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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."
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
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
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?
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.
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.