The WaveShield is Fraud

I came across this fraudulent nonsense while listening to the radio show of Dr. Eliezer Ben-Joseph (Natural Solutions Radio). Because it sounded like Mel Gibson's character in "Conspiracy Theory" interviewing himself, it would have been fun to listen to Dr. Ben-Joseph's breathless interview ("Really?! Oh, my goodness. Oh, my! That's amazing!") of Shelly Kalnitsky if I weren't shouting "What?! That's nonsense!!" the whole time. Among other things, Kalnitsky was saying,

• Using a hands-free set is more dangerous than just the cell phone because the hands-free set emits RF energy. (he made this statement about both Bluetooth and wired sets)
  
• The energy of the cell phone comes out the end of the antenna. Gosh, if that's true, I wonder how Yagi and log-periodic antennas work? I guess I must have been aiming them wrong all this time, too.
  
• The Waveshield blocks radiation from entering your ear. There was some related speculation, mostly from "Dr." Ben-Joseph, about the deafness of people like Eric Clapton and others, and their exposure to this radiation.
  
• You get a burst of microwave radiation out of the earpiece as you travel between towers. Oh, my goodness!
  
• The WaveShield is made of -- get this -- the same material used to protect workers in nuclear facilities, as if ionizing radiation and speaker emanations were even remotely similar.
• Cell phone usage increases by several thousand per day, and he has been getting reports of dozens of brain cancers *every week*. Hmmmmm ... that can't be coincidence.
  
• Two Russian journalists hard boiled an egg with cell phones and you can pop popcorn with them. (hoax explained here and here)
  

His theory appears to stem from the idea that radiation shoots out of various orifices in the cell phone (the speaker and the end of the antenna) and into various orifices in your body. Therefore, your ear and the speaker port being the closest orifices, the radiation shoots out of one into the other. The WaveShield is a ridiculous grill that sticks onto your speaker and blocks "97%" of the hypothetical energy.

One of the more bizarre aspects of the interview was their constant insinuation that cell phone companies have blocked all research into cell phone-related health issues because the cell industry lobbies heavily. The implication is that the federal government is the source of all research, but is also easily corruptible. Simultaneously, Kalnistky was advertising his material as being "tested by the government" as if that was the acme of standards and inherently free from corruption. Good luck finding a link to those test results, or a description of this marvelous material.

As I recall, IEEE Spectrum ran a whole issue several years ago highlighting various aspects of cell safety. Finite Element Analysis (FEA) of the human skull and tissue showed that use of the phone could cause something like a 1 degree C heating in tissue near the antenna. This is not ionizing radiation, like x-rays, but simply radio frequency radiation. Could it be a problem? Sure. But let's put it in perspective.

• You walk around underneath a huge yellow source of ionizing and other radiation every day. It cranks out something like 1 kW/m^2 at our orbital position, much more than the mW-level transmitter in your phone ever could, certainly much more than you are going to receive per square meter from even the closest cell tower.
  
• Cancer incidence has been going down, not up. Brain cancer (pdf) specifically has been declining to flat over the last 20 years. Of course, maybe you don't believe government statistics? Not that I would blame you, but it would be at least a little interesting if there were anything like a positive relationship between the soaring penetration of cell phone usage and brain tumors in that time.
  

Two other things you might consider when contemplating whether or not to regard the product and its purveyor and its purveyor's website, Cell Phone Radiation News Bureau (CPRNews), as fraudulent:

First, Kalnitsky cited the recent work of Dr. Siegal Sadetzki of Tel Aviv University in Epidemiology magazine as finding a link between cell phones and cancer. Dr. Sadetzki is somewhat less forceful in summarizing the findings:

Dr. Siegal Sadetzki, an epidemiologist and lecturer at Tel Aviv University, has been studying the effects of cell phones on public health for 10 years. In her work, she has found some connection between cancer and heavy cell phone users, but the results are not conclusive and the "consensus is that additional research is needed," she said. [emphasis added]

If I was going to guess, heavy cell phone usage, especially by children, may be found to be a problem. As cell phones have become more ubiquitous, towers have become more common, and coding algorithms have become more efficient, the actual power necessary to transmit a conversation is falling. Using wired (non-Bluetooth) hands-free devices drastically reduces your exposure to radiation, as does using the phone for texting. But Kalnitsky is nothing like nuanced in his misuse of such things as anecdotal evidence, hearsay, urban myths, hoaxes, pseudo-science, junk science, and unfiltered bovine excrement.

Second, Kalnitsky, his company, and similar product manufacturers were told to stop making false claims about their products in a 2002 action brought by the FTC. Story here and here. Of course, it could be that the lobby-influenced government was only doing its masters' bidding, but it could also be that the product is a scam. If the purpose of the FTC is to stop such activity, why haven't they? This wouldn't be an example of government failure, would it? Should we blame it on the laissez-faire environment under Bush? Well, I suppose that the facts that they were prosecuted in 2002, but are thriving in 2009 would seem to undermine that theory, but that's no reason to drop it, is it?

The FAQ on their website is filled with similar howlers.

• "In the beginning when analog phones were 800-900 MHZ of power, ... However as manufacturers raised the power of their phones up to 1800-2000MHZ" and "However as signal strength grows from a few hundred MHZ of power to beyond 800 MHZ..." MHz is a measure of frequency, not power. I believe they are doing this intentionally so that they can cite the increasing frequencies and conflate that in the mind of the reader with power.
  
• "What is the difference between a Radio Wave and a Microwave? ... However as signal strength grows from a few hundred MHZ of power to beyond 800 MHZ, the electro-magnetic spectrum increases and these waves become microwaves." Besides being inaccurate as noted above, this is misleading: there is no qualitative difference between radio waves and microwaves. Both are electromagnetic waves that radiate through space, both are non-ionizing radiation, and the distinction between radiowave and microwave is rather arbitrary. The primary difference in the use of the two terms is that "microwave" refers to electromagnetic radiation (radiowaves) whose wavelengths are on the order of a micrometer. In other words, microwaves are radiowaves. I believe that they are trying to get the reader to think of microwave ovens. You can find the wavelength by dividing the speed of light in a vacuum (300 x10^6 m/s) by the frequency (800 MHz = 800 x 10^6 cycles/s, for example) to get the wavelength (3/8 m/cycle, or .375 m). Note that you can express any distance in terms of any unit: .375 m is 375 millimeters or 375,000 micrometers. Thus, the term "microwave" is arbitrary and generally refers to anything in the 300 - 300,000 MHz band.

And finally, Kalnitsky and others have been speculating on a link between Ted Kennedy's brain cancer and cell phone usage. The tumor was on the left side. I submit that Kennedy probably used the cell phone on his right ear: here's video of him throwing the first pitch earlier this year (fwiw, though not a fan of his political career, I do not condone the disrespect that I found accompanying many of the references to this event).

If, after reading this, you are still convinced that the WaveShield is anything but government lab-proven fraud, then I suggest that you look into sticking them onto your radiation-spewing computer monitor as they suggest on one page of their website. Shame on you, Dr. Ben-Joseph, for helping this snake-oil salesman and for betraying the trust of -- dare I say, preying upon? -- your audience.