DITCH THE LAND LINE? NOT GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH.

DITCH THE LAND LINE? NOT GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH.

Since 2003, the Center for Disease Control has been tracking how many people have only cell phones and not land lines at home. Why would the CDC track cell phone use? What is the correlation between diseases and what type of phone service you use? Stephen Blumberg, senior scientist at the National Center for Health Statistics (part of the CDC) said that in 2003, when the CDC realized that people giving up land lines could cause potential bias in the center's health surveys, which are taken over land line phones, they decided to track cell phone use. There are astounding health differences between those with and without land lines. Wireless-only adults are more likely to smoke, binge drink, have no health insurance and not wear a seat belt, according to Blumberg. The CDC doesn't know why this is, but it collects the information to mitigate distortion in surveys. "It may be as simple as persons who are wireless-only are more likely to be out with friends, socializing outside the home," Blumberg said. So the CDC is spending money on tracking cell phone use and the habits of cell -phone- only users, but then only “speculates” as to why the wire-less only adults are such deadbeats! If the CDC is compiling statistics on the habits of cell -phone- only users, then they should take it to the next step and found out why cell- phone only -users are smokers and binge drinkers. Then at least the CDC would have an “angle” on why they care about cell phone use. While the CDC is wasting tax dollars in tracking how many people are wireless only, I easily discovered that they could get all the statistics they need from the web site of The CTIA, the international trade group for the wireless telecommunications trade industry that tracks cell phone use! There were 270 million cell phones in use in December, the most recent figure available from CTIA. That figure is more than double the 110 million cell phones in 2000. CTIA also reports that 87 percent of Americans have a cell phone they take everywhere. How stupid is the CDC in not going to the telecommunications trade industry group and just asking for the statistics? It would have taken just one phone call to get the information. I guess the researcher’s cell phone did not have enough bars!