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."

Comments

Erm...

[marshallh]

Wait, does this mean the lump on the side of my head isn't from my cell phone? Oh, shi....

Finding out the truth

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:Finding out the truth

[tgibbs]

Observations are observations. If someone wants to verify the study, he can copy the methods and see if the results support or discredit the original study, or he can show that the methods were wrong.

Observations are observations, but interpretation is another matter. The observation is that when the investigators questioned a group of brain cancer victims, they reported more cell-phone use than people without cancer. As for interpretation, there are multiple possibilities:

1. Were people who used cell phones back then also more exposed to other cancer-causing influences than people who didn't use cell phones?
2. Are people with cancer more likely to recall or overestimate their cell phone use than people without cancer?
3. Do cell phones induce cancer?

In such a case, it is certainly reasonable to look at questions of mechanism. The first two hypotheses certainly make sense in terms of known mechanisms:

    1. People who used cell-phones back then were probably more well-to-do and/or in a different social class than people who didn't, they probably were exposed to a multitude of different foods, liquors, environmental toxins, and drugs.

    2. People who have a serious disease often are looking for something to blame, and might reasonably be more likely to remember (and perhaps even overestimate in retrospect) their cell phone use.

On the other hand the 3rd hypothesis has a big problem--cell phone radiation simply doesn't have enough energy to alter chemical bonds, which is a requirement for all established mechanisms of cancer induction. The fact that some studies have failed to pick up such an association provides further reason for skepticism.

LOL

[mozumder]

A pro-capitalist political organization puts out a press release questioning a study that may possibly hurt the communications industry?

THERES A FUCKING SURPRISE.

Re:LOL

[RexRhino]

I don't think that you could call a vast government beurocracy which costs industry billions every year and has almost absolute power to dictate policy to buisnesses a capitalist organization. I realize it is the fashion for Socialists to call anything they don't like "Capitalist", in the same way Pat Roberson and the Christian Right call anything they don't like "Satanist", but really your definition of "Capitalism" makes the word meaningless. Why not call things you are against "Badism", and say you are a "Goodist"... that would say about as much.

The FDA, in particular, is considered a bit overzealous if anything. Many drugs, food products, etc., which are totally legal most places in the world, get banned in the U.S. by the FDA. The usual critism is not that the FDA doesn't go far enough in regulation, but that it goes too far compared with places like Western Europe.

Animal data?

[i_am_the_r00t]

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!

Re:Animal data?

[trepan]

What, you can't picture hundreds of rabbits hopping about a lab with cell phones duct-taped to their heads?

Why the FDA?

[Vellmont]

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?

Re:Why the FDA?

[DerGeist]

The FDA is part of the Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA is divided into five groups:

Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER)
Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH)
Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER)
Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN)
Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM)

This falls underthe CDRH's domain and they share information with the FCC regarding the health effects of cell phones and other RF devices.

"FDA" almost seems like a misnomer since they are much more than just food and drugs, but that's what they started as, so that's what they're called today. Nowadays they are almost like a much more generic "health cop."

Whew!

[DerGeist]

Thank God, I can start using my cell phone again! Man, I'm glad someone criticized that study or I'd be in trouble.

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!

From another study on their list

[Kangburra]

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.

Re:From another study on their list

[BobTheLawyer]

I think you'll find that's an artifact of the length of the study. Longer term studies are difficult because comparatively few people have been using mobile phones for longer than 10 years.

In other news...

[gregarican]

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.

Radiation + head = ???

[Call Me Black Cloud]

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.

U.S. Government says science "load of hooey"

[ENOENT]

Is anyone here old enough to remember how long it took the government to recognize tobacco as a health risk?

No clear connection, sort of murky one

[digitaldc]

Don't worry - if it's not the cell phone that kills you, the guy talking on one while driving into your lane - will.

Text Message

[OneBigWord]

That's why I only use text messaging on my cell phone. But I'm sure my thumb cancer is unrelated.

Re:Text Message

[RexRhino]

Remember, if you lose full use of your thumb, then you are no better than any other primate out there!

Reasonable statement

[hubie]

I just read TFA and their statement is perfectly reasonable. 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. Other than making an adjustment based on the time of diagnosis, there were no other adjustments made for anything else (make/female, young/old, lifestyle, etc.). That should raise the level of suspicion in the strength of the conclusions greatly.

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.

Such a strang place, Slashdot.

[some guy on slashdot]

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?

Extendable Antennas

[DrDitto]

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.