"I'm No Expert" Advice

According to recent scientific findings, a one-hour cell phone conversation stimulates areas of your brain closest to the phone's antenna. Is that good or bad?  "We don't know whether this is detrimental or whether it could have some potential beneficial effects," said Dr. Nora Volkow, writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association. "Studies need to be done to see if there are long-lasting consequences. It's an important question."

You're damn right it's important, since everyone past the age of nine seems to be walking around with a phone plastered to his or her ear. Other important questions: Is drinking alcohol or taking estrogen or eating eggs and fat and salt and red meat and farm-raised salmon and chocolate good for you or bad for you? Who knows, if not the experts?

When I was pregnant in 1987, the experts at the American Pediatric Association (APA) reversed their longtime recommendation and flatly stated that it was inadvisable to circumcise newborn males, citing future problems. I immediately vowed not to have it done to my own sure-to-be-perfect baby. As a Jew, this incensed everyone: my family, my doctor, my rabbi. (Actually, I didn't have a rabbi but if I had, you can damn well bet he would have been incensed.) Then, one week before my son's birth, the APA again reversed its position: newer studies suggested that it was far more beneficial to circumcise newborns--in fact, terrible things could happen if you didn't!

And now, 23 years later, my perfect-at-birth son talks on his cell phone constantly, often while smoking a cigarette or salting his burger and fries. As for his foreskin, ask him.