Science, Censorship, Commerce, Communication

One of the folks I’ve been unable to return emails to (which has probably been helpful since we’ve been having some heated email exchanges lately) sent me this online article about one possible danger of the overuse of cell phones.

This portion of it especially raised my eyebrows:

In a study published in 1975 in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Frey reported that microwaves pulsed at certain modulations could induce “leakage” in the barrier between the circulatory system and the brain. Breaching the blood-brain barrier is a serious matter: It means the brain’s environment, which needs to be extremely stable for nerve cells to function properly, can be perturbed in all kinds of dangerous ways. Frey’s method was rather simple: He injected a fluorescent dye into the circulatory system of white rats, then swept the ­microwave frequencies across their bodies. In a matter of minutes, the dye had leached into the confines of the rats’ brains.

Frey says his work on radar microwaves and the blood-brain barrier soon came under assault from the government. Scientists hired and funded by the Pentagon claimed they’d failed to replicate his findings, yet they also refused to share the data or methodology behind their research (“a most unusual action in science,” Frey wrote at the time). For more than fifteen years, Frey had received almost unrestricted funding from the Office of Naval Research. Now he was told to conceal his blood-brain-barrier work or his contract would be canceled.

Regular readers of this blog know that I’ve got my undies in a bunch over the Duluth School District’s success at withholding public data on the Red Plan. I feel the same way about the Bush Administration’s muzzling of climate data suggestive of global warming or any data that might suggest halting commerce for environmental reasons.

I don’t know if this story is alarmist or not but I have a little lead bag I used to put my old camera in to protect film from being exposed by airport security x rays. I think I’ll trim it and put my cell phone in it so I can limit the possible damage to my internal organs from keeping my beloved cell phone at my side.

If someone markets a phone with lead on the speaker side that could block microwaves from interfering with my brain I’d buy it.

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