Which Phone Number Do You Give Out To Students/adverts? Options

[Jatzaya]

[/quote]I think there are too many other factors involved in the reason people develop ill health. I don't think illnesses can be attributed to any one thing. Or lives in general are pretty artificial these days - as opposed to how nature intended us to live.

For as long as humans demand an 'easy way of life', technology will always be pushing the boundaries regardless of any long-term implications - be it global warming, carcenogenic issues or general destruction of the environment solely for the purpose of an ever growing human population. We live in an age where gadgets are the driving force behind most things we do and it is (often) the very people who beat their little drum about microwave masts who'd be the first to whinge when they can't get a signal on their mobile phone........

How would those of you with children feel if your child didn't have a mobile phone to contact if they were stuck somewhere and needed help? or worse still, they had a phone but there were no masts in the vicinity because people had forced companies to remove them, hence no signal. In fact, a mobile phone will be using more power to search for a weak signal, than it will if there are plenty of base stations around.

Let's take away cars, TVs, radios, computers, games consoles and similar gadgets, and see how everyone gets on without them. Not very well I suspect.
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Interesting viewpoint. The call for properly-tested technology, however, is not one for the eradication of it.

[AmandaL]

Interesting viewpoint. The call for properly-tested technology, however, is not one for the eradication of it.

It depends on how you define properly tested. Drugs for example go through at least three phases of rigorous testing before release, but it doesn't preclude the fact that once it's being used openly there may be someone somewhere who reacts badly to it. Efficacy and safety have to based on the results of a sample population.

At some point new technology also has to be let loose on the public. Where and when is often based on what technology is being used ie. is it based along the lines of similar equipment which is already in safe use.

The ideas of most modern gadgets will have been around for many years before release, sometimes decades before the public even get to see the prototype.

We are a society that demands upgrades, new stuff, improved, faster, smaller or whatever else we demand. This means that testing is often performed in limited time so that we get our 'wants' a lot sooner.

[Jatzaya]

Interesting viewpoint. The call for properly-tested technology, however, is not one for the eradication of it.

It depends on how you define properly tested. Drugs for example go through at least three phases of rigorous testing before release, but it doesn't preclude the fact that once it's being used openly there may be someone somewhere who reacts badly to it. Efficacy and safety have to based on the results of a sample population.



We are a society that demands upgrades, new stuff, improved, faster, smaller or whatever else we demand. This means that testing is often performed in limited time so that we get our 'wants' a lot sooner.

'Properly tested' : long-term, peer-reviewed, independent.

'Rigorous' testing: Thyroxine tablets often contain lactose and maize - quite possibly GM-derived. GM technology has not had long-term peer-reveiwed independent tests. The suppliers of any given batch, on their own admission, do not know whether they contain GM-derived ingredients or not. Over the counter aspirin seems to have a similar story.