When I was a kid cars weren’t required to have seat belts as standard equipment. Cigarettes didn’t have a surgeon general’s warning on them. Looking back it’s clear that a combination of national denial and economic special interest groups produced a populace that, on a constant basis, placed itself in danger of shortening their own lives.

Fortunately, in two rare instances of sane, large scale change, activists, who shockingly included government officials and agencies, caused car and tobacco companies to adapt to the irrefutable evidence that their idea of safe, wasn’t. Cutting corners was also cutting down on lifespans.

I have little doubt that within 25 years the use of cell phones placed directly against the ear, as well as the proliferation of cell phone towers and the waves they propogate, are going to be seen as a danger more pervasive and deadly than the lack of car restraints and 2 packs a day ever were. And the victims are going to be all of us, not just vehicle occupants and nicotine freaks. Babies, kids, and the elderly won’t be immune even though they’re not chronic users, although they may suffer less than folks we all know who live with a cell glued to their earlobes. The waves are bombarding the twins and their grandparents, with microwaves from both phones and towers causing physiological cellular disruption.

Studies in European countries have gone beyond the fluff pieces on show’s like Larry King, but nothing has yet emerged that equals the vociferous outcry that led to seat belts as a given for every passenger and the recognition of cigarettes as a death accelerant.

It doesn’t take a radical conspiracy theorist to picture the pressure being put on by the major cell carriers to hinder scientific studies, whether public or private, and impeding the public dissemination of the results of those studies that manage to get off the ground.

Maybe Ralph Nadar, instead of playing a role in the election of dangerous knuckleheads, could revert back to being the incredibly effective consumer advocate that made him a hero, prior to his constant misreading of the political landscape.

Cell phones aren’t going away any time soon, so to minimize the damage, buy your loved ones, including yourself, a belt holster no matter how nerdy it looks, as well as one of those odd looking headsets that connects to the phone’s wired output and looks like a stethoscope.

It’s better than sitting around waiting for a brain tumor. No joke.