Nagoya subways to disable cell phone service
Comments: 5
Public convenience vs. social responsibility is hard to talk about, tricky to finesse, and mighty difficult to legislate. Public health issues are easier to deal with.
Yomiuri Shinbun: Passengers on the Nagoya subway system will soon no longer be able to use their cell phones in trains or on platforms as relay stations in the system’s tunnels are being relocated to protect people fitted with pacemakers.
The move is the first attempt in the nation to protect pacemaker users from radio waves transmitted by cell phones.
Very interested to see how this ripples out elsewhere.
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Posted to General Rants • 2004.08.15 (Sun) • 10:33
Comments
Posted by Skooter 2004.08.16, 23:11
My father-in-law was hospitalized recently, and all the doctors and interns were using cell phones in the hospital (a rather large, modern facility). I asked about it, since there were postings against cell phone usage, and was told they were “special” cell phones that had been tested and didn’t cause problems (even in the critical care units). This sounded like BS to me.
I think this whole pacemaker thing is an urban legend. Has even a single person died or had some sort of heart attack from cell phones? Who is he? Put the guy on TV. If exposure on trains is dangerous, where in Japan could you go these days that would be safer?
My theory: this is an example of Japanese indirection. The real goal is “politeness,” not bothering people with your cell phone conversations (and Amen to that). The pacemaker thing is just an excuse they use that sounds better. The same with cigarettes burning kids’ eyes out: has that ever actually happened? Who is the kid? Put him on TV. The real goal of rules against smoking while walking is so people don’t have to breath your smoke, but the exploding eyeball excuse is more dramatic.
Another explanation may be the Japanese group decisionmaking process. Anyone who has worked in a Japanese institution is familiar with the brainstorming meeting where people throw out ideas and they are written on the whiteboard. My experience is that nobody’s idea is ever discarded unless it is really, really, patently stupid. So somebody saying, “Hey, maybe we should ban cell phones because, like, maybe they cause problems with pacemakers,” would be dutifully written down, and would then take on a life of its own. Maybe a cursory inquiry to a hospital would result in a “Yeah, who knows, maybe that could be dangerous.” Another train company would follow the first, and a hospital would copy other hospitals, and before you know it you have the Prohibition From Hell That Would Not Die.
Posted by Maktaaq 2004.08.19, 00:16
My offerings were never entered onto the whiteboard and I thought they were pretty snappy. My coworkers, who came up with the doozies, never got the boss sucking air through his teeth (“NO”). My favourite was the excuse as to why I couldn’t do volunteer work with the mentally retarded orphans: my foreign presence might shock them into a heart attack and their deaths would be bad PR for city hall.
Posted by Max Christian 2004.08.20, 02:38
I used to work for a company with an strong financial interest in keeping mobile phones out of hospitals (it’s not the proudest entry on my CV).
After exhaustive testing, it was concluded that no mobile phone can affect a pacemaker. They confuse some very old fluid pumping machines on rare occasions, but nothing that can be found on the ward of a modern hospital could be shown to be affected.
And I doubt whether the underground base stations would pose a significantly greater threat than a phone, particularly not in the tunnels. (Incidentally, I wonder whether pacemaker users are told not to carry mobile phones in their breast pockets?)
Perhaps Skooter has the right analysis. It was a similar decision-making process to the one (s)he describes that led to the ban in UK hospitals.
Posted by Jason 2004.08.30, 23:32
This reminds me of the new anti-smoking ads I have seen popping up all over Hokkaido - the white and green vector illustration stickers with terrible English, and equally bad Japanese. One equates throwing a cigarette out a car window with a hit and run accident, while another depicts a rat with “spidey-sense” as sit looks at a discarded cigarette which someone tossed down a drain - “that is to say they hid it in the drain”.
Either intentionally stupid to garner attention (which would be effective in its own right), or just atrocious ideas and copy-writing - but at least they focus more on the politeness issues rather than the American approach of second-hand smoke killing, and all those other scare-tactic fabrications.
Slight diversion from the topic, but somewhat related…
Posted by Randal 2006.10.24, 02:02
I have a pacemaker. I’m doing a research paper on how cell phones affect them. Well, I was, but there isn’t much evidence that cell phones damage pacemakers. My doctor just said to use a cell phone on the opposite side of my body than my pacer. From what I’ve seen cell phones have to be really really close to medical equipment to do anything and even then it’s not major damage.
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