Cell Phones Can Cause Cancer

The topic of this paper is cell phone radiation and whether or not it is harmful to a person’s health. My position on the topic is that cell phone radiation is harmful to people’s health, as has been shown in numerous studies (Nylund & Leszczynski, 2006; Gandhi, Morgan, de Salles et al., 2012). Two opposing viewpoints on the topic are that 1) cell phone radiation is not harmful to a person’s health—which is what the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has argued, and 2) there is just not enough information on the topic to make an informed decision.

Three reasons to support my position are: 1) that cell phones have been shown to affect brain development (Kesari, Siddiqui & Meena, 2013); 2) cell phones have been shown to affect fetal development and children’s development (Gandhi et al., 2012); and 3) cell phones have been shown to alter the way cells grow, which is a potential link to cancer (Nylund & Leszczynski, 2006).

The first reason supports my position because if cell phone radiation is negatively changing the brain, it cannot be said to be good for someone. Kesari et al. (2013) clearly show in their research that cell phones can cause neurodegenerative disease if one endures prolonged exposure to cell phone radiation. This is obviously problematic for constant cell phone users.
The second reason supports my position because if cell phone radiation is negatively impacting babies in the womb and children who are growing at critical developmental times in their life, then cell phones should not be considered safe. As Gandhi et al. (2012) show, cell phone radiation does alter the development of babies and children.

The third reason supports my position because if cell phone radiation is altering the way cells grow, then it could potentially be a cancer causing agent. Nylund & Leszczynski (2006) show in their research that cell phone radiation can produce alterations in gene and protein expression in human endothelial cell lines. This means cell phones are not safe.

What led me to believe things were this way was my initial skepticism regarding technology. I am by no means a Luddite, but I am suspicious of holding a device that emits radiation up to your head all the time. Maybe it is just the common sense in me talking, but I feel that if you are going to constantly expose yourself to a piece of equipment that is continuously giving off radiation, you should probably expect there to be some adverse effects happening in your health.

Two biases that I experienced in my examination of the topic were cultural bias and confirmation bias. My biases did not contradict the position I took because in the end what I suspected all along was what the evidence did indeed show to be the case. My cultural bias, however, was based on my distrust of anything the government says. If the FCC says that cell phones are safe, then I almost instantly expect the opposite to be true. This is based on my total distrust of the government and its ability to tell the truth. I use 9/11 as an example. I do not believe the official narrative regarding that tragedy—and neither do many other Americans. That serves as the basis of my cultural bias. My confirmation bias is based on my common sense approach to things. Once I make up my mind about what the story is likely to be, I tend to look for facts that will support that theory. So it could be argued that my use of the articles published by the researchers cited herein was just an example of my confirmation bias. However, if you wanted to think that, you would still have to prove that what is shown in the articles is not true or meaningful in any way, shape or form—and that cannot be done. So I do not believe the biases created a barrier to my thinking.

My own background shaped the way I felt about the topic I presented in the first section by essentially serving as my framework for how I chose to investigate it. If I were someone who trusted the government and never doubted anything it said, I would probably take the FCC at face value and not question it. If I were to look for research to show me that cell phones were safe, I would only select articles that would try to make that point. I would not even bother looking at articles like the ones I used to support my argument in this paper.

I do not think my thinking has changed on this topic since playing the Believing Game, since I never really believed cell phones were safe in the first place. I based my doubt on intuition and just on basic knowledge of how too much radiation can harm one’s health. If a person stood in front of an X-ray machine and constantly took X-rays of himself for many years, he would probably start to get cancer after a while. It is just basic logic that allows you to realize this, once you know something about how radiation impacts the body.

In conclusion, for the FCC to say that cell phones are safe when any thinking person can see that radiation is not safe and that too much radiation can cause cancer or harm a baby’s development (which is, by the way, the reason doctors will not X-ray a woman who is pregnant—because they know what can happen to the baby if they do) is to be disingenuous. I would not recommend that anyone believe that argument if they want to be healthy.