back to article 'Mobiles bake men's balls' bog ad is cobblers - new ruling

The anti-phone brigade has been ticked off by the Advertising Standards Authority for running posters declaring that a phone in blokes' jeans could ruin their genes. The posters, which ran in the toilets at service stations and shopping centres, claimed that "medical experts" are warning that a mobile phone can turn chaps …

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  1. This post has been deleted by its author

  2. Richard Wharram
    WTF?

    Seriously ?

    They don't even get fined ? Anyone can do this and just get a slapped wrist for being a lying bunch of shitboxes ?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Please do continue....

      YOU will be doing the Gene Pool a great favour by removing yourself from it.

      were not all nutters BTW.

      A lot of those suffering from MicroWave-Sickness are Techies!

      Quite a few are EX-Telecoms personnel, who have due to exposure to work related RF Emissions have been permanently disabled by it.

      The Symptoms are not pleasant and are aggravated by re-exposure to Pulsed PF fields such as 3G and WiFi.

      The Mass Push to roll out (Politically friendly front page news) so called SMART METERS is an easy (but very expensive mistake) as they are not green and wont save power in the long run.

      Poisoning everyone with ElectroSmog is not GREEN and will just increase the profits of those PharmaTek that manufacture products to fight Dementia/ADHD/CANCER/CFS/ME/Cronic Insomnia and other related degenerative conditions which are merely a symptom of a sickening population being poisoned at the Genetic Level.

      Is it our fault that the communications industry is hell bent on discrediting anyone with views that would effectively put them out of business and into bankruptcy when the real dangers are finally published in full, (which is slowly being carried out by a few dedicated scientists.)

      The DoD/MoD and other eastern and western Military have long known about the dangers through lab experiments and practical real world exposure of their Personnel whilst working with Radar and other RF weapon systems. (the Papers from such were published in the 50's, 60's and 70's, but were ignored by anyone outside of the Industry)

      The Pro-Comms lobby lot would rather these reports were burned and forgotten.

      The Seti Lot have long wondered why they cannot hear anyone out there (in space) quite simple really, an intelligent race gets to analogue RF broadcasting, then discovers digital, gets it genome burnt and either switches over to fiberoptics thereby going dark to outgoing RF transmissions or goes extinct due to too much genetic damage having been inflicted on its population.

      Looks like we are going the latter route....

      1 Fairly Harmless inhabitable Planet for Sale, Free to anyone Interested in Moving In.

      1. Mike Brown

        proof

        "The Seti Lot have long wondered why they cannot hear anyone out there (in space) quite simple really, an intelligent race gets to analogue RF broadcasting, then discovers digital, gets it genome burnt and either switches over to fiberoptics thereby going dark to outgoing RF transmissions or goes extinct due to too much genetic damage having been inflicted on its population."

        or that space is vast, and the chances of us pointing our telescopes at the exact spot to pick up weak signals are quite slim? nah, must be a some sort of conspiracy

      2. Graham 25
        Alien

        Door left open ....

        Nurse, Nurse, someone has left the door open at the asylum again and they have found their way to a computer and the comments page.

        Someone get him/her a nice drink of milk and a cookie please and get them back into bed.

        and you you are all nutters.

      3. Richard Wharram

        @AC

        Please point me to some peer-reviewed research (not quack epidemiology) which backs up these claims and posit a hypothesis for how mobile phones make men infertile.

        Or, admit you are probably mistaken. Whichever.

      4. Red Bren
        FAIL

        Technology must be KILLING us

        That's why life expectancy in the west is worse now than in the middle ages. Oh hang on...

        AC@14:06 - I assume you pushed a hand written note under El Reg's door, rather than risk exposure to the deadly interwebs.

        1. Thomas 4

          "rather than risk exposure to the deadly interwebs"

          This is spoken by someone that's never had the misfortune to go to /b/ or the SA forums.

      5. Pete the not so great
        FAIL

        just turn of the universe

        It's a radio active place.

      6. Stuart Castle Silver badge

        Yes... OK..

        While you make some interesting comparisons, you appear to be totally failing to spot the major flaw in your argument. That flaw is simply this: The systems you mention all output radiation at levels that are many times greater than those output by mobiles). In the case of Radar, it can be many thousands of times greater. The human body is actually rather efficient at coping with small doses of most forms of radiation, even if they are constant. Hence we've been able to deal with the Sun for all this time.

        When using a mobile, your body is dealing with milliwatts of radiation. When dealing with Radar or Mobile telecoms base stations, your body would be dealing with Kilowatts of radation, possibly even megawatts. Levels 1,000,000,000 times higher than mobiles.

        At least compare like with like..

      7. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Do you

        also believe in the lizard people and the New World Order by any chance?

        1. CmdrX3

          Oh dear!!!

          Alex Jones called, he wants his speech notes back.

          1. Stuart Castle Silver badge

            Alex Jones?

            When I saw that, my first thought was that this was a reference to the erstwhile host of the One Show. Then I thought "He? He? I must have missed something there.."

            Then I realised.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            just because Alex Jones tells lies to make money

            doesn't make him a bad journalist.

      8. hplasm
        WTF?

        I'm interested in this planet for sale-

        Is it where you live?

      9. laird cummings
        Trollface

        "were not all nutters BTW"

        Perhaps not. But some of you *clearly* are, as you so clearly indicate.

        BTW: Some spelling and grammar lessons might help you make your (non)case.

      10. ElReg!comments!Pierre

        I have Proof

        I have Scientific Evidence that CELL Phone Radiation do cause Infertility.

        I never felt the need for a MOBE, so I never got one, until I was offered one last November*. Well, since November I did not have any Kids. Surely that is PROOF of Something.

        *I faked happiness of course

      11. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        SO LONG AS IT

        Vibrates when in my trouser pocket I have no problem with baking issues.

      12. peter 45
        Coffee/keyboard

        "were not all nutters BTW"

        as sane as a box of frogs

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Happy

      Cough! Splutter!

      "lying bunch of shitboxes"

      Congratulations. I will now be calling everyone this for the rest of the day.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    found in public toilets?

    probably in public houses.

    I think by the time you have been drinking and eating pub food, you're probably beyond the "I need to be careful to preserve future generations" stage.

    1. Richard Wharram

      In fact

      You're probably thinking "Great, now I can take that homely girl who suddenly seems gorgeous into the alley and not have to worry about offspring because this ad says I've baked my sperm to death."

      1. Local Group
        Pint

        Why I don't drink.

        "that homely girl who suddenly seems gorgeous..."

        After you take your sperm out of the oven, stick a fork in your liver. It's probably done, too. :-)

  4. Christoph
    Boffin

    Idiocy

    A phone in a trouser pocket has almost the entire width of the thigh between it and the fertility bits. If there was any actual danger from that, a phone in a top pocket near the heart would be far more dangerous - enough to be noticed and confirmed long ago.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      That!

      Has already been proven in experiments.

      RF emissions DO! cause Cardio-Vascular problems.

      Especially in those with Pacemakers fitted.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        RF ... its worth treating with caution

        I once was on-site at several powerful broadcast transmitters (~ 100KW) many years ago and remember a sign which went something like this:

        DANGER

        HIGH-POWER RADIO-FREQUENCY FLUX BEYOND THIS POINT. NO METAL OBJECTS MAY BE CARRIED FURTHER. YOU MAY NOT ENTER THIS FACILITY IF YOU WEAR A PACEMAKER OR MEDICAL PROSTHESES WITH A METAL CONTENT. UNEXPECTED EFFECTS MAY OCCUR.

        Even so, the few tens or hundred milliwatts emitted by my phone isn't going to do me any harm. This advert is complete tosh.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: AC idiot @ 14:10

        Mobile phones do not cause cardio-vascular problems.

        They can interfere with pacemakers and if you have one of these you are given instructions on what to avoid. This includes:

        Mobile phones near the pacemaker (you can use one but you are recommended to use the ear opposite to the pacemaker).

        Magnets near the pacemaker.

        Arc welding.

        Airport scanners (you are given a card to show them at the airport. They can then lower the power settings or manually search you).

        etc.

        1. Arctic fox
          Thumb Up

          @AC 16:51 GMT "Magnets near the pacemaker."

          Indeed. For exactly the same reasons that we cannot allow anyone with a pacemaker near our dept's NMR, the liquid helium cooled magnet would really ruin their day.

          1. Intractable Potsherd
            Facepalm

            Re: Cardio-vascular AC

            It is probably the same paranoid loon that posted the diatribe further up the page. He probably also thinks that light is harmful ...

    2. Paul Shirley

      @Cristoph

      Surely it depends on whether you 'dress' to the left or right? Could make 10" or more difference...

      I'm sure these quacks can also inform us which side is the evil one only deviants and paedophiles hang their tackle ;)

  5. Flugal

    Well done ASA

    I wonder if the ASA are prepared to do anything about the signs at the front of some churches that similarly make claims which 'lack [the] empirical evidence that most "experts" would require', to the effect that non-believers are doomed, or that attending their services give us access to something spritual?

    Or is it one rule for product-bullshitters and another for sky-fairy-bullshitters?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Religion is protected

      It's not just bullshit, it's government sanctioned bullshit

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        No... Its Religion Sanctioned BullShit

        cos if you don't accept it, the Clerics/Muhlahs/Priests will condemn your soul to hell.

        and a large crowd of the their Faithfull followers will come round and beat you until you decide that you made a mistake in your heathen views or just kill you just to make the point.

        1. Stoneshop
          Boffin

          ... the Clerics/Muhlahs/Priests will condemn your soul to hell

          My what to where?

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        But...

        My Magic Friend thinks otherwise....

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Mixed domains

      Quote: "I wonder if the ASA are prepared to do anything about the signs at the front of some churches that [] attending their services give us access to something spiritual?"

      The problem with the EM Radiation Research Trust advertising is that appears to be making a statement of scientific fact backed up by, "empirical evidence that most "experts" would require", when, in fact, it does not. If the trust had made it abundantly clear that this was the opinion of its members, and that it was not backed up by the scientific community as a whole, then it might be accepted.

      It seems to me that any statement about anything of a spiritual nature is - by definition - not a scientific statement, given that science is concerned with the material world, which can be made manifest to our senses (in some form or other) and subjected to repeatable, verifiable tests. However, if a religious group made statements which are materially measurable, e.g. "perform [insert religious practice her] and you will become wealthy", then I think they might be exposed to the same scrutiny.

    3. Richard IV

      @Flugal - it's about expectation

      Picture if you will the offending advert from the article with "Medical experts" replaced by "Religious experts".

      I doubt that the ASA would have taken issue with that version, nor would anyone have given it any credence. Amazing thing, context - just one adjective shifts your expectation of the claim that follows.

      I've yet to see a sign outside a church containing the word expert. There probably is one, but I'm willing to bet it's used within a bad pun context (Expert Teas?) and thus will not incur the ASA's "wrath". Use of the word Jesus doesn't trigger an empirical expectation for most people.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      re: Well done ASA

      I'm pretty sure the ASA don't allow religious advertising which involves threats or material promises of salvation.

      As to services giving "us access to something spiritual", surely it's possible a service *may* give you access to something spiritual - not necessarily an objective thing, but a thought, a feeling, something personal? Well, not *you*, obviously, but someone?

      In any case surely organised religion is so tied up with notions of the collective, and the group, that assuming a given church wasn't a nuisance, no responsible lawmaker would really want to ban all that, which brings a bunch of people together and gives them a sense of community in this atomised age (Scientolologists and other cynics excepted)?

  6. Piers
    Happy

    My baby daughter...

    ...disagrees with their 'experts'.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      BUT!

      She's Going to grow up to be a CHAVette!

      So they are proven right, you just don't know it yet !!!

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Idea

    Get some stickers printed that we can stick across quack adverts, with a link to Bad Science or something.

  8. Tegne
    Terminator

    What do the people who pay for these posters hope to gain from these dubious claims anyway?

    I can't imagine they are doing it for the good of the human species.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      IT's Called Altruism

      We are the Canaries...

      We are the few that can actually feel the cancer growing (in us and in society), whilst all of you are carrying on oblivious to it, until you are diagnosed with Terminal Cancer or other Fatally Degenerative Disease, by which time its too late...

      The Sheep(you lot!) are too timid to think for themselves(or do the grunt work and research) and actually stand up and say "hang on, what if this is really true and we are on the road to hell (or the abattoir) for the false idol of high technology", but a lot of those that know the truth are afraid to stand up as they know they will be ridiculed (didn't Jesus have the same problem.)

      All your false hopes in high technology are going to see...

      is the results of your CAT/MRI scan that confirm you have an un-curable CANCER of the brain etc, and you have not long to live.........

      1. Anonymous Coward 101
        Windows

        "All your false hopes in high technology are going to see...

        is the results of your CAT/MRI scan that confirm you have an un-curable CANCER of the brain etc, and you have not long to live........."

        I would have gone for a CAT/MRI scan, but it was too high tech for me. I will wait for a CAT/MRI scanner to be developed that is made from stones and woolly mammoth pubes.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          "We are the Crazies..."

          Fixed that for you chum. No thanks necessary at all :).

      2. NumptyScrub
        Meh

        EM spectrum emissions

        quote: "The Sheep(you lot!) are too timid to think for themselves(or do the grunt work and research) and actually stand up and say "hang on, what if this is really true and we are on the road to hell (or the abattoir) for the false idol of high technology", but a lot of those that know the truth are afraid to stand up as they know they will be ridiculed (didn't Jesus have the same problem.)

        All your false hopes in high technology are going to see...

        is the results of your CAT/MRI scan that confirm you have an un-curable CANCER of the brain etc, and you have not long to live........."

        If you'd be so kind as to provide comparitive strengths between mobile phone output, and ground-level background radiation, plus average (at the planet surface) background radiation during a solar flare (solar maxima?), and show me that a mobile phone is in fact more energetic over time than the background radiation(s) that the species has been subject to for millions of years, then I will be happy to investigate further into a conspiracy theory.

        Given that every so often a large enough solar flare is predicted that "might disrupt communications and electronic equipment across the globe" I suspect that the ouput from the Sun is far more capable of destruction than the backround of anthropogenic radiation that we are certainly subjected to on a daily basis. Even when taking our "natural defenses" of a large localised magnetic field into account, we are parked 1AU away from a supermassive nuclear furnace, and have been bathed in EM radiation since life formed on the planet. I am not convinced burning my balls with a mobile will necessarily be substantially more damaging to me than just going for a stroll in the summer sun without taking sunscreen with me.

        Of course if there is substantive proof that (for instance) solar flares and cosmic radiation are in fact half as energetic at the skin as a mobile phone, then I will be far more inclined to investigate further :)

        1. Ben Tasker
          Joke

          @NumptyScrub

          Bugger me, you've just solved the "Why" behind evolution! We must all be mutating from the constant radiation, after all if a mobe can cook balls then the sun must be capable of breeding a superrace!

          I'd actually quite like to see the comparitive strengths if anyone has them!

      3. Ben Tasker

        @AC

        "We are the few that can actually feel the cancer growing"

        That reminds me (somewhat loosely) of the story about the entire village who complained of RF sickness following the installation of a mobile base-station in the area. Many complaints were made to the operator, who eventually had to make it clear to these hypochondriacs that the thing hadn't even been turned on yet!!!!

        Can't find the link, but the University of Essex were able to reproduce it in a study - http://www.politics.co.uk/reference/mobile-phone-masts

        Note

        "concluded that short-term exposure to a typical GSM base station-like signal did not affect well-being or physiological functions"

        is far more reasonable and balanced a conclusion than

        "cancer clusters, clusters of ill-health, depression and even suicide" had been found in proximity to the masts and other wireless sources of microwave radiation"

        which reeks of scaremongering!

        You are also well aware, I suppose, of the intense radiation and energy being hurled at the entire planet (well half at a time) by our own sun? Orders of magnitude higher powered than what we are pumping out?

        But still, don't let numerous _empirical_ studies get in the way of your beliefs!

      4. hplasm
        FAIL

        But don't CAT/MRI scans

        cause un-curable cancer of the BRANE???!!!! eleventyone?

      5. laird cummings
        Trollface

        "We are the Canaries..."

        You're a loonie.

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