US researchers demand cell phone safety tax

A US senate subcommittee was told this week by cellphone safety researchers that more money is needed to research cellphone safety, ideally through a $1 tax on every mobile-phone bill. The usual suspects turned up to present evidence to the Subcommittee on Labour, Health, and Human Services, which was sitting to consider the …

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely brilliant

Where criminal masterminds fail to find opportunities to line their own pockets* you can always rely on government officials to do so.

>ideally through a $1 tax on every mobile-phone bill.

Even better, that's on every bill, not every phone.

*Because if passed, as sure as day follows night and night follows day, some of that tax will find its way back to them.

[Anonymous Coward]

"a more productive way to spend their time"

yeah on the phone getting a nice dose of BRAIN CANCER....

not that anyone would notice, since most of them have a brain the same size as Homer Simpons! and are sooo old they should all be in a geriatric ward anyway.

how in gods namer do they elect such idiots..... oh yeah calling on god et.al

a Muppet could do better....

[Hermes (nine inch) Conran]

please.

Could we have a scream Icon?

[Destroy All Monsters]

Nobody cares...

...except hypochondriacs and crystal-toting people afraid of the "electromagnetic waves" (hurr!).

After a lifetime spent in the industrially hazardous environment that is the city & workplace and having partaken of the fat-accumulating-chemicals bandwagon of the foodchain, I'm just worried that my cancer will be a long, lingering one.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sod that... tax the effing hysterical morons who believe in this electrosmog bullshit

I don't see why taxpayers' money should be spent researching stupid conspiracy theories promoted by a bunch of internet loonies and their gullible moron followers.

[Rob Campbell]

science education is clearly failing some people

" Linda Erdreich, of Exponent's Health Sciences Center for Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Computational Biology, was asked if she could prove that mobile phones don't cause cancer. She couldn't, since one can't prove negative statements, but the admission still provides more evidence for the prosecution."

Actually, it isn't the "negative statement" that is the problem it's the "prove" part. We scientists normally never actually prove anything. We may find evidence to support a hypothesis, but proving that there can be no evidence to refute the statement is more difficult. One needs to find just a single example that contradicts a hypothesis to refute it (assuming that one is using sound scientific techniques of course).

So yes, it would be next to impossible to "prove" that mobile phones don't cause cancer, just as it appears to be pretty difficult to prove that they do!

[Anonymous Coward]

Tax on Pillows....

...each morning I wake up, one side of my face is warmer than the other. I've done a tiny bit of research that proves it is the side in contact with the pillow. Now as everyone sleeps, I need you to prove sleeping doesn't give me cancer.

So I propose a tax on sleeping of a mere 10c / 10p per person, per night.

This would go to line my pockets, sorry fund my research into the effects of sleeping on a pillow has in regards to cancer (Oh Aids and err swine flu as well).

Thanks.

[Aitor 1]

Ionizing radiation

Gamma radiation also causes sllight temperature rises, but can very easily become fatal. So the temperature is not what kills you: but we already knew it.

It has been proven that GSM radiation doesn't have enough power to break ADN and ARN chains, and this is the main "prove" that handset makers use to say that it is safe.

But.. the question is.. can the radiation from a GSM phone alter the way the ADN and ARN replicate? experiments differ here.. some say "yes", other "no" and some others "maybe". My educated guess: yes, it is carcirogenic.

[Scott Herter]

Here we go again...

I remember a big stink in the US back in the 70's and 80's about power lines causing cancer. It got louder and louder and more and more "studies" were cited that even I began to think maybe there was something to it. Then a number of rigorous studies were done and found no correlation between power lines and cancer and the whole thing died away. You can still find people to this day who believe it was all a big conspiracy and that power lines do cause cancer.

Not too long ago there were people claiming that WiFi hotspots caused problems. That didn’t go too far since the power levels were so low compared to, say, power lines. They then came up with some story about how some people were sensitive to EM and it was causing these special people problems, giving them headaches and stuff. They then took a bunch of these people and put them in a room turning low level EM emissions on and off and having them say when they were being affected. Not one of the test subjects managed to have symptoms matching the EM turn on at a rate higher then random guessing would indicate.

I am inclined to believe that cell phone cancer scares will follow the same pattern.

[tuna 1]

FUD, Rinse, Repeat... Profit!

Funny how all the studies on this subject in the 90's failed to find correlation and petered out around the turn of the century. I guess we have nothing better to do in these bountiful times but to chase this windmill. Again.

BTW, I suspect radiation from the sun causes cancer. I propose a $1 tax on all short pants, short-sleeve shirts, bathing suits and sunglasses to fund my research into this terrible threat.

[Mike 61]

FRICTION!

based on the posts above I submit the following my research. and I am surprised that no one else has posted it yet.

Sexual gratification is usually based in some form of friction, friction causes heat, enough heat can damage the skin, damaged skin can have damaged DNA/RNA chains, damaged DNA/RNA can have faulty replication, faulty DNA/RNA replication is the basis for most cancers. I therefore submit that a shagging tax be instituted at a mere 1c/1p per shag per person and that the proceeds be forwarded to my shagging research foundation. My hypothesis is that the lovely bird has a greater risk of developing some type of friction related cancer and my research will focus on finding a suitable anti-cancer lubricant that is especially effective on the loveliest of all birds. Of course after I run out of suitable volunteers maybe a fine for those who meet the qualifications but have not yet participated in the research.

mines the one with astroglide and a carton of durex in the pocket.

[J 3]

Pet peeve time

"no discernible affect on the brain"

What's up with wrongly using the verb "affect" instead of the noun "effect"? Quite common Anglophone mistake, with these two homophones, and one that quite annoys this Latin language. C'mon, how hard is it to get it right?

Unless you mean that there no discernible liking for the brain, in which case I might complain about your choice of preposition. :-)

But who am I to talk about prepositions, the bane of the non-native speaker, in any language...

[Alan Esworthy]

@Chris W

Chris, you say "Where criminal masterminds fail to find opportunities to line their own pockets* you can always rely on government officials to do so."

Oh, you Pollyanna, you!

Gunvernment officials *are* the larcenous mastermind overlords. The criminals outside of gunvernment are too stupid to get elected, appointed, or hired by the State. Would you care to hazard a guess as to how many orders of magnitude State predation exceeds private predation?

[Dale 3]

200 million

Assuming a low 200 million mobile phones used in the USA, that's $200M, per month! Do they really need that much cash?

I think research into the possible health risks of technologies is absolutely essential, but basically the research has already been done and the result is there is little to no risk in mobile phones. Either find something new to research, or go out and get a job like the rest of us.

[Anonymous Coward]

reserach payement for 2009

@Mike61

As of today i owe you 3p for the year to date 2009.

It's in the post.

[Gaz 6]

Another tax???

For those of you not in the US, there's like an extra 15% markup or more at the end of your US cell phone bill. There is one particular tax (can't remember the name now) that's supposed to go into some fund that no one ever collects from the cell phone companies but you get charged nevertheless..and it's alot, like $3.50 or so such nonsense. So more taxing, get the fsck outta here!

[Anonymous Coward]

Whose money are we taking about here?

"The call for a levy on every mobile phone bill was proposed to the subcommittee by Devra Davis, of the University of Pittsburgh. She thinks the industry has a responsibility to fund the kind of research she happens to be doing."

A levy on phone bills isn't "the industry funding research", it's the end user funding the research. If the Industry has aresponsibility to fund the research, then levy the phone companies profits.

[kain preacher]

Fees Taxes and Condoms

Fed Universal Service Charge

Regulatory Charge

Administrative Charge

CA State P.U.C. Fee

Some cities in my state chargers %8 sales tax.

I ordered cell phone and Verizon had listed on the order sheet it said taxes and fee can add up to %3 of the bill.

[Charles 9]

Actually, one CAN prove a negative.

A proof by contradiction can suffice to prove a negative by showing that assuming the positive results in an impossibility.

[Graham Marsden]

@ Rob Campbell

> Actually, it isn't the "negative statement" that is the problem it's the "prove" part. We scientists normally never actually prove anything. We may find evidence to support a hypothesis, but proving that there can be no evidence to refute the statement is more difficult. One needs to find just a single example that contradicts a hypothesis to refute it (assuming that one is using sound scientific techniques of course).

Err, Rob, that is "proving" the hypothesis, since "to prove" in this context actually means "to test"!

[LaeMi Qian]

Someone's been GMing up new cash-cows, I see.

If it is such a health risk, surely the private health insurers should be rushing to fund research as part of their being pro-active in reducing potential future claims against them.

[Jeff Deacon]

re: Here we go again

Weren't CRT VDUs supposed to bring about all sort of harm as well? Just another health scare that faded into oblivion once they found something else to be scared about!

Pint, because alcohol is the only medication that cures scary fears.

[Michael 28]

meh!

pay as you go...nuff said.

(PS.. what about microwave ovens? .....1p tax on steak & kidney pies? )

Flame, cos i'm a tad more worried about lithium ion batteries and sudden car accidents.

[kain preacher]

Re Fees Taxes and Condoms

that should be %32 not %3