Biggest Study On Cellphone Health Effects Launched in Europe

An anonymous reader writes "The biggest study to date into the effects of cellphone usage on long-term health was launched today, aiming to track at least a quarter of a million of people in five European countries for up to 30 years. The Cohort Study on Mobile Communications (COSMOS) differs from previous attempts to examine links between mobile phone use and diseases such as cancer and neurological disorders in that it will follow users' behaviour in real time. Most other large-scale studies have centred around asking people already suffering from cancer or other diseases about their previous cellphone use. Researchers said long-term monitoring will provide more time for diseases to develop, since many cancers take 10 or 15 years for symptoms to appear."

Comments

Cause or effect?

[Joce640k]

So...um, if they find brain cancer in the sector of the population who can't ever seem to put their phones down, will that be diagnosed as a cause or an effect?

Re:Cause or effect?

[jamesh]

This is the real problem. The believers will go right on believing no matter what the conclusion is.

Truer words were never spoken. The results of the study can never be 'mobile phones cause cancer'. If there is any correlation it will be something like 'heavy use of a mobile phone increases your chance of brain cancer by x%' where x is likely to be quite small or we'd have noticed it by now, and certainly small enough that it won't have much meaning to anyone and they'll keep on doing the same thing as they always have.

What we know right now is that talking on the phone while driving reduces your concentration by some amount (depending on a whole load of factors including the person) and increases your chances of an accident by some amount. It doesn't seem to stop anyone from doing it though. Neither does the threat of punishment. The numbers are small enough that people can rationalise them down to zero through the various cognitive biases that inhabit the human mind. In particular "it will never happen to me".

(My bet is that phone related distractions cause more accidents and deaths than phone radiation will ever cause.)

Re:Cause or effect?

[TheLink]

> My bet is that phone related distractions cause more accidents and deaths than phone radiation will ever cause.

If that is true heavy cellphone use could actually help reduce your chances of getting cancer ;).

So even if cancer risks actually increase for heavy users who never drive while using them (who are probably a small minority), the results of the study might be "no increase in cancer" to average person :).

Control group?

[igaborf]

Yeah, but where are they going to find a control group of people who don't use a cellphone?

</kidding>

new category of story

[argStyopa]

+1, we're going to keep studying this until it agrees with our preconceived ideas.

Re:What, now?

[blackfrancis75]

.. many people are losing faith in science.

IMHO Faith and Science are exact opposites.

There is faith in science (just very little)

[jonaskoelker]

IMHO Faith and Science are exact opposites.

There's a scientific meta-claim that submitting theories to trial by experiment (and discarding the theories which disagree with the world) is likely to produce good theories about how the world works.

How would you verify this? Experimentally? Why would you believe that experimenting is a good way to learn the truth?

Yes, in the end I'm asking "you believe that what you see (perceive) is a reasonably accurate reflecting of what the world really is like; why?" But my answer is still the same: there is an element of faith in science.

That said, I want that kept small, carefully watched and well understood.