NYC Subway Cell Service, No Cell-Related Cancer

Luke PiWalker wrote to mention a CNN article discussing a bid process for offering cell phone service to NYC subway stations. The contract is only to wire up stations; moving trains will not have service. Those New Yorkers will also be safe from their phones, as the BBC reports on a study indicating cell phones don't cause cancer. From that article, submitted to us by Dan Hope: "She acknowledged that there appeared to be an increased risk among brain cancer sufferers on the side of the head where they held the phone. The team, however, did not put this down to a causal link, because almost exactly the same decreased risk was seen on the other side of the head, leaving no overall increase risk of tumours for mobile phone users. Instead, they blamed biased reporting from brain tumour sufferers who knew what side of the head their tumours were on."

Comments

moving trains will not have service

[denisbergeron]

Well, It's a good beginning, but in downtown Montreal we have cell services even in the Métro (subway) train !

Re:How hard would it be?

[Biomechanical]

Actually, servicing a subway train would not require antenna's all along the tunnels.

You put a cell-receiver in the train, and run communication signals from the train through radio signals out the tracks, the same as you can control model trains on a DCC setup railway, or do IP over powerlines.

Re:non-users adds bias

[Dun Malg]

What you have left is simple: does the cancer happen on one side more than the other? Well, yes it does. That's enough to say that cell phones are almost certainly affecting the cancer.

But you are missing the entire point of the study. They found that there was a corresponding drop in cancer on the side of the head where the cancer wasn't, in comparison to a control group of one-side cancers who don't use cell phones. In other words, cell phones aren't causing elevated levels of one-side brain cancer, cell phone users with one-side brain cancer are (intentionally or unintentionally) erroneously claiming the cancer side is the side where they used their cell phone most.