Slashdot Mirror
Swedish Study Finds Cell Phone Cancer Risk
dtjohnson writes "A new Swedish
study has
found that heavy users of cell phones had a 240 percent increase in
brain tumors on the side of their head that the phone was used
on. The study defined 'heavy' use as more than 2,000 total hours,
or approximately one hour of use per workday for 10 years. An
earlier British
study was previously discussed
here that didn't find an increased risk, although that study
covered fewer subjects and only followed one type of brain tumor for a
shorter period of time. Or course, the biggest epidemiological
study of all is the one we are all participating in whenever we use our
cell phone. The results from that study won't be available for a
while."
Um... Didn't we know this like 20 years ago?
"The way to get the risk down is to use hands-free," he told Reuters.
How does he know that? Did his study make that conclusion? The article doesn't say anything about use of hands free kits beyond that statement.
I think Mr Mild is making assumptions about the reason for the apparent 240% increase, and factors which he thinks may be important.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
There's got to be some long term damage to putting a radio transmitter which radiates electromagnetic energy right beside your head. I do mean *long term* damage, the only people that really have to worry are yappy pre-pubescent teenage girls, and we have too many of them anyways.
There are 10 types of people in the world; those who can read binary, and those who can't.
because this is clearly an April fool's joke.
Or course, the biggest epidemiological study of all is the one we are all participating in whenever we use our cell phone. The results from that study won't be available for a while.
Not really. The metering is lousy. The control group is corrupted. Heck, the technology is changing, so the signals are different. As a study, the world at large makes a lousy experiment for this.
Will I get eye cancer from using my computer so darn much?
Physicists say it can't be, so it cell phones must be safe, right? After all, cell phone radiation is non-ionizing, therefore it couldn't possibly alter DNA and physicists have determined (based on some unstated first principles that non-physicists just aren't smart enough to understand) that the only way EM radiation can damage cells is through smashing DNA, cell phones must be perfectly safe. Therefore, this study, like the ones preceding it, must be wrong. Right.
This article is poor (I would say unethical) coverage of a scientific study.
For example, to say something is associate with a 240% increase in risk can be technically accurate, but horribly misleading to most readers. If one in a billion people get a disease, a 240% increase makes your chance of getting it 2.4/1000000000. That is absolutely nothing to worry about.
Also, with this studay, they found out people who had tumors, then asked them if they used cell phones. The subjects probably had no doubt as to why this question was being asked, therefore this was not really a double blind experiment.
Has anyone ever been able to give a rat cancer by blasting it with amplified cellphone-type radiation? That would convince me of the possibility of cell phone risk much more than digging backward through statistical inormation does.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
At the same time, though, how many people are actually likely to stop using their mobile phones? Not very many, I would imagine. I mean, thinking about how mainstream they are and how many people rely on them. Still, at least then we can all do the I told you so dance.
http://www.arbetslivsinstitutet.se/pdf/060331MildH ardell_Article.pdf
A 240% increase sounds huge, but they never tell you what the original risk is. There is a difference between doubling a 10% risk or a 0.00001% risk.
***Quis custodiet ipsos custodes***
When slashdot is 3 days behind mainstream TV, thats when its just going totally to pot.
3 day old news is not news.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
when all the shitty drivers that have pissed me off so much get tumors... no, i'll just feel bad for them - yet again. =/
I know this is somewhat offtopic, but why on earth are Slashdotters still tagging proper articles like these with stuff like 'ponies' and 'gay'? Sober up man, it's April 2nd already! (At least on my side of the globe)
While it has been suspected for some time that cell phones may cause tumors there has been considerable debate over the subject. Telcos and phone makers taking the anti health risk stance for obvious reasons.The phone companies have put large sums of money into reaserch to tell them and us that the phones themselves are harmless. It looks now as if an independant? researcher has added to the body of evidence that there is in fact a real risk. To temper that however it appears you have to be a pretty heavy user to be at risk. Interestingly the mobil phone towers them selves seem to escape the scruting that the handsets have been subjected to.
I work for cell phones, so I'm really getting a kick out of some of these replies...
/so glad april fool's pink is gone
//importing fark slashies.
///trend?
Er, wait, wrong website.
Seriously, though. I sell cell phones. The study alleges that heavy cell phone use results in a 240% increase in brain tumors on the cell-phone side. Firstly, I don't know about the rest of you guys, but I use my cell on both sides of my head.
Secondly, they define "heavy usage" as "one hour per workday", or 60 minutes a day. Assuming they don't touch their cell phones during weekends, or after work, that comes out to 1320 minutes. A month. Dear god. I think perhaps 2-5% of the people I sell phones to get plans that would accomodate that.
But let's assume they use it for an average of 1.2 hours per day, to account for weekend and after-work usage. 36 hours a month, or 2160 minutes PER MONTH. It's like saying, OMG SUN === CANCER!!!!!oneoneeleventy because laying out in the sun three hours a day increases your risk of skin cancer. Sure, maybe it does, but WHO DOES THAT?
'If you're flammable and have legs, you are never blocking a fire exit.'
Ars technica has a bit of commentary on this study. Apperently heavy cell phone use only doubles the normal 1 in 100,000 chance of developing this type of cancer. Not much to worry about.
Qxe4
I have noticed that handsets in different countries have markedly different output power (judging by the influence they cause to other devices). For example, I have often seen TVs, computer monitors, music players and radios go berserk in the presense of a GSM phone in Europe, more or less regardless of the brand and the age of the thingy.
At the same time, I have never ever seen interference from a Japanese handset - and I have used over 40 of those - both my own on various projects.
So, with my tinfoil hat firmly on -- because this could very well be a late April 1st story -- could you all GSM users be slowly microwaving your brains?
Since these kinds of studies requires a very long test period, the study obviously must have included very old cell phones.
Old cell phones was not manufactured with especially sophisticated radiation protection and power adapting features, so I think we should not take too seriously on the outcome of this study.
The first valueble results of a how hazardous cell phone radiation is will come several years after the mobile market has stabalized, which probably won't happend in a while.
No it was not meant to be a joke. You may die from mobile phones, using them too much. Take it seriously. :|
Now we need a study on testicular cancer. They are sensitive, you know. Handedness might not matter as much there, but it can make you blind.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The difference between medicine and poison is the dose, same for this, its the concentration of them. We have known since WW2 that microwaves are DANGERIOUS (RADAR) and thermonuclear exposure (Microwave bursts).
I don't know why it's not linked to any any of the articles, but here's the scientific paper. If we're going to critique it, we might as well do it right:
H ardell_Article.pdf
http://www.arbetslivsinstitutet.se/pdf/060331Mild
In other news, the Mobile Institute, which is funded by Big Telco has determined that handsets are not harmful to your health. Sprint is set to announce the first CDMA-Lite handsets, which use half the radiation, but provide a less satisfying experience.
Is it just me? Or does this whole thing sound like tobacco?
We had the same problem with Cigarettes, we reaped in the money and made it fashionable and then it comes up and bites us. One would think we would learn from that experience but nooooo we are doing it all again this time with ringtones and wallpapers and so on.
Can you Chemo me now?
I owned a cellular phone a few years ago, but have managed (through no few arguments with my wife, although she owns one of the buggers) to avoid owning another since my first. I got sick of them the first time that the office secretary ringed me up in class during Engineering Management and the professor (quite politely) informed me that the entire class was waiting on me to answer my telepone. (I was working as a mechanic to a small branch of an armored car company at the time.)
I was actually considering conceding to the pressure from the office and from my wife and obtaining another (of the damned things) when I rolled across this article. While I wouldn't let such a short-sighted study inform my own decisions, I might be able to gain another month or twelve from its' existence before I'm forced to concede and join the rest of the Left Coast of the United States. Thanks, I hope!
P.S. GAA, but I hate those damned things. My optimistic hope is the most people over-react and shut the damned things off. I was in line to pick up a prescription for my infant son yesterday and could barely stand the din of the two ARROGANT BASTARDS ahead of me, one of whom was reviling the leak of a confidential product. (My own sense of ethics prevents me telling anybody else that there might be a clinical trial startiing soon in the US of a new male birth control product. Unfortunately, I could'nt make out the name of this revolutionary product, only that is was a SECRET.)
parent should be +5 Informative IMO
The bits on the bus go on and off... on and off... on and off...
The article offers no details, so it's impossible to evaluate this work meaningfully. Based on the limited details provided, it would be really easy for anyone with even the least background in research or statistics to think up a zillion reasons to be skeptical. But research almost always sound simplistic and inept when it's subject to simplistic and inept reporting. This brief report reads like the confused ramblings of someone who's overheard a conversation in an elevator.
Fortunately, a kind Slashdot reader has posted a link to the article, and that clears up a lot of the mis-reporting. I took a brief look to check two things: what they did to avoid confounding due to other potential risk factors that might be correlated with cell phone use, and what the evidence is for increased risk on the side of phone use. It seems like they didn't do much to avoid confounding. If heavy cell phone users are also heavy drug users, technophiles, work in high-stress occupations, or whatever, it seems like it could confound the overall rates. It would be a little harder to cook up a story for the ipsi/contra difference. The evidence that the tumors are more likely on the ipsilateral side seems to be numerical, not statistical (they do the stats on one side and again on the other side, but they don't compare the two directly, unless I somehow missed it). It would be nice to know how reliable that difference is, since that seems to be the strongest link between the tumor rates and cell phone use. But that's just my first impression.
Yes, I'm a physicists and I resemble your comment.
You could do better. You might have something if you point to the known link between cancer and chronic irritation and then prove cellphones irritate nerve tissue. There should also be a rise in auditory canal and skin cancer of the ear at that rate, not to mention head and neck cancers. Hell, you might even score some points if you cited the 85 heavy cell phone users of 905 brain case numbers and told us, which the article fails to explain, how that's 240% higher than the general population. But some other smart ass would tell you you could prove anything with such tiny numbers. Both of you might ignore everyone's advice and take a smoke break.
What would you like to know about ionizing radiation or radio biology? The general principals are not difficult, but as you noted are not related to microwaves. Everyone wants you to know the causes of cancer but here's the short and sweet:
except for the increase in cancers caused by smoking, and a remarkable decrease in stomach cancer, the incidence of the most common cancers for individuals of a given age has not changed very much during the course of the twentieth century figure
Cell phone, schmell phone. It might be true, but I'm not going to give up my cell phone.
If people quit smoking other relations would be easier to spot, so cut it out already! You are killing me.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Please use the !word to negate a tag.
While off-topic from the article perspective, I think this comment has some merit given that at the time of this comment, the tags for this article include 'gay', 'straight', 'bi'.
I suspect the 'straight' is to offset the 'gay' tag which appeared on all April 1 articles, and overflowed into April 2 articles. The system, I don't believe, knows that 'straight' is opposite of 'gay'. It does however know that '!gay' is opposite of 'gay', and will (likely) drop the tag that people vote against. Please use the '!word' tag to negate a word.
Just an FYI.
(don't mod me off-topic please. =] )
"Would be like asking a german about human rights."
... so you can appreciate all the show of force of your government and remember why you need them. Ah, wait, minor flaw ... since the election is over, the alert level has magically vanished out of the media, you will have to wait until the election heat is on again...
Hehe. Or, apparently, asking americans about history. Newsflash, Hitler is gone for a couple of years now. You guys taught us very well about human rights - unfortunately you kind of forgot about that stuff over the last little while, because our constitution doesn't allow the benelovent dictator to declare anyone as "enemy combatant" and ship them off to destinations that are, unfortunately, run by small minorities of people who like to put plastic bags over peoples heads or have them bake for hours in the Cuban sun without a leak. Way to go.
Now, please go back, turn on Fox news, and get the latest scoop about what the current terror alert level is
Isn't that a bit like saying
The American study is automatically suspect. I don't think the country that gave us Intelligent Design can be trusted with anything scientific. Ever.
I'm not even going to touch the German/Human Rights issue. Europe doesn't have its own PATRIOT act or Guantanamo yet, you know.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I don't know if someone knows these flashing stickers indicating an incoming phonecall? I've tried some, and they only work -with the phones I tried- at the back of the phone. The front (where you hold it against your head) doesn't seem to be giving off a signal strong enough to make the stickers flash.
So I suspect there is a difference in what type of cellphone (external antenna, generation of cellphone, brand...) which increases or decreases the amount of radiation taken.
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
I can leave the phone in my pants pocket for hours. Why isn't it frying my testicles? C'mon I'm serious. :O
Be heard || Be herd
...to those people who wander down the street staring into their mobile telephones rather than watching where they're going. I'd guess that the number of lamppost-related injuries is far greater than the number of cancer cases.
-Stephen
Interesting though that the research was conducted in Sweden, the motherland of cell phone technology
With all kinds of epidemiological studies, there is one thing that is important - multiple, independent confirmations. Why? Because the very methodology (correlation) used in epidemiological studies tends to produce incorrect results at a rate of about five percent (as this study, as most others, use 95 % confidence intervals - it's arbitrary, but they have to set the limit somewhere...) In addition to this, there are of course the usual mistakes, the whole issue of using controls (which is often messy, as there are often lots of complicated causation assumptions to be made), plus occationally outright fudging or fraud. (As in the recent high-profile Korean stem cell case)
All of this in turn guarantees that there will be a steady flow of spectacular, yet incorrect results, without anyone being incompetent or maliciously misleading. Thus, it's important to look at the consistency of results across studies. However, our beloved media rarely does this, as spectacular results make good copy and move newspapers. (Plus, journalists and statistics don't mix)
My point? One study should not a panic make. Or something like that.
These studies aren't mainly for individuals, they are conducted for making public health decisions and regulating wireless devices. And for public health, doubling brain cancer rates would be a big deal.
That study is non-sensical!
They had people with cancer and they asked whether they were using/had been using a mobile phone. What a stupid question!. Pretty much everybody in Europe has a mobile phone since 2000: children (and I mean 7 y-o children!), adults and old people (>80 y-o). Mobile telephony has a penetration rate about 90% in Europe!
They may have asked if they were drinking *water* as well, and the conclusion of the study would have been exactly the same.
New swedish study finds out that prolonged living causes death. Come on, these swedish institutions have their sensitivity level moved way too high. From time to time they seem to publish these magnificiently relevant and dead-serious findings, they are usually related to dioxine/PCB (in coffee filters, drinking water, baltic sea herring etc.), cell phone radiation (always deadly!) or something as ridiculous as those. A bitter finn - Sony-Ericsson sux0r, Nokia roxx0r
Again, your blind spot is that you take as a given that the only way radiation can cause cancer is through DNA damage, but there is no reason to assume that. When we get a study like this, we need to try and explain it.
One small point:
Hell, you might even score some points if you cited the 85 heavy cell phone users of 905 brain case numbers and told us, which the article fails to explain, how that's 240% higher than the general population.
If you think about that for a moment, I'm sure you can figure it out.
But some other smart ass would tell you you could prove anything with such tiny numbers.
Well, that smartass doesn't know anything about modern statistical methods, then; those numbers are anything but tiny.
If you eat 10 pounds of peanutbutter a day, for 10 years, you'll get cancer too...!
It's important to realise that the British study claiming no cancer risk was funded by a consortium made up of mobile phone operators and cellphone manufacturers.
Also they didn't survey mobile phone users who have not caught cancer, so they don't have a control. Part of the problem is that the cause of cancer is almost always unknown. They appear are not to be taking the unknowns into account.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Assuming development won't stop for the next 10 years, a lot will be different. Other mobile phones using new technology that mostlikely will have different effects. And mostlikely better ways to treat cancer (or even "cure" it).
But just to be safe I'll wrap my phone in tinfoil, that should stop it right?
"The way to get the risk down is to use hands-free," he told Reuters.
On another note, I'm sure some people will post the "what are we supposed to do stop using cellphones completely" strawman ... this suggestion FTA should counter that.
I wonder why they didn't say "33 minutes of use per day over 10 years"?
Since this article is authored in sweden I would treat it very suspiciously ... Everything, from potato chips to cellular phones will most certainly kill you if you listen to the swedish academia/authorities.
Most of the time when an alarm report like this gets puplished it is usaually time to settle the budget for the comming years and the university/authority facing the biggest budget cut releases something like this to prove their value to the public.
Nothing to see here - carry on!
Its eaisier to find something that gives you cancer these days compared to finding something that dosent...
Maybe Science needs a positive outlook and start findibg what is better, instead of giving us studies that scare us to death...
The anti-Hitler conditioning Germans get is hilarious. You just have to mention the name, and Germans will fall over themselves extolling how much they hate him.
It's the number one easiest way to troll Germans. Try it some day!
Actually, saying that something doubles your risk is a lot more accurate than stating the incidence of that particular condition ("1 in a billion" doesn't mean anything - it could be a very high incidence, or a very low one).
Speaking of which - no matter how low the incidence in the normal population, cancer is always something to worry about. And a (more than) two-fold increase in risk is significant.
I don't know if the study results are correct or not - I have no way of knowing. All I'm saying here is that if they are, the risk increase is significant.
Has anyone ever been able to give a rat cancer by blasting it with amplified cellphone-type radiation? That would convince me of the possibility of cell phone risk much more than digging backward through statistical inormation does.
That's funny - a couple of years ago, there were some studies showing that lab animals exposed to amplified EM radiation (in the frequency band used by mobile phones) exhibited an increase incidence of malignant tumors. Those studies were dismissed on the grounds that one cannot compare the effects of short exposure to high-power radiation (as in the lab study) to the effects of long-term exposure to lower doses (as in humans using cell phones)!
I read the PDF detailing the study and there are a couple of gaping holes in this whole thing.
First off, despite multiple studies done that prove no correlation between brain tumours and mobile phones this claims to have found something. Now I guess other factors may have come in to those other studies some bias etc. However, this article details an initial study that also showed _no_ connection. It was only after they altered the questionaires and retested people that they found something. Whats more, they then did no further alteration to the questions and simply ran with the same test only on a bigger scale.
There may be a detailed explanation of why that occured but with currently released information weve no idea how many times they were willing to alter the questions to get the answers they wanted, and no explanation of which questions were altered or why. What adds to the suspicion is the fact that the only reason the first test was thrown out was 'short latency' and 'low numbers' of people. Neither of which affect the questionaire.
So what we have is a group of people who rely on getting a result for there funding. (No differently to the previous studies.) After they got no real results from a first test, altered it in a way that appeared to have no bearing on that initial test. They then found they got results... Doesnt really inspire any confidence in there impartial testing.
Secondly, something others have pointed out already, asking a bunch of people with tumours when they started using mobile phones and then roughly getting rid of other factors that could have caused them based on a questionaire... Not a great method of working this out.
Whatever you thought of the study seen on the BBC site it raised a very good point about something that would cause a bias. 'reporting from brain tumour sufferers who knew what side of the head their tumours were on.' etc. This test doesnt even begin to try clamp down on these kinds of bias. Even if this test was entirely fair, the results are far from dramatic. With excessive use it shows only a relatively small increase in cases. With a potential for people to be increasingly suspicious of there mobiles the more they use them this could easily be put down to false assumptions.
As far as im concerned this study is severly flawed. The other studies are also flawed, to a degree, but until someone actually has decent evidence that these things are causing damage then its not going to stop the millions of people who use them. I certainly wouldnt say mobile phones are safe but there is still little to no evidence suggesting they harm us. (and arguably more evidence to suggest that they dont.) The presure is definately on those who have to prove a link.
There have been a number of studies done that show that an increasing number of drivers involved in accidents are signifigantly distracted from what should be their primary task {ie controling the vehicle they are operating} by cell phones.
I'd rather something constructive was done about this well researched and documented problem, than this cell phone & brain cancer concern.
Why are people with brain tumors always on the phone..
From yet another recent study...
"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."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4628914.stm
Just because two things happen together doesnt imply A causes B. Maybe B causes A, or B is caused by C whcich by coincidence is tied to A.
So if cell phones double the rate of brain cancer, it is still about on par with the risk of death in car accidents.
Sometimes it's really, really a good idea to go to the actual source: http://147.52.72.117/IJO/2003/volume22/number2/399 .pdf
/ toc.html#1
"In total use of analogue
cellular telephones gave an increased risk with odds ratio
(OR)=1.3, 95% confidence interval (CI)=1.04-1.6, whereas
digital and cordless phones did not overall increase the
risk significantly"
They go on to show some increased correlation for digital phones for "ipsilateral" (same side) use, as well an increased correlation as time of exposure increases.
A more interesting question: what is it about people who use cell phones (esp. early adopters who heavily used analog phones) that increases their chance of brain tumors? Do they fly more? Are they more likely to be exposed to other environmental agents?
A very similar set of results came out about living near power lines. After the dust settled, it became clear that there wasn't a direct correlation, but that other factors (economic, access to quality health care) was the cause of a weak indirect correlation: http://www.mcw.edu/gcrc/cop/powerlines-cancer-FAQ
You're unstructured? You contain ? You have poor capitalization in your subject line?
Oh, you mean resent...
Mod Parent Up.
The proper control group is patients with cancer in other parts of their body, not healthy controls.
That wipes out stress as a potential confound (under the reasonable assumption that people who were early adopters of cell phones were more often the type of people to have stressful jobs).
This is bad science, and that's usually the result of the fame motivation that comes with work in high profile areas. Projects like this generate front page news no matter what the result, hence they are extremely attractive.
Wouldn't the increased correlation between digital phone use and "ipsilateral" (same side) brain cancers that you mention invalidate the "more interesting question" you propose? Are there other potentially cancer-inducing activities that would also only occur on the same side of the head as phone use? I can't think of many, if any at all.
...sheep's bladders may be employed to prevent earthquakes!
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
As noted earlier in this thread, the ipsilateral issue was thought to have more to do with how the respondents were eager to explain their tumors.
So what, some people will say... well, how many years of life could have been saved by, say, better public transportation, pollution clean-up, better food safety, more smoking/food/whatever education... financed by said 22 million dollars?
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
At $0.05:minute, we're spending only $6000 on airtime that we could be spending on chemotherapy!
--
make install -not war
Researchers at the Swedish National Institute for Working Life said they looked at the mobile phone use of 905 people between the age of 20 and 80 who had been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor and found a link.
So instead of taking an honest sample of the population and waiting five, ten, or fifteen years to see who developed brain tumors, they skipped straight to the conclusion they wanted.
"A total 85 of these 905 cases were so-called high users of mobile phones, that is they began early to use mobile and/or wireless telephones and used them a lot," the study said.
Oh noes! A whole 9.5% of the respondants think they use their cell phones a lot! Too bad you'd probably see the same numbers if you sampled a population that had been using mobile phones for just as long but didn't have tumors. Of course, I'm sure these fuckers didn't bother with a control group. That shit's for amateurs who don't know what conclusion they want to make.
"The newly born animals are then whisked off for a quick run through a giant baking oven." --heard on Food Network
Those aren't "brain tumors" - not the familiar cancerous growths. They're neural phone links our brains are growing to directly interface the phones. Rather than shielding radiation or moving phones away from our heads, we should be investing in more and faster growths. Because this development is the fastest way to move phones inside the head, where annoying ringtones and semversations don't bother bystanders.
--
make install -not war
If you read the study (and know anything about experimental design) you will see that the "results" aren't nearly so impressive as they claim. The short of it: they looked at a bunch of people who already had brain cancer, and then determined how many of them used a cell phone (roughly) an hour per day. I don't know about you, but most people I know use cell phones that often on average, and so it comes as no suprise to me that approx. 85% of the people in the study had high cell phone use. What this shows is ALMOST NOTHING because it doesn't compare what the rate of high cell phone use is among the general population. All it proves is that in a group of people who had brain cancer a lot of them used cell phones. In case it seems like I'm talking circularly, think of this analogous example: if I took a group of people with brain cancer and surveyed them we would probably find that a very high percentage of them (1) drink coffee every day (2) watch television every day (3) breath air every day, but you wouldn't immediately say "OMG, [Coffee, TV, Breathing] causes brain cancer!" Anyone who believed this story without at least reading a description of the study should stop breathing now so that they don't get cancer.
First, please be aware that there is apparently a link between "texting" (sending an SMS) an being shot dead in your house:/ 04/02/BAGEUI24SP1.DTL
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006
The former association is probably tenuous at best, however the latter article actually seems fairly well done. The Sweeds are able to do some great large-scale studies, as they have a fairly homogenous population with amazing levels of data collection.
I read the article, and this study was fairly well designed.
The important conclusions of the study was that long term, high quantity use of phones (both cellular, and cordless) was associated with a several fold increase in brain cancer risk (about 3-6x the risk in those with over 2000 cumulative hours of use) and that this result was seen most clearly after 10+ years after the exposure, consistent with the possible long-term / slow developing nature of cancer.
To put this in perspective, the lifetime risk for brain cancer is about 0.5%. If the results of this study were true, and you were a cell phone addict, perhaps you could increase your risk 10-fold, meaning your chance of getting a tumor had risen to 5%? The risk of dying of other things is much higher (heart disease and stroke: 40%, other cancers 20%, etc.) so it may not be worth worrying about.
Could the results be bogus?
This study is a retrospective case-control design, which means that they took people diagnosed with tumors, found healthy control subjects (matched on age, sex and geographic location), and then asked both groups about their cell phone use over the prior 20 years. It's fairly easy with these sorts of designs to have confounds. One of the most common and easiest to understand confound are 'response biases.'
In this study, this could work in several ways: Perhaps people with brain tumor are pissed off, have heard about possible connections with cellphone use, and are (perhaps subconsciously) looking for something to blame. Thus, they tend to overstate their cellphone use. The controls, who have no tumors, have no particular agenda and report their cell use more accurately. Another form this could take would be if the tumor folks with high cell use respond to the surveys accurately, whereas the controls with high cell use just throw them in the trash.
The authors have a few of points arguing against this thesis : first, the observed relationships follow a dose-response-latency model, which they suggest may not be likely to be how unequal response bias would look. Second, they had nearly identical and high response rates (90%) for both groups. Third, they found the relationships even when looking at cordless phones (which have generally not been demonized in the popular press).
One thing that did jump out at me were the demographic issues -- the authors mention that both gender and class (wealth, or socioeconomic status) are related to cell use (e.g. rich men use the most). They claim to have adjusted statistically for these issues, but the method was not described in this paper (it may be in their prior papers). However, in a retrospective case/control study like this, one should always question "is there anything unusual about group X". People with brain tumors? Wealthy males with very high cellphone use who were early adopters? Perhaps there is a core group of subjects that is driving the statistical relationship? E.g. high users are computer nerds who don't get enough sunlight, eat crappy diets and are vitamin deficient, and spend their lives in server farms inhaling chemicals from their computers? The authors did not report having measured any of these obvious confounds, which does leave a pretty big possible explanation: that the association between high cell use and cancer is true, but that the correlation is not causal.
I will not argue that the CNet article represents this study very well, but if you are going to complain so casually about coverage of this study -- even calling it unethical -- it would help if some of your supporting arguments and complaints weren't so lousy.
You seem to have no notion of the differences between a retrospective case-contol study (which is what the researchers conducted) and a prospective clinical trial (where you could reasonably employ double-blind methods).
If you look past CNet and find the original article in the International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health you will see that the study included over 2000 control subjects.
It is possible to design lousy studies of any type. There are also reasons to be cautious in interepreting the results of retrospective studies, but particularly in the case of low-incidence disease, they are often the only way to start looking at risk factors -- give policy makers at least something to start working with. So, until you come up with 3 billion dollars and an ethical design for a perfect double-blind cell phone study, I would encourage you to be a bit more forgiving.
I will now retire to consider what a placebo cell phone would look like.
And your point is?
damaged by dogma
I remember reading a good analysis of this when the research was first published. The most striking observation was that, although the rate of cancer on the side of the head that the phone was held to was increased, the rate of cancer on the other side of the head was actually DECREASED by about the same amount! This conclusion has been glossed-over in much of the more recent coverage.
One possible explanation is that in many cases, people don't recall in which side of their head the tumour was located. (If they've had surgery they'll have a scar to remind them, but otherwise it's possible to not know.) People who have already made the connection with their phone are more likely to remember where the tumour was.
2000 hours over 10 years is 200h:y, or 33 minutes per day. That's not so heavy use among the people I know.
But what about Bluetooth? People wear headsets inserted into their skulls, along a canal closer to the brain, against a transparent auditory nerve hole. All day long. It's a different frequency, and different power level than cellphones. There isn't 10 years of data yet. But why should we wait?
Swedes already know the damage Bluetooth can cause in the name of bringing everyone together. Let's see the official damage tally.
--
make install -not war
Long term studies on this topic are pretty useless. In the past 10 years, the cell phone business has changed drastically.
.6 watts, thanks to cell tower density and digital transmission.
Remember bag phones and the motorola brick phone? Those suckers had a full 3-watt transmitter. Due to cell tower density, you can be sure those things were broadcasting at a full 3-watts most of the time. They also broadcast around 800-900 MHz.
Today's phones still broadcast at around 800-900 MHz, as well as the 1800-1900 Mhz frequencies. They also use alot less power, around
Even if there is a link between non-ionizing radiation and cancer, is the risk still present with modern cell phones?
If you can prove this, there is a nobel prize waiting for you.
-ted
no the study said that a heavy cell phone user is 240% more likely to have a malignant tumor on the side of the brain next to which he/she normally holds the phone than the side opposite to the cell phone. The article didn't mention if that meant the heavy users were less likely to have malignancies on the brain side away for the phone or not or even if the the people with "cell phone" malignancies were greater than the general population in general.
Perhaps the cell phones are attractive to brain tumor cells, so I'm inventing an antenna array designed to attract the bad tummor cells to areas of the brain that are easier to operate on and treat! Maybe if people put their heads inside microwave ovens, it would have enough power to suck the tummors right out of their heads
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
The way this kind of study is done is that you pick a bunch of people with brain cancer, and you ask them about their cell phone use, then you compare the results with a similar survey of people without cancer. There are several reasons why this kind of study can produce misleading results:
1) You have to assume that people who use cell phones a lot are otherwise identical to people who don't. If they aren't, then they might have been differentially exposed to some other influence that causes cancer. You can control for known risk factors, but not for unknown ones.
2) You have to assume that people with cancer who held their phone on the cancer side are not more likely to remember, or perhaps overestimate, their cell phone use than people without cancer or people with the cancer on the other side. Considering that people with a serioius illness are often strongly motivated to try to figure out somehting to blame, this is a doubtful assumption.
Considering that other studies have been negative, this is still pretty week. But the big problem is that nobody has been able to come up with convincing evidence of a mechanism by which such weak, nonionizing radiation can cause tumors.
I cannot find any evidence that the Journal in which this article appeared (International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health) is peer-reviewed. Does anyone know more about this journal?
Come play Moral Decay!
If that's science, then the definition of science has changed since I went to school. As I dimly recall, the traditional scientific method entails carefully designed experiments using control subjects, that isolate one variable. If appropriate, an experiment involving human subjects is conducted using the "double blind" method--that is, neither subjects nor experimenters know which individuals are members of the subject or control groups. After the conclusion of the experiment, those who conducted it publish a paper describing their methods and results. Other scientists then try to repeat those results. If the results can't be repeated, then the conclusions of the original experiment are regarded as unproven.
In contrast, it seems to me that "studies" do nothing but advance hypotheses that one might attempt to prove or disprove through experimentation. Yet, the publication of every study is treated by the populace as a scientific revelation; worse, public policy is often influenced by the results of "studies".
I would prefer to see the funds that subsidize the current deluge of "studies" go to real science. If not, then I prefer that the funds go to me. I'll produce a study that shows...um...that work makes people tired.
Great men are almost always bad men--Lord Acton's Corollary
I wonder whether we'll start to tobacco-style class actions etc.... the next few years will be interesting.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
But I learned that the skin depth is a measure of the depth to which an EM wave can penetrate a medium (I assume this is what you're refering to.) IIRC, it's something like d = 1/(pi*f*u*s), where d is the skin depth, f is the frequency, u is the permeability, and s is the conductance. I don't see how you can make such a broad assumption that "The penetration depth of EM waves is roughly of the size of wavelength." Especially when this depth would be HIGHLY dependent on wether or not the medium is a good conductor. Therefore, I call BS on your post until you can prove it mathematically. To make it easier on you, you only need to show me that the penetration depth is ~= wavelength for microwaves (100 MHz to 1 THz).
I have a hypothesis about digital cellphones.
The GSM phone system we use in Sweden is a time division multiplexing system. So the phones are switching from
transmission to not transmitting every 20ms or so. Everyone here has heard the interference from them,
just hold them somewhat close to a speaker and you hear it loud and clear 'BRRRP BRP BRP' (and many musicians hate them since they are almost impossible to sheild against).
Now, the brain is imperfectly sheilded against this interference, the skull not being made of alternating layers of copper and mu-metal or whatever will keep the interference out.
Also keep in mind that ~50Hz (1/0.020) is not far from the dominant frequency of the brain (100Hz?). And think about
how a neuron signals; A series of spikes in the electrical conductors (synapses) that connects the neurons,
the frequency and timing between being information transmitted.
Since all synapses will pick up the spikes to a varying degree when the transmission at 900MHz is being turned on and
off, how can this not interfere with the brains functioning?
Maybe this is what causes "cellphone fatigue", that many complain about here.
I'm beginning to think it was not so clever to discontinue my landline and go all cellphone.
why then, not cell phones? 100% of lung cancer deaths in people who smoke is attributed to smoking. If Dana Reaves can die from lung cancer without smoking... perhaps you should re-evaluate those numbers, eh? Oh wait... this is America and smokers are the devil.
The English term is carcinogens, not cancerogenes.
The bits on the bus go on and off... on and off... on and off...
A postulation that I heard once was that frequent cell-phone use was linked to an increased incidence of cancer on the SIDE OF THE HEAD that the phone was used on, but linked to a correspondingly LOWER incidence on the other side of the head.
I'm not saying that this is the case, but the subsequent studies that I've seen all seem to fit this possibility, including this one (AND the cited British one that apparently contradicts it). This study did not publish results about OVERALL (head) cancer risk, which is what it seems we should be worrying about...
The professor has been known during the last ten years for issueing "cancer-alarms" over and over again and his studies has repeatedly been accused of lacking the correct procedures for scientific methodology.
No they arent, Spain for example has strict regulation that cell phone towers need to be at least 1km from schools and kindergardens.
That happened after several cases (I recall 2 in the same school that had a tower in the playground in particular ) of brain tumors in infants.
As another example, a friend of mine worked in a company that did the setup of towers, and 2 of their employes in early 30's had brain tumors, which the assurance company refused to take care because there was no "proof" that working with cell towers could cause cancer. (Nonetheless, the rate of cancer in this particular company was 66%, 2 had them, 1 didnt (at least yet))
I'm trying to get modded "Interesting Flamebait Informative and Insightful Redundant Troll" *-* Please Help *-*
And yet, I keep seeing the same avoidance. The same denial. The same arguments.
Some of my favorites include. . .
1. "Cell phones don't output enough power to cause ionization, therefore they cannot possibly harm brain cells."
This is false and myopic. It has also been a key feature of the public relations campaigning by the Telecom companies in making sure people buy their products and never sue them. Human cells naturally respond to micro-electric currents and frequencies, and cell phones, which modulate their microwave signals, tickle the brain in exactly the range where cells react. It has been demonstrated through numerous studies that the Blood Brain Barrier opens up to foreign particles when stimulated by Cell Phone EM. Could cancer be caused by poisons in the blood which might otherwise not enter cells? --This is just one of many ways damage can be caused. The fact that cell phone EM is not powerful enough to burn cells by no means indicates a safe technology.
2. "The studies are not published in big journals, so I refuse to look at them, because obviously they must be done by quack doctors."
You'd be surprised how often I hear this. --Many people steadfastly refuse to read or look beyond the voice of the authority figures in their worlds if the data might run counter to their accepted mode of belief. To which, I always think, "Lazy Coward." --The world is full of truth and lies, and only through direct exposure to data and thinking and comparing can we learn to determine which is which. Yes, I've read plenty of bunk from self-published scientists, but I've also read plenty of bunk from well-published scientists funded by amoral, self-interested corporations and governments. There have been a lot of studies which claim cell phone radiation is safe, but nearly all of them have been directly or indirectly funded by the Telcos themselves or by agencies, (like the airforce), who stand to be harmed by lawsuits should the prognosis be anything but rosy. Anybody who cannot see the conflict of interests here is either blind or foolish. There have been countless instances where corporate scientists have deliberately fudged their facts. To suggest that the multi-billion dollar cell phone industry is exempt from corruption or does not engage in subversive public opinion molding is foolish. In the end you must not take the voice of authoritarian publications and news agencies at face value. You have to THINK for yourself!
A basic truth: If you are too scared to think for yourself, then you probably don't.
3. "Everything causes cancer! Life is short. I can put up with the risks."
Think of it this way: Life is short, why waste even a second of it living according to a corporate agenda?
And anyway, this is not about cancer. Cancer is a side show. Cancer is nothing. The real issue is that Cell Phone EM, and all the other tiny dings we take from a thousand different vectors, (food, air, economy, media, etc.,), cause us to be worn down into idiot miserable slaves who have no clue about anything outside the thin layer of awareness we are allowed to retain. Once you start turning off the TV, stop playing video games, stop buzzing your head with EM, stop jerking off all the time, stop spinning in cycles of fear and hate, stop doing what you are told. . , the Universe starts to open up in AMAZING ways.
This is what it's all about. Liberation or slavery.
-FL
To see why, here is your statement with a couple of substitutions:So, you see, a non-smoker dying from lung cancer doesn't necessarily mean that smoking didn't cause the cancer in all smokers who die from lung cancer.
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
"caused by smokers" should be "caused by smoking".
Yes, I did use the "Preiview" button, dammit!
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
"Preview".
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
I'm sorry you don't agree with the cost/benefit considerations that went into airbags; I don't know enough about the costs and benefits involved to make an informed statement. I suspect, however, you don't either. In any case, the people paying for the cost of air bags are mostly drivers, through the purchase prices of their cars, and if air bags make buying a car more expensive, I think that's a good thing in its own right.
As for risk mitigation, you are putting up your own strawman; I said nothing about needing to mitigate risks. I didn't even claim that cell phone use involved risk. I merely stated that people would make all sorts of bogus arguments why you wouldn't even want to look at the issue, and you keep proving me right: from pop-physics to pop-economics, people like you do everything to avoid facing inconvenient facts.
I use an earpiece and then clip the phone to my belt right next to my...oh my god!!
do they sell lead-based boxers at Target?
The study defined 'heavy' use as more than 2,000 total hours, or approximately one hour of use per workday for 10 years
200 work days in a hear? I get two weeks vacation, plus 8 holidays at my job. That means I work about 240 days a year (52*5-10-8). Sucks to be American I guess.
Please at least read the introduction of the published paper (http://www.arbetslivsinstitutet.se/pdf/060331Mild Hardell_Article.pdf) or get a "Introduction of Epidemiology" before accusing others as doing non-sensical study. I am afraid you are missing the whole point of the studies.
What the researchers have done, is not to take a group of brain tumour patients and see how many percents of them use mobile phones. If this is the case, then we might as well say that breathing, drinking water, walking, blinking, eating all cause brain tumours, since all the patients must have done all these things. If the researchers are all such brainless creatures, the whole profession must have been sacked.
What the researchers really do, is to recruit a similar number of (1) brain tumour patients and (2) non brain tumour patients. They then divide each group into heavy users and non-heavy users, i.e. (1) is divided into (1a) heavy user + brain tumour and (1b) light user + brain tumour; (2) into (2a) heavy user + no brain tumour and (2b) light user + no brain tumour.
A comparison is done by comparing the odds ratio of 1a&2a compared to 1b&2b. It's the odds ratio that researchers use to identify the increased risk.
(Of course there are many confoundings, possible biases that are inherent to case-control study design, but the basic design is what I am trying to illustrate here)
Hope that helped to clear your doubts.
Please remember that pre-pubescent teenaged girls eventually become pubescent nineteen-year-old girls.
And there can never be too many pubescent nineteen-year-old girls.
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
Your "r" key has stopped working!Yay!
It's working again!
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
100% of people who jump into volcanos are not killed as a result. Some happen to jump in when the crater is dormant. So they crawl back out, go home to dinner, start a house fire, and they die of burn death. Therefore, according to you... the person who jumped into a dormant volcano and died in a house fire, died of burn death caused by jumping into a volcano.
Statistically speaking, if 20% of women who die of lung cancer have never smoked and do not work in enclosed areas or live with smokers... then, all other things being equal, 20% of the women who smoked and died from lung cancer would have died from lung cancer regardless of smoking habits. That is to say, while 80% of lung cancer deaths in women are attributed to smoking, and 20% are not because the cancer patient did not smoke and was not living with smokers, then in reality, only 64% (80% - [20% of 80%]) of lung cancer death in women can be attributed to smoking. Given that second hand smoke gets the blame for the deaths of many more women who do not smoke, it's pretty clear to anyone with even a general knowledge of statistics that the numbers are greatly skewed to demonize smoking. If the case against cigarettes is so strong, why lie?
Fantastic Lad said: "...Once you start turning off the TV, stop playing video games, stop buzzing your head with EM, stop jerking off all the time, stop spinning in cycles of fear and hate, stop doing what you are told. . , the Universe starts to open up in AMAZING ways."
How does it open up? I'm seriously interested. Because I personally don't play video games and do not own a TV. I like masturbation as much as the next girl, but I definitely have sex more than I masturbate. I don't think that I spin in cycles of fear and hate, although to be fair I'm not sure exactly what that means. I usually only listen to people I respect, but not a lot of people tell me what to do anyways. I also don't blast my head much with evil EM, except with sunlight and ambient radiation, of course. Anyways, I don't do any of these evil things in excess and the universe has not "opened up in AMAZING ways". I dunno, the universe is pretty cool, but I don't think it's particularly more impressive now that I don't play video games or watch TV or babble on the phone all day. What has your experience been?
How does it open up? I'm seriously interested. Because I personally don't play video games and do not own a TV. I like masturbation as much as the next girl, but I definitely have sex more than I masturbate. I don't think that I spin in cycles of fear and hate, although to be fair I'm not sure exactly what that means. I usually only listen to people I respect, but not a lot of people tell me what to do anyways. I also don't blast my head much with evil EM, except with sunlight and ambient radiation, of course. Anyways, I don't do any of these evil things in excess and the universe has not "opened up in AMAZING ways". I dunno, the universe is pretty cool, but I don't think it's particularly more impressive now that I don't play video games or watch TV or babble on the phone all day. What has your experience been?
My experience has been in realizing that the Universe is anything but random, and that it is not just possible to direct one's Intent toward the realities we want to live in, but that it is in fact the only mode of existence available to us. --When people believe that the Universe is random and unkind, then that is exactly what they will experience. It takes energy and an unfogged mind to function effectively within this reality. Like having weak swimming muscles, you can't navigate your way through the currents of life with weak perceptions, and low energy. With energy comes courage and passion, and without those two things, a person is lost.
--My experience has been one where I began allowing myself to be happy. Instead of working cruddy 9-5 work which was grinding me into dust, I started following my passions, turning those into my work. Instead of saying 'No' to opportunity, (hiding inside watching television or playing video games), I started spending those thousands of hours contributing my time and energy to whatever worthy project which came knocking and which caught my interest. The experiences I've had as a result have been unique and surprising. Every week is filled with unexpected adventures of every kind.
This last week, for instance, I was looking for a new apartment. This was four days ago. I spent the day hiking around town looking at 'For Rent' signs and jotting down numbers. That was mundane and boring and the results were all lame apartments which all looked lonely. I found myself standing on the sidewalk feeling that this was a futile effort, and realized that I was hankering to live with people. I really like having room-mates, but only the right kind; energetic and positive and compassionate.
So I shifted my focus and changed my intent. About half an hour later a girl walked up to me and asked me if I was looking for room mates. --She spotted me looking at, 'for rent' ads on a bulletin board, and she was looking for somebody to fill an empty space in a house she'd just moved into. We got into an amazing conversation and talked for half an hour. It sounded like her room mates were great people and the price was really good. She was also beautiful and we were sparking off each other. --I tend to focus my intent in that direction even though I probably could better use the energy in other areas, but it was a nice buzz. We were both excited about the prospect of living with each other, and so we exchanged numbers and parted.
In reviewing the opportunity, however, I realized that I knew vaguely what sort of situation I'd be living in, having been there a couple of times before. --Love when mixed with roommates has always been a difficult, albeit fascinating, challenge. And while it has its rewards, for now it seemed like too much effort. While I enjoy living with people, I was also hoping to spend the year working hard on my own projects and not getting swept up in dramas. So I decided to re-focus my intent and I kept looking.
I ran into a friend of mine and he walked with me for a bit. I told him, "You know what I think would be really cool? Instead of looking for opportunities, I think it would be great to actually bring
That it's not that bad, even if the rate is doubled.
Any scientists able to provide information, procedures and equipment necessary to measure high energy RF? This is gov't low freq RF within 100 ft. of source?
thanks in advance...
-r
rr6013@gmail.com