Cellphones? There are bigger risks to fret about
A man speaks on his cellphone as he sits on a pavement in New Delhi, India Credit: AP
If you're worried about the new finding by a branch of the World Health Organization that cellphones may cause cancer, relax. You have many bigger risks to worry about.
The threat from your phone is small, if there's any at all, and the benefit is large. If that sounds callous, remember that we make such trade-offs every day -- by driving a car, for example, or eating grilled foods.
The same arm of WHO has found that talcum powder, pickles and coffee are also "possible" carcinogens, along with pesticides and engine exhaust. The data on cellphones and cancer is extremely sketchy, and any risk (of brain cancer, mainly) would be greatest among users yakking longest.
Clearly more research is needed, and cellphone makers should probably find ways to reduce the energy waves emitted by their products, even though there is no known mechanism by which these weak emissions can cause cancer.
But in the range of perils we face every day, this one pales, especially weighed against the usefulness of mobile phones. An astonishing 5 billion people now use them, and while the hazards are vague, the benefits are huge. They almost surely save lives, for example, by enabling people to summon help during an emergency.
If you really want to be on the safe side, use your mobile's speaker, or a corded earpiece. Better yet, eat healthy, get some exercise, buckle up -- and stay off the phone while driving.
