Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Mobile Phone Use And Acoustic Neoroma

Posted by timothy on from the details-emerge dept.

meeiw writes "A study from the Institute of Environmental Medicine (IMM) at Karolinska Institute, Sweden found that 10 or more years of mobile phone use increase the risk of acoustic neuroma (slow-growing tumor) and that the risk increase was confined to the side of the head where the phone was usually held."

3 of 24 comments (clear)

  1. Considering... by ttfkam · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Considering that cell phones have been out for more than twenty years and that digital cell phones (higher frequency but lower power) have been out for more than ten, are we seeing significantly higher rates of acoustic neuroma?

    Let's face it. We have a sample size in the hundreds of millions. It would be pretty easy to pick out pathology rates with any significance.

    And is it the radio frequency that would cause the problem? The power output? The heat? The volume level?

    I applaud these researchers for looking into it, but I am not looking forward to the crackpots who will inevitably come out of the woodwork proclaiming this to be proof that cell phones and cell towers are obviously the cause of every ailment that plagues them from toothaches and bed head to their 89 year-old grandmother's lumbago and lactose intolerance.

    --

    - I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.
  2. Chances are doubled! Panic! by ivan256 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Oh, wait... They're doubled from one case in 100,000 to two cases in 100,000... So, talking on a cell phone for ten years changes my chance of getting one of these (cureable) tumors from slim, to... slim. (assuming they can even get that accurate given a sample size of 600)

    So what?

  3. And also, that was a Swedish study... by jsveiga · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I guess they didn't take into account the 10-year effect of uncovering your ear from the warmth of a hood to the cold Nordic weather everytime you had to answer the cellphone being outdoors.

    I bet they didn't have that on the control group!

    (is slashdot slashdotted? I'm getting a lot of 503)