Debunking the Myths of Cellular and General Radiation Risks
Radiation is a term that has decades of bad reputations from the general population. Radiation is everywhere, even without the existence of advanced technology. Energy waves far stronger than radio waves are essential in the daily lives of almost every organism on Earth. Despite this, the concern has over 5G towers and the radiation they emit has been staggering. The logical fallacies behind this irrational fear are staggering. Although radiation can be hazardous, it depends on the situation. Radiation (especially radiofrequencies from cell phones) is falsely misrepresented thanks to fake news articles.
Radiation has been feared for several generations, mostly because of movies and fake news surrounding the events of Chernobyl and Fukushima. Radiation is the movement of energy through a given space, such as the air in Earth’s atmosphere. The common fear of radiation is because of the damaging effects it has created for many people around Chernobyl and the media portraying the ‘horrific’ nuclear waste, and the aftermath of the two atomic weapons that were used in World War 2. The Chernobyl incident for example was caused by a nuclear meltdown, but according to the World Nuclear Association, the Chernobyl reactor was “the product of a flawed Soviet reactor design coupled with serious mistakes made by the plant operators” (World Nuclear Association). The Chernobyl reactor was built haphazardly and could not handle a meltdown, fear over radiation spilled into those produced by electronics and cell phones, as there have been “links” between the damage caused by nuclear radiation and the damage caused by electronic radiation. A good example of this bombastic ideology is a healthy banana because it contains potassium; the element potassium is radioactive, yet humans and other animals require potassium to survive, in some cases radiation itself is needed. The brain and spinal cord use potassium as a method of creating messages to each other. Unknown to many, radiation is simply energy in motion.
Radiation is the movement of particles or atoms through a medium (such as the air or outer space). These particles are shaking an awful lot because they are full of energy. These particles can collide with other atoms and molecules and release heat. Infrared is famous for this because it tends to collide with things, yet it lacks the energy required to smash though proteins and DNA. The warmth of the sun or a campfire is infrared radiation, as well as body heat (warm hugs douse others in infrared radiation). Visible light is another form of radiation that is stronger infrared. The human eyes are programmed to see them as colors (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet). The radiation from cell phones is the weakest of all known radiation, if cell phone radiation could cause cancer, the color blue would have enough energy to melt the flesh off of people.
Radiation is everywhere even without the rise of technology. Radiation keeps the planet warm, gives plants the ability to photosynthesize and create food for all the animals to eat, gives bacteria the ability to create breathable oxygen from photosynthesis, and so much more. This radiation is called non-ionizing radiation because it does not have enough energy to break through DNA (the building blocks of life) or proteins (the chemicals that make up cells and cell tools), instead it bounces off the DNA or protein and transfers heat energy. Without non-ionizing radiation, most if not all the life on Earth would die. Nuclear radiation is the same thing except a nuclear atom is falling apart and throwing pieces everywhere, nuclear radiation can also be non-ionizing and safe to handle. Nuclear reactors use nuclear materials because the radiation transfers a lot of heat, enough to boil water. A nuclear meltdown happens when the water gets too hot, like a pot of spaghetti catching on fire, thus it is easy to avoid a meltdown (like the spaghetti example, do not overcook the spaghetti and everything will be fine). Cell phones and modern electronics do not use nuclear material, but if they do it will be an irrelevant amount of material, far from enough to cause issues. Because cell phones emit the scary word radiation, many claim that cell phones and radiofrequency radiation are dangerous, plenty of articles and photos attempt to enforce this.
According to an article by Brian Asttaria, long-term exposure to radiofrequency radiation can cause lasting effects. He also claims that mood changes can occur when exposed to electromagnetic frequencies (Asttaria). The author also makes frequent references to himself and others like him (via the use of “us”) to mention how others like himself are sensitive to electromagnetic interference. He also claims that this radiation also causes cancer, damage to the brain, and damage to the blood-brain barrier (the heavily-guarded blood vessels that feed and remove blood from the brain), as well as hormonal changes and genetic mutations (Asttaria). The article appears to be directed at other people willing to spread misinformation about radiation from cell phones, and those willing to buy the author’s placebo products that “block” various sources of radiation. This article is likely disinformation because it is part of a website to buy ‘wellness’ products that go along with the author’s topic. “This blog entry is to share with you a product line that helps reduce emf symptoms. Years of working with clients proved they work as claimed. 95% of my clients reported a reduction in symptoms caused by EMF exposure”(Asttaria). This classifies his article as disinformation with the end result of making money. The article uses no references and takes outdated sources (his source from the World Health Organization no longer contains any information), as well as a host of logical fallacies.
The author plays on several logical fallacies that come into play when people talk about radiation and cell phone radiation. The strongest one is the use of the bandwagon, as jumping on the bandwagon fallacy allows an article to succeed via the echo chamber effect (where people listen to what they want to hear). Hasty generalization is also used on this article as the message assumes that radiation is bad because of some other devices that use radiation, the most common comparison being the aforementioned microwave oven. Similarly the hasty generalization of a balloon and a grenade: both explode with pressure, both fragment into many pieces, and both scare people with the loud noise it creates, but a balloon popping is far less dangerous than a grenade exploding (despite them sharing similar qualities). Along with the post hoc fallacy, where he states that headaches, pains, stupidity, and a host of other failures are due to the exposure to the radiation from cell phones (despite a constant exposure to much stronger forms of radiation). However radiation can be dangerous in its own right.
The author ‘confuses’ the dangerous forms of radiation with the non-hazardous ones. Ionizing radiation (the dangerous kind) has enough energy to break through DNA and proteins, hence the reason people fear it. Ozone is a gas that loves to absorb most of the dangerous forms of ionizing solar radiation that could cook a human alive in seconds, but it does not attract ultraviolet (UV) radiation. Melanin is a protein that makes skin a darker color and acts as natural sunscreen against UV radiation, people with paler skin have less melanin and can get sunburned as a result; a dangerous dose of ultraviolet radiation can lead to skin cancers. Ozone does not block anything below UV radiation, so radio waves and microwaves from the sun have been bombarding the Earth as long as UV radiation has. There would also be a natural defense against radiofrequency radiation from the Sun if it were harmful. The World Health Organization claims, “On average, 80% of the annual dose of background radiation that a person receives is due to naturally occurring terrestrial and cosmic radiation sources” (World Health Organization). Cosmic radiation can be anything from our own sun the the stars in the night sky (visible light is radiation, seeing stars means light radiation is hitting the eyes). If radiofrequency radiation were harmful, humans of all kinds would be injured or burned by the sun daily exposure to radiofrequency and microwaves. The author claims that holding a cell phone up to the ear heats up the brain through radiation (Asttaria). Warming up is not a sign of cancer because that would mean campfires induce cancer. The warming my also be from the infrared radiation of body heat or the phone heating up from all the calculations it is doing.
Another form of dangerous radiation is concentrated radiation compacted into a small space. A laser pointer uses visible light just like a flash light but concentrated, hence it can inject an enormous amount of light into an unfortunate eyeball. A microwave oven uses weak energy (just above radio energy, still below the colors of the rainbow) to force the radiation to heat up the food (lasering the food with microwave radiation). Lasers of ionizing radiation can be strong enough to burn things on contact because of how compact the energy is (Frost and Sullivan). The author references that putting a cell phone up to the ear is equivalent to cooking the brain in a microwave oven, but the waves emitted by cell phones and cell towers are not concentrated, nor are they concentrated enough to be a laser. However, modern technology that uses non-ionizing radiation are not lasers or ovens, thus it is a fallacy to label them as such.
The fake news article labels radiofrequency as a source of brain damage and hormonal shifts (Asttaria). If this were true then it would mean radio frequency is strong enough to cause damage, and thus people would be cooked alive by rainbows (a much stronger form of radiation). He also mentions “Holding a cell phone to the head for extended periods of time heats the brain tissue. In fact, you’re microwaving your brain. You wouldn’t place your head in a microwave oven and yet you hold a microwave emitting device to the head and brain. In essence, you’re cooking your brain” (Asttaria). The image above shows how a microwave oven deliberately traps microwaves to cook food, compared to microwave communications that send messages. Yet some people claim to be sensitive to this form of weak radiation, which is a placebo from electromagnetic hypersensitivity. As a study puts it: “(1) the electromagnetic hypothesis, attributing EHS to EMF exposure; (2) the cognitive hypothesis, assuming that EHS results from false beliefs in EMF harmfulness, promoting nocebo responses to perceived EMF exposure; (3) the attributive hypothesis, conceiving EHS as a coping strategy for pre-existing conditions” (Maël Dieudonné). Cancers appear all the time inside the body because trillions of cells make up the system; with so many cells working together, some failure is bound to occur. Because cancer is a normal part of large organisms, the immune system is programed to looks for and kill cancer cells, cells themselves are programmed to die if they are becoming cancerous. Cancer as a disease is when the immune system can not find the rogue cells, allowing cancer to develop beyond control. Radiofrequency radiation is incapable of damaging organic materials, so there is no broken DNA or protein that can trigger cancer, hence radiofrequency radiation cannot cause cancer or damage.
Without radiation, there would be no life. radiation allows plants to create food for the food chain, allows cyanobacteria to make oxygen to breathe, keeps the planet from being a giant ball of ice, allows people to see and paint pretty colors, even allows friends to feel warm hugs (because body heat is the production of infrared radiation). Radiation rules the world and the universe, with or without modern technology. Radiofrequency radiation in its modern day application is nowhere near the strength of natural radiation experienced on a daily basis. Articles like the one presented are perfect examples of fallacies about radiation being spread and enforced by the media. If radiofrequency could damage DNA, then that means the colors of the rainbow would be strong enough to burn people, and ionizing radiation would incinerate people, because radiation (especially radiofrequency/cellular radiation) was horribly represented in the media.
Asttaria, Brian. “EMF Rdiation is Scary. Protect Yourself with This.” 5 August 2019. Adermark.com. https://www.adermark.com/the-scary-truth-about-emf-radiation/#:~:text=%20The%20Scary%20Truth%20is%20EMF%20Radiation%20is,by%20EMF%20and%20Microwave%20Exposure.%20Below...%20More%20Accessed 17 November 2021.
Frost and Sullivan. “High-power disk laser.” Advanced Manufacturing Technology, vol. 28, no. 2, 15 Feb. 2007, pp. 3+. Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A159864842/AONE?u=lincclin_ecc&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=a85ffde8. Accessed 17 Nov. 2021.
World Nuclear Association. “Chernobyl Accident 1986.” May 2021. World Nuclear Association. Chernobyl | Chernobyl Accident | Chernobyl Disaster — World Nuclear Association (world-nuclear.org). Accessed 16 November 2021.
World Health Organization. “Ionizing Radiation, health effects and protective measures.” 29 April 2016. World Health Organization. Ionizing radiation, health effects and protective measures (who.int). Accessed 18 November 2021.
Dieudonné, Maël. “Electromagnetic hypersensitivity: a critical review of explanatory hypotheses.” Environmental Health: A Global Access Science Source, vol. 19, no. 1, 6 May 2020, p. NA. Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A627436385/AONE?u=lincclin_ecc&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=4d6e0dbd. Accessed 18 Nov. 2021.
