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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."
The right, more creative side, or the left, more analytical side?
(Note to moderators. This was my attempt as humour. Obviously what I said above is based on how some people use their cell phones against their left or right ear, which if it were to cause cancer, would cause cancer on that hemisphere of the brain, if you see what I am saying.)
No. If it was a localized field, that only affected the side that you are holding the phone on, you would expect risk in the other half to be unchanged, not decreased. The fact that net change in risk is zero (increased on one side, decreased approx. equally on the other), suggests that the phone is not having a direct effect. More research would be necessary to determine what is causing this effect, or whether it is in fact an artifact of biased reporting or other sampling issues.