Cellphones Are Gonna Kill You

A new study out suggests that cellphones are even more dangerous than cigarettes:

A study by an award-winning cancer expert shows that cell phone use could kill more people than smoking, it is reported.

According to the U.K.'s Independent newspaper, the study, headed by Dr. Vini Khurana, shows that there is a growing body of evidence that using handsets for 10 years or more can double the risk of brain cancer.

Khurana — one of the world's top neurosurgeons — based his assessment on the fact that three billion people now use the phones worldwide. That is three times higher than people who smoke. Smoking kills some five million globally each year.

He warned that people should avoid using handsets whenever possible and called on the phone industry to make them safer. France and Germany have already warned against the use of mobile phones, especially by children, it is reported.

The study is said to be the most damning indictment of cell phone use. According to the Independent, cancers take at least 10 years to develop, which has influenced earlier cancer studies showing relative safety when using cell phones.

Rush Limbaugh had some thoughts on this story on Monday's show:

RUSH: You know, folks, as if Operation Chaos were not enough, now we got cell phones are worse than cigarettes or asbestos. Have you heard this story? This is from the UK Independent: "Mobile Phones 'More Dangerous Than Smoking' -- Mobile phones could kill far more people than smoking or asbestos." Why just leave it at those two? Why not throw in lead, pollution, SUV accidents, food from McDonald's, global warming, rising oceans, melting icebergs, computers, artificial sweeteners, meat, acid rain, sharks, and on and on and on. This is a study by an award-winning cancer expert. "He says people should avoid using them wherever possible and that governments and the mobile phone industry must take 'immediate steps' to reduce exposure to their radiation.

"The study, by Dr Vini Khurana, is the most devastating indictment yet published of the health risks. It draws on growing evidence – exclusively reported in the IoS in October – that using handsets for 10 years or more can double the risk of brain cancer. Cancers take at least a decade to develop, invalidating official safety assurances based on earlier studies which included few, if any, people who had used the phones for that long." You know, there has to be a trial lawyer right behind this. Did you ever think that you would hear somebody say that there's anything more dangerous than smoking? Now cell phones? How many times a day do you light up your cell phone, folks? I have questions. Is secondhand cell phoning a risk? You've got the cell phone to your ear, but your children are in the car. Does the radiation risk go beyond just your cranium?

And if you want to, say, make a cell phone call outdoors or in a movie theater or restaurant, should you have to go out to the street like cigarette smokers do? Should you not be allowed to use your cell phone inside? Should you not be allowed to use your cell phone around children? When are we going to implement cell phone taxes for the feds and the states to collect? How long will it be before there are no cell phone ads on TV? How long will it be before there are warning labels on the phones themselves and in print ads for the cell phones from the Surgeon General? You know how to interpret this, don't you? This is just another play to give government more power to regulate what you can and can't do. I think that there are some liberals who do not like the idea that there's so much freedom of speech and freedom of communication among the citizens with their cell phones.

I'm waiting for the first workplace lawsuit in which a non-cellphoning person sues the company to ban cellphoners from the workplace lest the non-cellphoners be exposed to radiation. It's gonna happen.