Ed Storms sent me some comments about the Shermer article:
Like all the apologists for the benefit of industry, Shermer simply ignores the real mechanism. Breaking a bond is not what causes cancer. Cancer is caused when an error is made while the DNA is replicated during cell devision. Such errors are caused by small changes in the environment and occur frequently. The body corrects most of theses errors. However, if the error rate exceeds the body's ability to repair, cancer results. Radiation of all kinds, if sustained at a critical level, will increase the error rate without breaking bonds or causing ionization, which are the strawmen of skeptics. Likewise, certain chemicals will do the same thing by rearranging rather than breaking bonds. This is only ignored by people who have a self-interest to avoid the economic consequences of the truth. Ed . . . Good point. I think there is broad agreement that cancer is caused by replication errors, and such errors have a wide range of causes, including low-energy ones. And no-energy ones such as changes in the chemical environment. My guess is that Shermer did not stop to think about what we know about cancer and DNA. He over-simplified the problem. He looked at only one aspect of it, or one possible cause. I doubt he is an apologist for the cell phone industry. He is opposed to many other industries, sometimes for good reason. Having said all of that, I would not worry about cell phones causing cancer except to people who use them for extended periods several days a week. Most environmental hazards are like that. Even cigarettes are probably harmless if you smoke one or two a week, but they are addictive so most people who do smoke end up smoking more than that. - Jed
