back to article Tinfoil hats proven useless by eleven-year mobe radiation study

A long-term longitudinal study in the UK has concluded that mobile phones are safe, with the publication of a report finding “no evidence of biological or adverse health effects” from using mobiles. The second MTHR (Mobile Telecommunications and Health Report) study is a follow-up to a prior report published in 2007. The …

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  1. wowfood

    aww

    Reading the title I honestly thought an 11 year old kid had done a study on the effectiveness of tinfoil hats for a science fair or something.

    1. DropBear
      Trollface

      Re: aww

      The boffins are obviously either wrong on this one or covering it up - I mean, come on, how can all those poor "electrosensitive" folks be all wrong...?!?

      1. Elmer Phud
        Alert

        Re: aww

        Wel, they would say that wouldn't THEY?

        It's all part of the GLOBAL CONSPIRACY (obligatory use of caps) by (insert name of favourite global conspirators here) as part of thier centuries-long grip on the planet's wealth.

        No-one needed mobile phones or Wi-fi until they started beaming it in to our brains to ensure we all went out to buy devices. Dolphins have always communicated using brain-waves and the (insert name of favourite global conspirators here) have been drowning out the message of peace and harmony.

        This has been verified by my Angel Guardian

        The TRUTH is finally out!!!

  2. Stumpy Pepys

    I thought the efficacy of tinfoil hats had already been demonstrated by those students at MIT?

    1. Paul J Turner

      Those students at MIT

      can spell 'Aluminium', that's better news than the article!

      1. jake Silver badge

        Re: Those students at MIT

        Unfortunately, Paul J Turner, at MIT they splel it "aluminum".

        Arguing about cross-pond spelling differences is somewhat silly. English mutates as it migrates. Deal with it. The meaning of the words remains the same.

        1. cortland

          Re: Those students at MIT

          Thanks! Have a biscuit.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    But, but,but

    I read it that it's true and that it does cause cancer and makes you gluten intolerant and fat in the Daily Lie, so I KNOW who I believe and it ain't no wacko scientists.

  4. jake Silver badge

    Duh.

    Cell phone technology doesn't use ionizing radiation.

    The thing the paranoid should be worried about is sunlight.

    1. Crazy Operations Guy

      Re: Duh.

      Or even the human body, other living creatures, smoke detectors, bricks, bananas, ceramics, and many other things that release ionizing radiation, which even though is on the level of nano- or pico-sieverts, is still more than a cell phone has ever produced.

  5. Crisp

    Tinfoil hats proven useless

    But they still block thought probes right?

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
      Black Helicopters

      Re: Tinfoil hats proven useless

      I knew you were going to say that...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Tinfoil hats proven useless

      No, they act as antennae. Who do you think sent out the rumours in the first place?

  6. Shrimpling
    Big Brother

    Tin Foil Hats

    Tin Foil Hats aren't for protecting yourself from mobile phone radiation, they are for stopping the Government spying on you with Mind Rays.

    Do they still work for the original purpose?

    1. Elmer Phud
      Flame

      Re: Tin Foil Hats

      "Do they still work for the original purpose?"

      I'm not sure if they do -- there are more and more of those things we are told are 'mobile phone masts' appearing. They are always where there are lots of people and there is the use of 'free wirlesss' that monitors thoughts while you are drinking coffee at one of the many different types of government outlets.

      It's only a matter of time before Romanian crooks use the same tech to read our bank details!!!!!

      1. Ben Bonsall

        Re: Tin Foil Hats

        The wifi there doesn't monitor your thoughts, it adds new ones, like "drink another overpriced cup of brown mud" and "mmm, you are enjoying this brown mud" or "a 5 euro muffin would be nice about now..."

        The wifi signal strength is always suspiciously high... possibly to overpower the tinfoil hats.

        1. Rich 11

          Re: Tin Foil Hats

          <blockquote>"a 5 euro muffin would be nice about now..."</blockquote>

          I had a 5 euro muffin once. She was worth every cent.

    2. Steven Raith

      Re: Tin Foil Hats

      They stopped using mind control rays when targeted advertising was developed.

      HTH.

    3. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: Tin Foil Hats

      "Do they still work for the original purpose?"

      Not since they switched to aluminium. And have you seen how thin it is these days?

      I suspect GCHQ had a hand in defining the new "thinness" because it's a an exact multiple of the mind control wavelength.

  7. Chazmon
    Coat

    I recently read Waldo by Heinlein where the whole world was suffering from increased lethargy due to the number of rays floating around. Perhaps the modern popularity of computers is caused by this lethargy rather than the other way round? I think we should be told.

    Mine is the one with a lead lining

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Well that's one to show to the missus in the vain hope that she'll stop cranking up my phone bill instead of using the "free" (i.e. prepaid but cheap) minutes on her mobile that I go to some efforts to make sure she's got... but if it is perfectly obvious to someone that holding a small radio transmitter next to your head must surely be bad for you, then no amount of peer-reviewed research is going to convince you otherwise.

    1. Terry 6 Silver badge

      Free calls

      Maybe she prefers a proper phone. I do.

      Most mobiles are good for everything except talking-to-people-at-a-distance.

      But then I get free calls on that fixed phone as well as free VM calls and minutes for the mobes.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Free calls

        Well, I much prefer the clarity of fixed lines, but for calling mobile phones I am not prepared to piss money away using Virgin Media who charge something like 20p just to get put through to someone's voicemail. And it's not about the money, it's about the over-charging. The same call through my VOIP phone costs 1p.

        I also have "free" i.e. pre-paid calls to landlines on VM. Although they scored a spectacular own goal the other day by sending me a card telling me that my monthly average usage of these free calls is about 240 minutes and therefore I "saved" X many pounds by spending 8 quid a month for this. Which made me realise I could save a further fiver by *not* using VM at all but switching to a reliable VOIP service. If I CBA.

  9. willi0000000

    bad study

    they substituted aluminum (aluminium?) foil.

    [everybody knows that only tin works]

  10. Identity
    Big Brother

    Well, you know...

    absence of evidence is not evidence of absence!

  11. Stevie

    Bah!

    The headline is ungrammatical in the context of the article. Replace "useless" with "needless" and it is all fixed.

    Tinfoil hats still work for their primary purpose: blocking psychotronic mind-control rays.

  12. phil dude
    Thumb Up

    very well done...

    It is public so you can all read it. Read the summary, read the bits about the dosimeters and why they needed that approach.

    I think I tend to agree with the comment above, ionising radiation is the one to worry about...

    P.

  13. Terry 6 Silver badge

    You'll never convince...

    ...... the ones who want to believe that Wifi/mobile phones/MMR/Fluoride etc. are somehow unnatural and dangerous. And anything "natural" is good.

    1. Charles 9

      Re: You'll never convince...

      The next time someone tells you natural is good, dare them to eat a castor seed (the source of ricin).

    2. Don Dumb
      Alert

      Re: You'll never convince...

      @Terry 6 - ...... the ones who want to believe that Wifi/mobile phones/MMR/Fluoride etc. are somehow unnatural and dangerous. And anything "natural" is good.

      Depressing isn't it? And the most annoying thing is their definition of 'natural', not the same as a physicist's definition I'm sure.

      Friend of mine recently posted a story on Facebook about people having problems with vaccinations, it had senior medical leaders (many immunology Profs), being quoted as saying "vaccine x has y problems". They were clearly having concerns with particular aspects of specific vaccinations or aspects of a particular country's vaccination policy. None were saying "vaccination is wrong".

      Nonetheless my friend (who naturally administers homeopathic medicine) considered this justification to give the comment "vaccination - seems to be you either believe in it or don't". Of course, the truth was that he doesn't believe in it and was hoping to turn it into a 'religious' debate rather than that admit that there isn't any doubt about vaccination working.

      As Prof Brian Cox says, the danger of apparently 'harmless' beliefs like astrology or homeopathy are that they drive people to doubt science and to spurn proper medical advice.

  14. Clive Harris
    Black Helicopters

    Perhaps there's something in it.

    Many years ago (back in the early '90s) I was involved in a joint industry/academic study on developing mobile phone technologies, sponsored by the UK government. There were several teams, each working on different problems and each based at a university. My team was at Southampton, (my "alma mater"), studying call handover requirements for very small cell sizes. We all went up to London once a year for a joint conference to see what the other teams were up to.

    One of the teams was studying the effects of mobile phone radiation on the human head. To do this, they constructed a (rather ghoulish) model of a head, using materials with similar dimensions and dielectric properties to real brain, bone and muscle tissue.

    The results they reported at the first joint conference were interesting. In the 900MHz band there was little absorption of energy. However, at 1800MHz, their model formed a resonant cavity. Effectively, a standing wave was formed betwen the ears, with current peaks around the ears and a voltage peak around the centre of the skull. They stressed that their results were very "preliminary" and needed further work.

    At the next conference, a year later, we eagerly awaited the results of their further research. That team didn't turn up - their funding had been terminated. Now, I'm not saying that they found something nasty which was being deliberately hidden. It may be they had made serious mistakes and were closed down because they weren't up to the job, or any of several other innocent causes, but it's left me worried ever since.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Perhaps there's something in it.

      Definitely.

      I expect the methodology of the research mentioned in the article was flawed and probably too short to measure the effects, which are apparently cumulative.

      There was a lecture by research staff in a part of the US government which went into a lot more detail and showed that the children are /much/ more vulnerable and that /pulsed/ microwaves did have harmful measurable effects from several studies from countries outside the US e.g. cells were damaged or killed by exposure to real mobile phones polling a cell station.

      There have been several cancer cases all linked to proximity of a mobile phone for long periods e.g.

      A women who kept a mobile phone in her breast cleavage and had cancer located by the phone antenna RF lobes. A man who used a mobile for hours for business calls in a poor reception area who had auditory cancer. etc.

      Basically no f'ing way will I carry an active pulsed microwave transceiver with me, especially not close to my body; power square law, and all that! When I occasionally carry an Android tablet to read books, it is kept in Airplane mode while in a back pack, and most of the time while I'm using it.

      My WiFi router is sited and configured to use reduced transmission power to adequate service my WiFi devices, because WiFi could also be damaging. I have junked a DECT phone set, because I discovered that DECT phones can be even worse than cell phones for transmission power; in fact I could feel it!!!

      1. Don Dumb
        Flame

        Re: Perhaps there's something in it.

        @AC - There have been several cancer cases all linked to proximity of a mobile phone for long periods e.g. A women who kept a mobile phone in her breast cleavage and had cancer located by the phone antenna RF lobes.

        Oh For Fuck's Sake - Yes, because no woman ever had breast cancer in the breast cleavage before the mobile phone came along. The incident rate for breast cancer in the UK is 1 in 8 during a female's lifetime. I'm suprised there's only been one case of absolutely coincidental cancer. Your anecdote is almost evidence that modible phones reduce cancer risk as you have only one example.

        Your comment is proof that no matter how much something is studied, science is still no match for anecdotal evidence. Coincident is expected when dealing with things as prevalent as mobile phones and cancer. That's why you have to do studies with large sample sizes.

        My grandfather took an anecdote every day for 60 years and he lived till his late 80s.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hmm, I thought to was the power of a quantum of energy that determined whether damage was caused, and that there were no cumulative effects sine the maximum damage caused by a quantum is the maximum (or not) damage. Frequency*plancks constant or some such.

    Who knows, I don't have cancer and I am not dead yet. Mobile phone usage moderate and a user for decades. I'll take my chances. As for the "electro sentitives", they're full of shite.

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