Cell phone use and risks for cancer

Out and about in a nearby St. Paul suburb, I continue to be puzzled by the number of people I see in places like my healthcare clinic, the supermarket, the bank, a local big box, and in any parking lot, clutching their cell phones tightly against their ears.

As a practitioner of mindfulness meditation, I’m concerned at the lack of awareness these folks are bringing to their daily activities; I’m especially concerned when I see a cell-phone preoccupied parent with a couple of children in tow.

And these are no doubt the same people you see driving down the freeway engaged in conversation on their phones oblivious to other traffic.

It’s likely related to my practice of mindfulness meditation that I deplore multitasking and spend very little time on the phone at home or elsewhere.

After reading an article over at CNN today citing a warning from the World Health Organization, I have an additional reason to forgo the escapism from everyday life afforded by the increasingly advanced versions of the once humble cell phone.

It would seem that obsessive cell phone users are not only endangering their own lives and the lives of others out on the freeway, they are also putting their own lives at risk wherever they happen to be simply by gluing the little devices to their ears for prolonged periods of time.

CNN’s Danielle Dellorto has the story:

(CNN) -- Radiation from cell phones can possibly cause cancer, according to the World Health Organization. The agency now lists mobile phone use in the same "carcinogenic hazard" category as lead, engine exhaust and chloroform.

Before its announcement Tuesday, WHO had assured consumers that no adverse health effects had been established.

A team of 31 scientists from 14 countries, including the United States, made the decision after reviewing peer-reviewed studies on cell phone safety. The team found enough evidence to categorize personal exposure as "possibly carcinogenic to humans."

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