Slashdot Mirror
FDA Questions Swedish Cell Phone Cancer Study
ZZeta writes "Following up on the Swedish study on cell phone cancer risk, the FDA released a statement today questioning its reliability. From the statement: 'These facts along with the lack of an established mechanism of action and supporting animal data makes the Hardell et al's finding difficult to interpret.' Also available several links to other studies."
Wait, does this mean the lump on the side of my head isn't from my cell phone? Oh, shi....
will be very hard when there is a billion dollar industry based on cellphones
its like global warming vs the oil industry, it will take numerous studies over decades until the "truth" will finally come out
A pro-capitalist political organization puts out a press release questioning a study that may possibly hurt the communications industry?
THERES A FUCKING SURPRISE.
Most animals cannot hold cell phones up to their ears and many simply can't fill out the contracts required to obtain a cell phone.
Animal Data. that's ridiculous!
Can someone tell me why the FDA is releasing a statement about this? Cell phones and RF are neither a food nor a drug, nor a medical device. Does this fall under some part of the FDA I'm not aware of?
AccountKiller
"This study has been brought to you by your friendly neighbors Nokia, Siemens and Motorola."
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
So long as someone is advocating the viewpoint I'm more personally comfortable with regardless of the facts I'm happy!
Of course if no one is taking my side, then I have a foolproof plan -- I just say studies contradict each other too often and hence can't provide any reliable information about anything. Then I can do whatever I want, risk-free!
The authors conclude that there is no substantial risk of this tumour in the first 10 years after starting mobile phone use. However, an increased risk after longer term use could not be ruled out.
This seems to be their reasoning, only after longer (10 years) use does it have any effect. So people who've had a phone for more than 10 years could be at higher risk.
Common sense is not so common
This reminds me of one of the ending scenes for "Thank You for Smoking" where Nick Naylor is consulting the cell phone lobbyists on how to sway the industry into thinking cell phones aren't harmful. I can't quote the scene from memory and I won't be able to do it justice if I wing it, so I just won't. Those who have seen it know what I'm talking about though and if you haven't seen it... Well why the hell not?
the same people who told you that the oil industry does not harm the environment in a way significant to health issues or that the tobacco industry has no definite responsablity for health problems!
But you can trust them with the communications industry data, because this industry isn't like the other industries.
The FDA has long shown to take a reasonable balance between the health of Americans and the health of status-quo capitalism. I am about as interested in hearing what they have to say about a study saying you should use cell phones less as I am in hearing about MSFT's Linux strategy.
I am not surprised at ther response at all....
Just like Mad Cow disease is NOT in the US.
Cell phones need strong signals to reach the towers. Radiowaves are a form of radiation. We know that radiation can cause cancer. It has been proven time and time again. To require a study to show that another radiation generator will do the same as another radiation generator is simply pandering to corporations.
Don't forget that Microwaves operate at 2.4Ghz and are simply radiowaves. Many cordless phones, BlueTooth and WiFi all operate at the same frequency. Moderation is the key. Anything in sufficient quantities is bad. Remember the link between Sacchrine and cancer. Large doses in mice caused bladder cancer. It is still a popular sugar supplement.
It was probably the duct tape that was used to secure the phone to the head of the rabbit that gave it cancer.
I'm not a troll, but I play one on Slashdot.
The FDA announced that eating a steady diet of old Motorola brick phones will actually improve colon health and act as a cancer fighting agent.
It doesn't seem like a good idea to put a transmitter strong enough to broadcast for miles right up against the side of my head. When I had a cell phone I used a bluetooth headset in the hopes of lessening the amount of radiation entering my skull.
A few years back my boss died of brain cancer (glioblastoma multiforme). The tumor was right above his left ear...the side he held his cell phone to. He went to the doctor in May for headaches and the next March we were at his funeral. Yes, it's only one anecdotal case, but still it reinforces my belief that holding a cell phone against your head just can't be good for you.
Is anyone here old enough to remember how long it took the government to recognize tobacco as a health risk?
That's "Mr. Soulless Automaton" to you, Bub.
Don't worry - if it's not the cell phone that kills you, the guy talking on one while driving into your lane - will.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
That's why I only use text messaging on my cell phone. But I'm sure my thumb cancer is unrelated.
What if that mime really is trapped in a box?
By my reading, it sounds like they sent mailings to people that have diagnosed brain tumors in those previous two studies and asked them how much they used the cell phone over the last 10 years. They then compared that to a general population sample. Deriving exposure levels from questionnaires is, in my opinion, almost worthless. How many minutes have you used the cell phone in the last 24 hours? Week? Month? Can you come up with a number you believe accurate to within a factor of 2? 10? 100?
This reminds me of a study released in the early 90's that suggested that 60 Hz EMF fields caused cancer. The "researchers" went through death records and picked out people who were listed as having "electrical related" occupations such as electricians and such, then seeing how many of them died of cancer. This study got lots of press, of course. However, a follow-up study was done that looked at 30,000+ workers at an electric generating plant where they actually measured real exposure levels and no correlation was found.
The FDA statement itself says basically that because of all these loose or non-existent controls, it this study cannot really be compared to the other better controled studies that were done. That is a perfectly reasonable and well-explained statement, so I am not sure what the knee-jerk posts about corporate control and suppressing the truth posts are based on. Personally I think that if the study in question was run in the manner described, it is essentially worthless and should not have received any press coverage in the first place.
When the study came out, most of the comments here were refuting it. Now that the FDA has refuted it, everyone seems to be claiming that they were bought by the cell phone companies.
So, what? Are all the people in the cellphone-cancer camp on one side of the globe or something?
Remember, the methodology for this study was step one: find people who already have cancer. Step two: do a survey (not a lab observation or a running record) to get data about their past cell phone usage. How can you bitch when someone contradicts that?
I used to work on mobile phones at a large company. SAR rating used to be a big deal to us. One of the major reasons for using extendable antennas was to get the EMF away from the head, hence lowering the SAR. But the market got quite competitive and external antennas went out of style. Before I left, we only cared about meeting the FCC requirement rather than aiming for a truly low SAR of 0.2-0.4.
PDF of the document is available here:
link
It appears it's *another* (double/single) blind study on the affects of cellphone use. Though, it is the only one (AFAIK) that was done on cancer patients.
To sum up my recollection of the previous studies, the most interesting aspect was that they showed a transfer of the 217hz wave from your cellphone's speaker to your Delta wave during prolonged 10mins use. No physiological effects were ever attributed to this wave-transfer.
I hadn't heard of this study or anything.
/. summary you can't actually TELL if the study confirmed risks or denied risks, only that the FDA didn't agree with the study.
If you only read the
Did anyone here think that the "Study" may have stated that the risks are minimal, and the FDA was saying "Hey, wait a minute, that's not a very accurate study! There may significantly more risk".
The fact that no reasonable, informed person could have expected that the FDA might have actually been trying to actually "Protect" us instead of corporate interests is a little disturbing to me.
All the Fed does is spin and run interference for big business. Listen to what the government says and assume the opposite is true. And then either bitch about it, or invest in companies that profit off the government's spin.
We drive cars even though they are huge killing machines. Why, because the benefits are worth the risk. Same with going out in the sun. It is well known that the sun causes cancer. We still go out in the daylight. Again, the benefits out weigh the risk.
'...makes the Hardell et al's f***ing difficult to interpret.'
Now that would be an interesting response from the FDA.
I'm not sure why, seems to be more than the normal distribution here, and their opinions seem to be given more eight than you'd expect.
At any rate the reason you get loony responses like this is because consparicy theorists believe everything is part of the consparicy. That's why it's impossible to reason with them. You show them evidence of why they are incorrect, and they just twist it to be part of the consparicy and take it is more proof they are right.
It's really not worth arguing with the consparicy nuts, you aren't going to convince them of anything, they are so convinced of their pet consparicy. Also, because they believe it's a consparicy that only they and their friends are smart enough to see, that there's things that appear to contradict it is just more parts of the consparicy.
I wasnt able to find this link a few days ago but heres an interview with Dr Lai from Uof W about the hardships of publishing this kind of damning data. Its has pretty pictures of the damaged DNA . Can we see your tumor?
w akeupcall01.html
http://www.washington.edu/alumni/columns/march05/
It seems that doubting a god that flies a flaming golden chariot across the sky every day wouldn't be a good idea. That's why a make offerings the the Sun God daily.
A few years back a friend of mine who believed that the Sun God was just a ball of fire circling the earth, died right where the light and warmth from the Sun God would hit him. Yes this is only one anecdotal case also, but still it reinforces my belief that denying the Sun God just can't be good for you.
The point: You openly know that your making a wild ass guess about your bosses death with absolutly no actual evidence, yet you still choose to believe because you have to find SOME REASON for his death. If you can't find the real reason, you just find a scape goat. I guess we should be glade the this is the 21st century, and we use 'things' as a scape goat instead of just picking someone out of the crowd and burning them at the stake.
More FUD from the neo-luddites. You are more likely to be run down by that guy listening to his radio, or arguing with his wife who is in the seat next to him.
Anyone who listens to the radio or has passengers in their car, and complains about cell phones while driving is a hypocrate.
Sorry but with this administrations credibility problems. I find it impossible to believe anything that's coming out of a crony infested federal agency.
-Kurt
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
Note that raising mad-cow testing to the standard (i.e. testing all cattle) in Japan would add only about 5 cents to each pound of beef.
Guess which side is Washington supporting? Consumers or beef agribusiness?
For the what's it worth I work at a cancer center...
The statement basically states that the recent, highly publicized, study was based on combining two previously published studies (published in 2002 and 2005), which itself should raise some eyebrows.
Combining studies is done all the time in this type of research, actually the Interphone study the FDA cites in its favour is a combined study. The Interphone study also received money from cell phone companies.
Deriving exposure levels from questionnaires is, in my opinion, almost worthless.
The data won't be very accurate, but one would still expect heavy users to report increased usage verus light users. This is all that is needed for this type of exploratory study, I've seen exploratory studies done with MUCH less data all the time.
Despite this, the article says nothing I can really directly disagree with. The problem with "the cell phone causes cancer issue" is that there is no mechanism to cause it. However their citing of animal models as being needed to help interpret the results though is disingenous, because researchers already have human data.
I am not sure what the knee-jerk posts about corporate control and suppressing the truth posts are based on
The FDA's track record most likely.
Most animals cannot hold cell phones up to their ears and many simply can't fill out the contracts required to obtain a cell phone.
More to the point is that the animals with cell phones often have poor rate plans and tend to be miserly with the minutes. To make matters worse, reception on the farm can be poor, the "Friends and Family" plan excludes pets, Verizon's "IN" is out, etc...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
The interests of business play a very large part in the decision making. Furthermore, this has been the situation for a very long time.
A case in point are the standards for Microwave Oven Emissions. Now, one might think that these were based upon actual trials and lots of scientific studies. Nope. The main determining factor was the minimum level that businesses could live with.
The following quotes were passed on to me by a friend, who went to a talk last year by "a veteran physiologist, Dr. George Leong". Dr. Leong worked at the FDA, and was the main government official responsible for setting the current standards for Microwave Ovens. Here is what was reported:
"Dr. Leong emphasized that the effects [of ionizing radiation] are cumulative and long-term. A person exposed to increased levels of radio waves in their teen years may not develop cataracts etc. until they are in their mid-40s.
I asked how the government arrives at "safe" levels. He said in effect that "your starting point is that you need to let people run their business". In other words, standards are set by working backwards from what the industry feels they can (just about) accept. "Acceptable" standards are NOT set based on years or decades of study of whether any ill effects arise in humans. (For one thing, such studies would be unethical. For another, decade-long studies would be extremely expensive.)"
So, please understand the reality of the FDA. They have an established history of put businesses first, and people's safety second.
The best way to predict the future is to create it. - Peter Drucker.
Frankly, I'm pretty skeptical of people who aren't skeptical of the U.S. government. I think they must be "in it" with the Aliens and the Jews! Oh, and the Reptiloids, NEVER forget about the Reptiloids!
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Did anyone else notice that the article starts off by stating that "A number of studies have recently been published looking at the risk of long term cell phone use (>10 years) and brain cancer", and then it sites one study with several components. Sure that one study is large and well funded, spanning several different countries accross the globe, but still, one of their problems with this study is that one other study contradicts it.
Not only that, but the newsworthy part of the study is not the contradiction. The INTERPHONE study says that cell phones (and cordless phones) are safe for up to ten years, while this study says that cell and cordless phones becomes dangerous after ten years. I guess the contradiction is about how dangerous they become?
If you want to argue about the soundness of their statistical methods, fine. You may have a point there, but the statement is making some questionable arguments.
Actually, I mostly disagree with this statement, as a phone (landline or cellphone) is a fundamentally different beast. I say "mostly", because your statement about passengers is closest to a cellphone (but not exact), and radio is completely different.
It basically comes down to the nature of real-time interactive communication over alternative (virtual) communication mediums, like cellphones and the internet. When communicating with these mediums, the mind (for some psychological reason) becomes "lost", and is neither here, nor there, but somewhere "in between". If the "conversation" is long enough, and more importantly, if the other communication channels (sight and other sound) are "dimmed" (like nighttime driving with the windows rolled up), this "in betweenness" becomes greater. In effect, to borrow a phrase from virtual reality terminology, the mind becomes "immersed" in the medium (indeed, it is closer to an "audio only" virtual reality).
It also seems that some people are more susceptible to this than others, but all are susceptible to it by some extent (and if you claim you are not, you are only fooling yourself). The blocking out of the other senses only serves to raise the level of immersion - whether it is sitting in a darkened room browsing the web, or talking on the phone, while in lying down (hmm - I wonder if in a "video only" virtual reality, if hearing becomes "dimmed"?).
In a vehicle, the problem becomes even more compounded - we have all had the realization, after driving for a while, of wondering "how did I get here" - essentially forgetting conciously (sometimes, scarily enough, for miles) that we were driving. We all do this, but somehow we tend to arrive in one piece. This "auto-pilot" mode tends to get interrupted by "immersion" in the virtual communication medium, for some reason (might make an interesting psychological study using simulators and cell phones).
Radios, being one-way, do not tend to cause this immersion. Neither do CB radios - it is the real-time interaction in an alternate reality that is required for the immersion effect to take hold. CB radios require the user to "break" the conversation into chunks because transmission between the parties can only occur one party at a time. Thus, it isn't "real-time", and these breaks serve as discontinuities that don't allow for immersion.
While all of these things (passengers, cell phones, radio, and CB radios, etc) all can cause distractions (and thus, we all should be careful with every one of them while driving), none save for the cell phone causes the strong immersion trigger in the human mind. As I have noted before, this would make an excellent psychological study, to determine what and how this is triggered, what items trigger it and to what extent (cell phones, radios, food, CBs, passengers, etc), how it interacts with the "autopilot" mode we get into when we drive, how different driving conditions are affected by it, how our driving is effected quantitively, and how things could be changed to lessen the effect to the driver.
It may be as simple as having the cell-phone, when it senses it is moving at a speed above walking speed (surely the problem applies if the user is running or riding a bike as well) using GPS, to switch to a system where each user has to say "over" to break the conversation up. Maybe that would work, maybe it wouldn't.
Ultimately, it may come down to personal responsibility (so we are utterly doomed). If we turned the phone off or left it at home when we drove, and paid attention to our driving instead of everything else - everyone would be safer...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Correct me if I'm wrong but: The original poster claimed that the FDA's statement on the cell-phone study is likely motivated by a pro business (pro-capitalist)agenda. You argued against this statement in the following ways: a) You are a Socialist. b) Socialists refer to everything they don't like as "Capitalist." c) They do so because it is fashionable. (Therefore the FDA is not pro-business.) -This is all unsupported, but beside the point. d) The FDA is a government bureaucracy. (Therefore not pro-business). -Where is it written that vast bureaucracy and business are mutually exclusive? Microsoft, anyone? Other government bureaucracies--e.g. the EPA and the NLRB--have also been criticized for betraying their mandates under the influence of big business. e) The FDA costs industry billions of dollars a year (hence cannot be pro-business.) -How many billions? And what percentage of total annual business revenue does this amount to? The FDA, as a regulatory agency, will inevitably "cost industry" money (if you choose to look at it that way). The real question is--does the FDA's record show that it has consistently fulfilled its mandate, or has its mandate been weakened by other interests? f)The FDA is considered overzealous. This is the "usual" criticism. This is a strange argument. Considered by whom? Usual for whom? A quick google search will review loads of discussion about the FDA's questionable ties to the pharmaceutical industry, among other things.
We are not whales--and this constitutes one great theme underscoring our sex life. --h. murakami
Some of them routinely (and against all rules) would stand in front of their arctic circle radar instalations as it was the only place where they could get really warm.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Allow me to butcher a George Carlinism (from one of his books): "I sometimes think about the radio waves, cellular towers, satellite beams, WiFi, etc, etc...all bouncing arounnd my head every day, and yet, 100 years ago, there was silence."
Math is math. Regular expression is regular expression. The tools are there. The future is now.
Either way, you are at a much higher risk of dying in a car wreck while talking, dialing, or answering that cell phone than from cancer caused by the cell phone.
The moral of this story:
Maybe you should talk less on the phone in the first place. Being detached momentarily from what is going on won't cause you to float into space.
Cheesy Movie Night
This is also military related. So you can bet your bottem dollar that those among the group that have gotten cancer are very interested in getting VA money for it.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
According to today's article: http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/0 7/1540219
[sarcasm]
The oil industry is good. They're saving us from the clean air that causes global warming. Don't buy into the hype. That layer of black oil and coal on your house siding just shows that it's working... like the wear indicator on a toothbrush.
[/sarcasm]
-M
when you see the word 'Linux', drink!
One of the major reasons for using extendable antennas was to get the EMF away from the head, hence lowering the SAR.
Of course, Extendable Ears can accomplish the same goal.
-F.W.
Heres a place to start http://www.brooks.af.mil/AFRL/HED/hedr/reports/hum an_exposure/humtb24.html
It's a survey of studys done related to cancer and electronics. Some show statistically significant increases in cancer rates. Unfortunatly for the chicken littles they are in the professions that did things like solder and clean electronics. Not those that did things like climb towers or work in generating plants.
These people were exposed to levels of non-ionizing radiation that are many orders of magnitude higher then you get from cell phones.
In summary. Solvents are bad for you. Radio waves are not.
Of course you chould just come back with another middle school analysis.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
He said "pro-capitalist". The difference is that he didn't say the FDA itself as an organization was capitalist, but rather that it favors or promotes capitalist agendas, or supports those with such agendas.
---GEC
I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand
You know, your joke about thumb cancer seems pretty funny. But I have one of those radios that we use at work. Same microwave frequency. It's part of my job, so I stick it on my belt; I have to take it off to talk. But some of my coworkers have the attachable shirt-clip speakers, so they can leave it on their belt as they talk, and microwave their liver.
Isn't liver cancer also up nowadays? I wonder if it is related. And like brain cancer, liver cancer is particularly deadly, even *if* you get a liver transplant.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
FDA oversight of 'off-label' drug use wanes
p ecial_packages/riskyrx/7152542.htm
By CHRIS ADAMS and ALISON YOUNG
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON -- In 1962, a Congress horrified that thousands of European babies had been deformed by the medication thalidomide ordered the Food and Drug Administration to make sure the same thing never happened in America.
Congress gave the FDA the power to assess the safety and effectiveness of all drugs before they could be sold on the U.S. market.
Forty years later, however, an ever-growing segment of the American pharmaceutical business is eluding that rigorous scrutiny. Millions of patients are being given drugs by their doctors that the FDA hasn't approved for treating their particular illnesses. Off-label prescribing, as it's called, puts patients at risk while offering no assurance the drugs will work.
And while the FDA has argued in court that the "risk to the public from unproven uses of drugs and devices is both real and substantial," the agency rarely has tried to curb it. When it attempted to do so in the 1990s, its efforts fizzled.
Now as the phenomenon soars -- Knight Ridder found that off-label prescribing for a sample
of top-selling drugs has nearly doubled in the last five years -- the Bush administration has opened the door to doing even less to stop it.
Saying recent court rulings have eroded its power, the FDA has sought public comment on whether drug makers should have more leeway to market the unapproved uses of their profitable drugs. Overseeing the effort is a Bush appointee who, before coming to the FDA, helped sue the agency over its marketing and advertising restrictions.
"They certainly are backing off," said Michael Wilkes, the vice dean at the School of Medicine at the University of California, Davis. He studied off-label promotions for the FDA in the 1990s.
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/s
WASHINGTON -- The Food and Drug Administration will not release long-delayed guidelines specifically for the production of generic versions of insulin and human growth hormone, according to an agency letter.
The guidelines, in draft form since 2002, would help manufacturers seeking to produce generic versions of insulin and human growth hormone. It is estimated that $3.5 billion is spent on the two drugs each year; introduction of those lower-cost versions could reduce that total by hundreds of millions of dollars.
Rush Limbaugh is a perfect real world example of an oxycontinmoron
http://www.newpath4.com/fountainofyouth.htmn dationcredit.htm d leofthebrain1.htm
http://www.newpath4.com/fountainofyouth040706_fou
http://www.newpath4.com/fountainofyouth040806_rid
Four more pages to go & the world changes.
Read the parent, grandparent, original article, parent article, et al very carefully.
Now ask yourself - will using a cellphone once, for a five minute period, cause your brain to swell up, grow numerous brains of its own, and eventually explode? (PROTIP: No)
The point is that even if (and yes, that is an "if" - Swedish scientists aren't perfect; nobody is) cell phones cause cancer, the question then remains - how much use does it take for this to occur?
If you really think hysteria's ever going to solve anything, you obviously weren't paying much attention to the fall 2001 political climate.