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26 April 2017

About to Get an Earfull

Holten: About to get an earfull
by Kevin Holten, Opinion,
 thedickinsonpress.com, 21 April 2015

In the end you’ll thank me. Why? It’s because this article might just save your life.

Two weeks ago I was in California visiting my son and his fiancé. While there, I also visited my former doctor for some basic medical maintenance and learned about a few of the dangers of everyday life. One of which is your cellphone. As it turns out, it’s a killer.

Oh, I know, you’re addicted to it, use it a million times a day and couldn’t possibly live without it. But that’s not the point, is it? The real point is you might not be able live with it.

In the past five years, the amount of radiation emanating from cellphones has increased dramatically. And, as it turns out, holding it to your ear too much each day is a great way to develop brain cancer and other diseases.



I’ve also noticed some habits that are a bit alarming. For example, while working out at the recreation center, I see that many woman are propping their cell phones in their tops or sports bras under their T-shirts and tank tops. So I suggested to one of them just the other day that a doctor had told me you might not want to do that.

“That’s the last place you want to put a cellphone,” this doctor had told me, and the reason is obvious.

Am I just being an overaggressive alarmist? Wish I was. But apparently I’m not.

You might wonder, if cellphones are bad for us, why wouldn’t the government do something about it? Well, you’ve got to remember that cellphones were originally developed for the Department of Defense. They were never tested for safety and then entered the marketplace quickly, thanks to a regulatory loophole.

But then, way back in the ’90s, a guy filed a lawsuit against a cellphone company because, as he said, his wife’s cellphone gave her brain cancer. The result of that and additional controversy led the industry to set up a non-profit group called Wireless Technology Research with a Dr. George Carlo, an epidemiologist and medical scientist, heading the research.

What was the result? Carlo and his gang found that cellphone radiation causes DNA damage, impairs DNA repairs and interferes with cardiac pacemakers. And that was back when cellphones were weak. They aren’t weak anymore.

Since then, it has been found that cellphone radiation contributes to brain dysfunction, tumors and autism, attention deficit disorder, neurodegenerative disease and behavioral and psychological problems. So, you might as well be holding a gun to your head.

American singer and songwriter Carrie Underwood said, “My cellphone is my best friend. It’s my lifeline to the outside world.”

It can be if you slide into a ditch between Amidon and Bowman in the midst of a sub-zero temperature snowstorm that lasts for three days. But it isn’t if you’re holding it up to your ear all day long or texting while driving.

I bet you also didn’t know that radiation from cellphones can damage the inner ear and that there are an ever-increasing number of people between the ages of 18 and 25 who are suffering from hearing loss.

Nor did you know that cellphones and cordless phones emit radiation that forces red blood cells to drip hemoglobin that then builds up in the body and can result in health complications including heart disease.

Not to mention that your cellphone is a collector of germs, because even if you are constantly washing your hands, you are probably not washing the thing that your hands most often touch.

Those are the physical disadvantages. But, according to researches, there is other damage being done to society.

“The use of texting, Facebook and Twitter and other sites as a form of communication is eroding people’s ability to write sentences that communicate real meaning and inhibit the art of dialogue,” Lizbeth Saunders Medlock, a psychologist and life coach, told South Source magazine.

But mostly I hate the way cellphones are dominating and preoccupying our lives. It reminds me of a quote I once heard: “Life is what happens when your cellphone is charging.”

Holten is the executive director of the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame. He writes a weekly column for The Dickinson Press.

http://www.thedickinsonpress.com/opinion/columns/3727894-holten-about-get-earfull

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