Today’s POV blog

Talking, walking, and even driving while on your cell phone presents untold danger. With a device so hazardous to our health, it’s a wonder that its popularity has reached all new heights. It is estimated that 60% of the worldwide population (4 billion people) subscribe to wireless services according to Reconstruction.ws.

Health agencies in Switzerland, Germany, Israel, France, the U.K., and Finland have issued health warnings with special emphasis on the risks to children (children have thinner skulls that are less able to provide protection from the radiation that is emitted).

EWG charges that the standards set by the FCC, based on 1992 recommendations, allow 20 times more radiation to penetrate the head than the rest of the body. The latest study on the topic of brain tumors caused by extended cell-phone use finds that there may be merit to the concern.

Yahoo reported on the study chronicled in the Journal of Clinical Oncology that could not document an overall link, but when the more methodologically rigorous studies were examined, a potentially harmful association was identified.

In earlier studies, similarly inconclusive and conflicting results were found. This study does little to add clarity to the general discussion but it does show that the more detailed the study, the more support there is for a link between the two.

At a more granular level, brain expert, Dr. Vini Khurana, warns that cell phones could kill far more people than smoking or asbestos and says people should avoid using them wherever possible. He furthers that “governments and the cell-phone industry must take immediate steps to reduce exposure to their radiation,” according to Independent.co.uk.

According to ScienceDaily.com, two new studies have concluded that talking on a cell phone while walking or driving is causing an increase in deaths to pedestrians, drivers, and passengers alike.

These studies that attempt to draw correlation between cell phones and accident fatalities found that there was a period where cell phones actually helped to reduce fatalities, but that the new data reflects changes that occurred once the number of cell phones being used reached critical mass of 100 million.

Another study, this one published in the latest issue of the journal Pediatrics, found that children walking to and from school while on the phone were not as diligent when crossing streets or making other safety decisions.

Research was conducted at the University of Alabama using a virtual-reality simulator and 77 children aged 10 and 11. In an article reported by About.com, children were monitored crossing a street while using a phone call and while undistracted.

It was found that while on the phone, the kids were less attentive to the threat that traffic posed including leaving less time crossing the street in between on-coming vehicles. The net results were more collisions, near misses, and longer wait times before attempting to cross.

According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the following bans are in place:

• Complete ban on cell-phone use while driving in California, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Utah, and Washington, and the District of Columbia.
• Complete ban on cell phones while driving a school bus is prohibited in 17 states and the District of Columbia.
• Complete ban on cell phones by novice drivers is restricted in 21 states and the District of Columbia.
• Text messaging is banned for all drivers in 18 states and the District of Columbia.
• Novice drivers are banned from texting in Delaware, Indiana, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Texas, and West Virginia.
• School bus drivers are banned from text messaging in Texas.

At what point should the government control our common sense and what responsibility do they have to conduct extensive studies evaluating safety?

In the last decade it seems that more people are quitting than starting. In fact, despite a significant decrease in the number of smokers, still more than 400,000 Americans die from tobacco-related illnesses every year. It is estimated that tobacco-related health-care costs exceed $100 billion annually. After a summer of government spending, that may seem like a drop in the bucket, but these numbers help to push up the cost of health insurance for all of us.

Though many long-term smokers believe that the damage has already been done, the American Cancer Society counsels us that within 12 hours of quitting, even a long-term smoker’s level of carbon monoxide can reduce to that of a non-smoker.

The longer, the better says the American Cancer Society — after ten years, many other health risks associated with smoking are reduced to a non-smoker’s level. Consider that quitting today you could rival the health of the average non-smoker on the topic of cancer, stroke, or heart disease risks.

According to LiveStrong.com, the average male smoker’s lifespan is reduced by 13.2 years and the average female smoker’s lifespan reduced by 14.5 years.

On 22 June 2009, President Obama signed legislation that gives the FDA regulatory power over the marketing and sale of tobacco. Known as the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, this law gives the FDA power to ban candy-flavored and fruit-flavored cigarettes among other marketing-messaging and product-content control.

With that law now in place, this week, federal health officials, banned the sale of flavored cigarettes in a story reported by NYTimes.com. They also have indicated that more limits may be in store against the far-larger market of flavored little cigars and cigarillos.

Many believe that flavored tobacco products are appealing and enticing to first-time smokers, including America’s younger generations. “These flavored cigarettes are a gateway for many children and young adults to become regular smokers,” said Dr. Margaret Hamburg, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, in announcing the ban.

Even with a notable reduction in the number of smokers, statistics found at AmericanHeart.org and other sites are alarming:

• In the United States, an estimated 26.2 million men (23.5%) and 20.9 million women (18.1%) are smokers.
• In 2004, 17-year-old smokers were more than three times as likely as those over the age of 25 to smoke flavored cigarettes, and they viewed flavored cigarettes as safer.
• Among whites, 23.5% of men and 18.8% of women smoke (2006).
• Among blacks, 26.1% of men and 18.5% of women smoke.
• Among Hispanics, 20.1% of men and 10.1% of women smoke.
• Among non-Hispanic Asians, 16.8% of men and 4.6% of women smoke.
• Among American Indians/Alaska Natives, 35.6% of men and 29.0% of women smoke.

Passive rulings such as public-area smoking bans may not be the best path though. According to a new study quoted at BioMedicine.org, “it has been observed that motivating people to give up smoking, after a cancer diagnosis, is not necessarily more effective than just ordering them to quit.”

By following two groups — those that received motivation therapy and those that were told to quit — even though motivation therapy involved more time, effort, and expense, it was not more effective. Here again, many believed that once they had already been diagnosed with a smoking-related illness, it was too late to quit, but since smoking restricts blood supply and collagen metabolism, quitting may help you to heal faster.

Dave Hitt, in his blog on the facts of second-hand smoke, sheds some light on the famous EPA study released in 1992 by exposing a number of misconceptions and misquotes in reference to this report.

For starters, the report claimed that second-hand smoke (SHS) causes 3,000 deaths a year, and for this reason SHS has been classified as a class A carcinogen. Although the study has been found incredibly faulty and was legally vacated, governmental agencies refer to it frequently to support their stances in all sorts of bans against smoking, for example the elimination or reduction of public-area smoking sections. In actuality, the exposure (for people who live and/or work in smoky environments) is about six cigarettes per year as supported by studies that measured actual exposure by having non-smokers wear monitors.

Whether or not the study is correct, it is widely accepted that smoking simply isn’t good for you and combined with other drugs, such as birth-control pills, it can be downright life threatening.

I am a former smoker and occasionally feel the need to indulge. I think of it like salt: no, it’s not good for me, but in moderation it’s a lot less dangerous than texting while driving.