exception of a few=20
crackpots it was not thought to be a problem until 1989 when the New York=
er=20
ran a series of hopelessly misinformed articles by Paul Brodeur linking E=
MF=20
to cancer. The articles were turned into a series of books with lurid=20
titles like Currents of Death.  Brodeur had zero background in science bu=
t=20
he managed to arouse the anti-science monster that had been in hiding sin=
ce=20
World War II. The media, trained to give both sides of the story, even if=
=20
one side is the babbling of an idiot, was no help.  It did not end until=20
1996 when the National Academy of Sciences, persuaded that the public wou=
ld=20
not accept an argument based on quantum mechanics, released a three-year=20
study that found no effect of EMF on the human body. Almost overnight pow=
er=20
lines stopped causing cancer. The anti-science monster had been chained,=20
but it was still alive.

2. EPIDEMIOLOGY: FUNDAMENTAL LAWS OF NATURE TAKE PRECEDENCE.=20
With the abrupt emergence of cell-phone technology a decade ago, the anti=
-
science monster talked its way out of bondage.  Devra Davis, who is not=20
quite a scientist, but has a PhD in something called Science Studies, has=
=20
donned the mantle of Paul Brodeur to write Disconnect: The Truth About Ce=
ll=20
Phone Radiation, What Industry Has Done to Hide It, and How to Protect Yo=
ur=20
Family.  What's missing is what was missing from Paul Brodeur: the univer=
se=20
is governed by quantum physics.  Einstein pointed out a century ago that=20
electromagnetic radiation behaves like units of energy called photons equ=
al=20
to Planck's constant times the frequency. They don't cause any trouble=20
unless their energy matches some natural excitation. There isn't much to=20
excite until they reach the energy of molecular vibrations in the microwa=
ve=20
region.   This is the part of the spectrum used in cell phones, so in=20
principle your cell phone might cook your goose, but it would take a very=
=20
long time. At even higher frequencies you reach the red end of the visibl=
e=20
spectrum, then yellow, green and finally blue. Not until you reach the=20
extreme blue end of the visible spectrum is there a problem.  At that=20
energy, photons can eject photoelectrons, creating mutant strands of DNA=20
that can become a cancer. This is the lowest energy at which an incident=20
photon can induce cancer.  Photons of this energy are about a million tim=
es=20
more energetic than a microwave photon, but cannot penetrate very deeply=20
and therefore induce only skin cancers. However, in the last few days the=
re=20
have been reports that children exposed to cell phones radiation while in=
=20
the womb have an increased risk of behavior problems several years after=20
birth. At this point we can expect a wilder and wilder claims of effects=20
from cell phone radiation.

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND.
Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the
University of Maryland, but they should be.
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