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."

Comments

link to the actual study (PDF)

[nfarrell]

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:

http://www.arbetslivsinstitutet.se/pdf/060331MildH ardell_Article.pdf

Re:Assumptions

[Nightlight3]

While we are at it we can argue about how a few watts of photons with less energy than infrared can cause cancer while kilowatts from a nice comfy open fire do not.

The penetration depth of EM waves is roughly of the size of wavelength. Hence, the infrared radiation from a fire doesn't even penetrate the human skin (the heat will eventually transmit deeper via molecular vibrations but that is a slower mechanicsm and we have evolved a biological warning system via pain sensation), while the RF radiation from the cell phones (or similarly the microwave ovens), which is several orders of magnitudes longer, penetrates and is absorbed by entire brain. Since the presence of RF emitter near brain is a very recent occurence on evolutionary time scales, we don't have a built in biological warning for the damage it does. The whole generation of current teenagers will be going senile in their thirties.