There are many wonderful examples of pseudo-medical “truths”. However, it is in living memory that nurses took the flowers out of the wards because of oxygen being gobbled up by the flowers.
Shaving legs is another myth. Sorry, shaving does not make hair grow back thicker, stronger and darker. And there is no magic shampoo that improves hair growth. (If there were, I would be using it.)
However, there is a more serious side to medical myths and superstitions. To look at this we must first go to the bible where you will find (Matthew 7:7) which states ‘Seek and you will find”.
Unfortunately this has more than a slight ring of truth to it. We appear to be turning up more “cancers” than ever before. There must be a reason for this pseudo-epidemic. What else has increased? Smartphones, that’s it!
The doomsayers say exposure to the electromagnetic radiation (RF and ELF) emitted by cell phones and cordless phones are contributing to a worldwide thyroid cancer epidemic? Isn’t it time for our government to fund research on the risk factors underlying this epidemic?
According to the American Cancer Society, although some thyroid cancers can be linked to exposure to ionizing radiation, “the exact cause of most thyroid cancers is not yet known.”
Now far be it for me to suggest that this could be a giant waste of money, researching something that produces asymptomatic cancers. The old adage, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” comes to mind.
I do have a cancer or two, part of the seek and ye will find, but they are minor and will never kill me, so why should I get excited by it? Or even worse, were I to throw my cancer producing smartphone in the river where it could kill shoals of fish and bring the Friday night’s fish and chip shops into receivership?
But back to the “Seek and you will find!” Are we turning up cancers that would never have been a problem if we had just left them alone? In other words, are we looking just too intently?
I have written before about the adverse health effects of mobile phones, and to be honest, I do not believe there are any. It seems that all over the world there are groups of scientists devoting their laboratory lives to study the effects of radiation from mobile phones. One group even went so far as to suggest that pregnant women should not place their mobile phones on their abdomens as the radiation can get as far as the developing brain in the fetus as the skull is so much thinner than adults.
If that was not chilling enough, Australian scientists are investigating if children really are more vulnerable than adults to the effects of radiation from mobile phones.
Apparently, a study of 110 adults at the Australian Centre for Radiofrequency Bioeffects Research, partly funded by the Federal Government, confirmed mobile phones cause a change in brain function by altering brainwaves known as alpha waves.
“Although there’s a tiny effect on healthy young adults, there is a possibility that it could be much stronger in children or the elderly,” said Professor Rodney Croft. However, there was no indication from the adult tests if the effect on health was positive or negative.
There have been claims that using mobile phones produces brain cancer because people with brain cancer have used mobiles, and that is about as stupid as claiming that shoes are the greatest killer in the western society because 99 percent of people who died last year wore shoes. Lies, damned lies and statistics.
Now one of the articles I read admitted that scientists worldwide agreed there is no evidence linking electromagnetic radiation emitted by mobile phones to adverse health effects, but claims still persist that frequent use can cause headaches, nausea, problems with concentration, cancer and brain tumors, and I think you can pop thyroid cancer in there too.
Australian studies using unborn or newborn mice had failed to find significant changes in growth rate, brain function and behavioral development. However, I also believe we should keep mobile phones away from mice as they can play havoc gnawing on the cases.
