PrintBy Shawn McKee
Staff Writer
Many things are bad for us, but sometimes we don’t realize it until it’s too late.
Cigarettes are bad for your health. Everyone knows that. However, it was not always common knowledge that smoking was a risky behavior. In fact, in the early days of television, the evening news was sponsored by tobacco and anchors actually smoked on the air.
All your favorite stars were lighting up — Lucy loved to smoke, John Wayne was “smokin’ em for 20 years” and even the Flintstones were sponsored by big tobacco. That’s right, the Flintstones were smokers. But no one knew how dangerous cigarettes were over time. Eventually, lung cancer killed the Duke and tobacco companies were banned from the medium they helped build.
It seems obvious that inhaling smoke would be bad for you, but if it took countless studies and numerous years to get regulations and age restrictions on something clearly unhealthy, how long would it take for something more subtly dangerous?
Now, concerns have been raised about the hazards of cell phone radiation. With no long-term knowledge of the effects that the radiofrequency radiation cell phones produce available, we are left to wonder if there will be a price to pay down the road.
Most research suggests that cell phones don’t pose a serious health threat to increase your chances of cancer, but most of these studies are also done by cell phone manufacturers. Time is necessary to see the outcome of long-term exposure because a brain tumor can stay latent for 10 or 15 years.
It may be safe for an adult to talk on their cell phone for hours, but it’s unclear as to how this may affect the brain of a still developing young child.
“We haven’t had long-term exposure with kids,” warns Michael Thun, vice president of epidemiology and surveillance research for the American Cancer Society “We cannot say with 100% certainty that it is safe. It is just not clear yet.”
So consider what you’re doing now and how it may affect your life later. Whether or not cell phones increase your risk of brain cancer or other health issues will not be known until more time passes, but it’s safe to say that limiting your minutes may do more than just keeping your bill down.
Do you think cell phones are dangerous? Would you cut down on using yours? Comment below and let us know.
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