On Thu, 25 Sep 2008 11:58:30 -0700, "D. C. Sessions"
<dcs@lumbercartel.com> wrote:

>How can we be sure that it won't affect the children yet unborn to
>the current generation of mobile-phone users?

We can't. Such risk management decisions are not based on
certainties. They're based on probabilities. In a past life, I
worked for an insurance actuary grinding statistics and probabilities
on such things as "what's leg worth" and "what are the chances that
someone will get clobbered in this or that industry". These questions
are difficult to convert into numbers and dollars, but must be done in
order to do business. It's the same way with any technology. We have
to blunder along, take reasonable risks, and be prepared to mitigate
the results if something unexpected and disgusting appears later. If
you base your product deployment plan on pure paranoia, political
correctness, popular fashionable lifestyles, or pontifications,
absolutely nothing will ever make it out of the lab and into the
marketplace.

In this case, pre-natal issues are certainly a potential problem. So
is getting run over by a hybrid automobile with a berserk computah.
With todays available numbers, the chances are about equal and not
worth considering.

It's kinda like the disaster movies I see on TV. Lots of potentially
scary things can happen. The earth can get hit by a meteor. Global
warming can trash the ecology. Pandemics are certainly a risk.
Yellowstone Park can erupt and turn the US into a giant ash bin. A
quake and tsunami can easily trash the US left coast. Lots of other
ways to end civilization. Do we stop dead because there's a small
chance these things can happen? No, we blunder along normally,
worried a bit, maybe look over our shoulder more than usual, but with
very low odds of anything happening, we don't worry about.

It's the same with pre-natal exposure issues. It can happen, it is a
risk, and can be a problem. Realistically, mutations are more likely
to be caused by exposure to cosmic rays than to cell phone radiation.
There's way more energy available to do far more damage with cosmic
rays. Yet, because we can't do anything about cosmic rays, we don't
worry about it.

>I wish I were being totally sarcastic, but this is posted to MHA
>where that very argument has been advanced against the use of
>vaccines.

I haven't seen those discussions but I understand the issues. I
suggest you approach such lifestyle decisions with a simple cost
benefit calculation. Are the benefits of using a cell phone greater
or less than the costs of birth defects times the probability? It
will be tricky to objectively assign the numbers, but it can be done.
I used to do this for the insurance actuaries. If you find the cost
times the probability to be too expensive, you have successfully
justified your apprehensions and justifications. If not, your
concerns about pre-natal issues are emotional and paranoid.

Bottom line: Run the numbers. If you don't have any numbers, take
your best guess.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558