Cell Phone Safety

From Medical News Today:

A major UK three-year study has indicated that mobile phone masks do not make you sick - they are not the cause of the symptoms of ill health claimed by some people. Such symptoms as nausea, fatigue and anxiety may feel genuine, according to the Environmental Health Perspectives study, but they are not triggered by the masts.

Mast Sanity, a campaign group, says the findings are unreliable because 12 participants in the trial dropped out due to ill health.

Numerous people during the trial blamed the masts for their symptoms when they were told they were turned on. However, dozens thought the mast was on when it was off and still felt the symptoms, while others felt well when they thought the masts were off (when they were, in fact, on). The study indicates the problem is a psychological one.

Then again, the "River of Denial" runs deep, and cell phones seem to get blamed for a lot of unrelated things.

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Woman Dies On ED Floor

From Mercury News:

Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital, once a symbol of hope in the inner city, struggled Wednesday to survive amid new reports of breakdowns in patient care, the replacement of its chief medical officer and an ultimatum to correct long-running problems or close.

The treatment of a woman who was ignored as she died on the floor of the emergency room last month "was callous, it was a horrible thing," Los Angeles County Supervisor Yvonne Burke said.

Earlier this week, the county Board of Supervisors grilled health officials about conditions at the public hospital and ordered them to return in two weeks with a plan to deal with a hospital shutdown if it is unable to correct deficiencies laid out in a federal inspection that concluded emergency room patients were in "immediate jeopardy."

If we really think about it, this is rather unbelievable. How many folks were present that didn't recognize a sick patient and get them some much needed healthcare?

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Cell Phones Safe At Hospitals

From The Mayo Clinic:

Calls made on cellular phones have no negative impact on hospital medical devices, dispelling the long-held notion that they are unsafe to use in health care facilities, according to Mayo Clinic researchers.

In a study published in the March issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings, researchers say normal use of cell phones results in no noticeable interference with patient care equipment. Three hundred tests were performed over a five-month period in 2006, without a single problem incurred.

Involved in the study were two cellular phones which used different technologies from different carriers and 192 medical devices. Tests were performed at Mayo Clinic campus in Rochester.

More.

Seriously folks, this has really gone on long enough. This is just one of those things that no matter how much data accumulates, fear of some wacko lawyer, and some random baseless lawsuit resulting in some payout will keep cell phones out of hospitals for years to come. Are the hospitals really that desperate to charge for that daily phone use as most institutions do?