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Study of Cellphone Risks Finds 'Some Evidence' of Link To Cancer, At Least In Male Rats (nytimes.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: For decades, health experts have struggled to determine whether or not cellphones can cause cancer. On Thursday, a federal agency released the final results of what experts call the world's largest and most costly experiment to look into the question. The study originated in the Clinton administration, cost $30 million and involved some 3,000 rodents. The experiment, by the National Toxicology Program, found positive but relatively modest evidence that radio waves from some types of cellphones could raise the risk that male rats develop brain cancer. But he cautioned that the exposure levels and durations were far greater than what people typically encounter, and thus cannot "be compared directly to the exposure that humans experience." Moreover, the rat study examined the effects of a radio frequency associated with an early generation of cellphone technology, one that fell out of routine use years ago. Any concerns arising from the study thus would seem to apply mainly to early adopters who used those bygone devices, not to users of current models.
The lowest level of radiation in the federal study was equal to the maximum exposure that federal regulations allow for cellphone users. That level of exposure rarely occurs in typical cellphone use, the toxicology agency said. The highest level was four times higher than the permitted maximum. The rodents in the studies were exposed to radiation nine hours a day for two years -- far longer even than heavy users of cellphones. For the rats, the exposures started before birth and continued until they were about 2 years old. Some 2 to 3 percent of the male rats exposed to the radiation developed malignant gliomas, a deadly brain cancer, compared to none in a control group that received no radiation. Many epidemiologists see no overall rise in the incidence of gliomas in the human population. "The study also found that about 5 to 7 percent of the male rats exposed to the highest level of radiation developed certain heart tumors, called schwannomas, compared to none in the control group," the NYT reports.
It's worth nothing that the rats were exposed to radiation at a frequency of 900 megahertz, the frequency used in the second generation of cellphones that prevailed in the 90s, when the study was first conceived. For comparison, fourth generation (4G) and fifth generation (5G) phones employ much higher frequencies, which are "far less successful at penetrating the bodies of humans and rats," the NYT reports.
The lowest level of radiation in the federal study was equal to the maximum exposure that federal regulations allow for cellphone users. That level of exposure rarely occurs in typical cellphone use, the toxicology agency said. The highest level was four times higher than the permitted maximum. The rodents in the studies were exposed to radiation nine hours a day for two years -- far longer even than heavy users of cellphones. For the rats, the exposures started before birth and continued until they were about 2 years old. Some 2 to 3 percent of the male rats exposed to the radiation developed malignant gliomas, a deadly brain cancer, compared to none in a control group that received no radiation. Many epidemiologists see no overall rise in the incidence of gliomas in the human population. "The study also found that about 5 to 7 percent of the male rats exposed to the highest level of radiation developed certain heart tumors, called schwannomas, compared to none in the control group," the NYT reports.
It's worth nothing that the rats were exposed to radiation at a frequency of 900 megahertz, the frequency used in the second generation of cellphones that prevailed in the 90s, when the study was first conceived. For comparison, fourth generation (4G) and fifth generation (5G) phones employ much higher frequencies, which are "far less successful at penetrating the bodies of humans and rats," the NYT reports.
So you radiated the rats way more than even a cellphone addict teen could be and they're not conclusive because of that?
Then why the fuck did you do it?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Now, all the morons that go on and on about cell phone radiation in the first place and wouldn't understand the vast majority of the article and therefore won't read it will have all the evidence they need to support their claims.
A better headline would have focused on saying "Cell phone radiation safe for humans".
But if you don't believe me... ask the Anti-vaxxers about scientific proof published as headlines.
>"far less successful at penetrating the bodies of humans and rats"
Really?
Google indicates that 3G typically operates between 1.8GHz and 2.5GHz, 4G between 2 and 8GHz, and 5G between 0.6Ghz and 6GHz, as well as 24-86 GHz
For comparison, microwave ovens, famous for cooking things from the inside out, operate at 2.45GHz. Now, that's tuned to be really well absorbed by oils and water for the purpose of cooking - but it seems to me that 3G, 4G, and the lower range of 5G all straddle that frequency quite nicely, and unless they specifically avoid that particular band, should be expected to have a very similar effect. Not on the same scale of course - unless your phone is transmitting a narrow-band 1+kW signal, but any bio-molecular response is going to happen one microwave photon at a time.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Most people use their smartphones for data/texting these days, rather than voice calls. You'd assume there'd be an increased incidence of hand cancer if modern cell phone radio emissions were carcinogenic.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
The article is full of guano to say that 4G is only on higher frequencies. 1G analog was on 800 MHz. 2G went on all bands, as did 3G and 4G. So 4G LTE is on 600 MHz up to 2.6 GHz. 5G goes on higher frequencies too. But the old 800 MHz licenses are still in use, not for analog or even 2G.
Fools think that cell towers are dangerous. But if the antenna is up a tower, it's out of your way, and if you're near it, the phone near your head transmits with less power. The phone near your head uses maximum power when it doesn't have all those bars from a local cell. The main risk to a cell tower is from climbing it.
5% of the time you get statistically significant results by chance. But assuming this is a reproducible effect you're jumping the gun by attributing it to a specific mechanism.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
So you radiated the rats way more ... why the fuck did you do it?
Take it you've never visited DC or NYC.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The rats in the study were only exposed to cell phone radiation for 2 years, and I'm assuming they were sacrificed at the end of the 2 years. (Rats only live 3-4 years anyway at best). How long does it take humans to develop cancer after exposure to a carcinogen? Quite a lot longer than that, in some cases. Sometimes it's decades.
I realize that there were factors in this study which would tend to overestimate the risk (e.g., intensity of radiation and daily length of exposure), but the limited length of the study would seem to introduce an error in the other direction.
It is well known that if you subject tissues to elevated temperatures, you'll get chemical changes that could lead to cancer. And a rat doesn't have enough body area to get rid of heat as easily as a large human, meaning that tissues could easily be overheating.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
The confidence interval is 98%, sometimes 95%. That is, just by random chance, 2% or 5% of the time, a study will turn up a correlation which doesn't really exist. The die rolls just happened to come up snake eyes that time. The chances increase the more correlations a study looks for. Like the massive Netherlands study a couple decades back which found a strong correlation between cell phone radiation and certain types of cancer. But it turned out they looked at thousands of possible correlations, so just by chance alone you'd have expected them to find a few hundred random correlations, with a few "strong" ones (strong by chance, not because it was real). Like if you throw a thousand darts at a dartboard, just by pure chance a few will hit the bullseye; not because you're good at throwing darts, but because of random chance.
If (as the media tends to do) you then choose to publicize the studies finding a correlation while ignoring all the studies finding no correlation, then you're committing confirmation bias. Studies which find no positive result still generate valid data. And dismissing them in favor of studies with a positive result is a statistical and logical error. To properly assess what's going on, you need to compare the number of positive result studies with the number of negative result studies. And given the huge number of negative result studies, the greater likelihood here is that this is one of the studies which found a correlation due to a random blip, not something that's real.
Obligatory XKCD comic.
Too many damn rats in this world anyway.
There's a note by one of the reviewers who points out that the control rats in the group that were compared to the "high radiation" male rats had a lower than expected number of gliomas, which is part of how they had "more gliomas" in that group.
The number of male rats who had gliomas actually had a fairly typical number of gliomas for rats.
There was also a bit of fudging up above: while 3000 or so rats were studied, they broke them into smaller numbers with different dose rates. There were only 94 rats in the group of "high exposure" rats.
Basically, instead of a "3000 rat" study, it was a whole bunch of smaller studies. Treated as a 3000-rat whole, there was no effect, statistically.
I remember digging into the preliminary draft that's mentioned in TFA. Here are the two highlights:
NTP conducted the studies in phases, including several phases to determine the correct field strengths that would not raise the animal's body temperature.
They were exposed for 10-minute on, 10-minute off increments, totaling a little more than nine hours [of radiation over an 18 hour period per day] from before birth through two years of age.
First they had to figure out the "correct field strength" that wouldn't cook the rodents.
Then they cycled that just-below-cooking field on and off over the course of 18 hours per day, for two years, over the entire body, beginning (for the rats) in the womb
AFACT, there's nothing in the published materials that implies a relationship exists between the study and human health..
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Microwaves DON'T heat from the inside out:
see Wickipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"This idea arises from heating behavior seen if an absorbent layer of water lies beneath a less absorbent drier layer at the surface of a food; in this case, .... etc"
The Microwave is NOT "tuned to be really well absorbed by oils and water for the purpose of cooking".
again...
" It is a common misconception that microwave ovens heat food by operating at a special resonance of water molecules in the food. As noted microwave ovens can operate at many frequencies"
and
"....the microwave oven's operating frequency has absolutely nothing to do with water or any other material resonant frequency whatsoever. Any coincidence is coincidental. The ISM (industrial-scientific-medical) band frequencies given out by the FCC were determined by regulatory/bureaucratic/interference considerations not by physics".
Most people use their smartphones for data/texting these days, rather than voice calls.
Even when I am voicing, I put the phone on speaker and hold it about 30 cm in front of my face. I never put it up to my ear unless I need both hands on the steering wheel.
We have back generated a study from the 19th century - zero cases of cancer for cell phone use pre 1900s.
Confirmation bias!
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Virtually everyone in the whole world uses mobile phones every day, young and old, rich, poor, etc. and they have done for decades. If phone radiation caused any significant health issues, we'd be able to see those pretty darn easily. Have we?
J. Frank Parnell : Ever been to Utah? Ra-di-a-tion. Yes, indeed. You hear the most outrageous lies about it. Half-baked goggle-box do-gooders telling everybody it's bad for you. Pernicious nonsense. Everybody could stand a hundred chest X-rays a year. They ought to have them, too. When they canceled the project it almost did me in. One day my mind was literally bursting. The next day - nothing. Swept away. But I showed them. I had a lobotomy in the end.
Otto : Lobotomy? Isn't that for loonies?
Parnell : Not at all. Friend of mine had one. Designer of the neutron bomb. You ever hear of the neutron bomb? Destroys people - leaves buildings standing. Fits in a suitcase. It's so small, no one knows it's there until - BLAMMO. Eyes melt, skin explodes, everybody dead. So immoral, working on the thing can drive you mad. That's what happened to this friend of mine. So he had a lobotomy. Now he's well again.
J. Frank Parnell
No Republicans, Democrats, Socialists, ordinary non political people, get cancer about 20% of them at random.
It's a pity John McCain is dead (brain cancer) because Republicans will get to kill healthcare for anyone who gets cancer. And they will die. But hey, dead people can't vote against Republicans, so that's OK. Someone will have crunched the numbers on that.
And everyone has a 4 out of 5 chance of not getting cancer. So fingers crossed.
And if you don't? Well as long as your a millionaire, you should be able to pay for the cancer treatment.
And millionaires tend to vote Republican, so the dead people actually help the Republican vote. I'm guessing your old SuperKendall, old and Republican, and so far haven't been hit with medical bill that bankrupts you.
What is it with this site and political comments Trump especially. You are so predictable you might as well be bots.
It's "possible" carcinogen, because it hasn't been proven not to be a carcinogen, despite thousands of experiments and studies the conclusion remains "more studies needed". Of course, out of that many studies you will get statistical flukes where data shows correlation to increased or decreased instances of cancer, but that's just the nature of statistics, vast majority of studies show no significance one way or another. There is no rational reason to expect there to be an actual causal relationship and indeed, data shows none, so why do we keep looking in the first place? Why don't we spend the same effort into looking if say, electric fans cause cancer? They could you know, don't ask me how, but they could, it's equally possible as cellphones causing cancer.
This reminds me of the joke about the wild rabbit and the one born in captivity, sharing the same cage in the lab. The wild one convinces the "old dog" to escape with him (cause he knows the inns and outs in the lab), promising to show him the best three things in a wild rabbit's life.
First, they go to a cabbage filed. "That's number one", says the wild one. They eat to bursting. Then, they go to a carrot field. "That's number two, see how great it is" intones the wild rabbit. They eat more. Three, they go to the rabbit holes. Bunnies! Lots of them! Sex all night!! "That's the best part, number three" says the wild one. "What do you think". " I don't know man", replies the lab rabbit, "It's all pretty good, but I am going back". "Why!!!". "Well, mate, I am just dying for a cigarette!".
Or at least, when a rat asks for a cellphone, don't give it a second generation one.
Frequency has nothing to do with cellphone technology generation and those frequencies are still in widespread use today. In fact, T-Mobile, which had been limited to higher frequencies since it started as a 2G service, has just spent a small fortune buying licenses for 700MHz and 600MHz spectrum (because it penetrates walls more easily and travels further distances)
The study sounds like it's not useful anyway, due to the higher rates of exposure, but this kind of nonsense doesn't belong to the summary.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
These are the kinds of fantasies that Democrat "men" jerk off to.
Talk about the deaths of little 21 month old Mariee, how ICE stole her from her mother, she got sick in an ICE internment army camp, lost 1kg of weight, was not given medical attention before being released to die with her mother, the mother who lives in New Jersey.
But Vice News says five pediatricians who reviewed details of Mariee's care say that after contracting the illness, she received treatment that was consistent with what they would have done. The story says all five doctors believed Mariee's "recommended course of treatment would have been the same had she not been in ICE custody."
"It's reasonable care," said Dr. Ewen Wang, associate director of pediatric emergency medicine at Stanford University Medical Center. "It didn't sound like she was in the best of health, but not something you anticipate dying from."
https://www.usnews.com/news/us...
New Jersey.
"Juarez told Vice News that she decided to have Mariee buried in their native Guatemala. Her asylum case is pending."
Democrat propaganda in full swing.
my work
lol
Whew! So this will finally convince the people who think cellphones cause cancer that everything is OK, right? Right?
CORRECT: "the sun is the largest source of radio emissions..."
An article about cell phone radiation I posted on Slashdot on July 27 2005.
She wasn't treated in ICE care.
Yes she was.
Her fever wasn't investigated.
Yes it was.
Dr. Ewen Wang comments are simply her interpretting the report from ICE.
Yes, Dr. Wang reviewed the record of the treatment which the child recieved (you know, the treatment which you keep pretending she didn't receive) while in ICE custody and came to the conclusion that it met the standard of reasonable care.
When she was released her mother took her to hospital (because she obviously needed it), and she died.
Yet you don't blame the mother for taking a sick child across the border, or the hospital for not saving her life after several weeks of treatment. No, it's ICE fault. Because orange man bad.
Sure it's not YOUR child yet. You are an American, they could never do that to you.
No I'm not.
They're not snatching YOUR child yet, they might be taking your vote (e.g. refusing to accept student id as proof of being a student for voting purposes), and they may be taking away your Article 14th citizenship, but not your child.
If you think that proof of being a student is the same as proof of citizenship, you're probably an idiot.
And anyway, your child has legal rights, which the child is made to sign away with a crayon mark on a legal form.
Scratch that; definitely an idiot.
Fucking Nazi apologist.
They killed her, it was illegal, they know it, they kicked her out with a cover story and she died. Not your child.... yet.
It's cute that democrats try to pretend to be the honest and rational ones while constantly spitting out garbage like this. You make Trump look like a paragon of truth and virtue.
That graph shows male and female, it's not brain cancer vs. cellphone usage...because the numbers are so small it looks like a gradual uptick, but it is not statistically significant. You have to read, not just look at the pictures.
In case that's too long "brain cancer rates unchanged, one type of brain cancer has increased but 'unknown type' has decreased".
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
Dr. Wang reviewed the ICE report ICE wrote saying ICE had treated her fairly. She had no other information.
This makes it obvious that you're not just misinformed but rather a wilful liar. The report from Vice goes into detail covering exactly what kind of treatment she received, and even the mother has been open about the fact that her child was treated on multiple occasions while in ICE custody (her main complaint about the treatment seems to be that the waiting room was "over air conditioned". Quelle horreur).
So you're just an asshole willfully making up bullshit to try and score political points. Anything else you have to say is entirely worthless.
I sleep a lot deeper with the phone and wifi off. Live in the country side far from neighbours wifi. Wife notices it too. Haven't slept this well in about 17 years. Pretty amazing for my quality of life now that I've finally figured it out. I could also never understand why I slept so well at my parents cabin until I made this connection.
Are you OK? This is a paid protest. Some complete asshole dredged these people up and paid them to walk all this way. At the very least stoked their hopes of going to America, a futile effort, for their own gain. A "progressive" did this. Took advantage of these people, exploited them, for a political show.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
Putting a phone on your face is so undignified. We have excellent bluetooth devices and automobile integration.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
I think we can all agree that with modern Smartphones, their power and connectivity, human psyche is way more at risk than the odd and off chance that someone gets brain cancer from cellphone radiation. I'm noticing cognitive faults in myself that I don't relate to age alone but to excess computer, web and smart device usage. And I'm sure it's way worse for people not just stuck with slashdot but hooked on FB, Twitter and Instagram.
Whenever I'm about to upgrade my phone I always consider a downgrade. And this time around I have yet another reason to consider that: the observations mentioned above.
Bottom line: cancer is the least of issues I'm worried about with modern portable smart devices.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
"the type of brain cancer
observed is similar to a type of brain tumor linked to
heavy cell phone use in some human studies."
From the article: https://www.niehs.nih.gov/heal...
However, the studies question the long-held
assumption that radio frequency radiation is of
no concern as long as the energy level is low and
does not significantly heat the tissues.
Did NTP find health effects other than cancer?
NTP found lower body weights among newborn
rats and their mothers, especially when exposed to
high levels of RFR during pregnancy and lactation,
yet these animals grew to normal size.
What factors contributed to the NTP conclusions?
In addition to seeing tumors in the male rats with
higher exposures to RFR, NTP scientists also observed
other changes in the hearts of exposed male and
female rats that supported their conclusions.
The evidence for tumors in the brain and adrenal
glands was not as strong as what NTP scientists
saw in the heart. However, the type of brain cancer
observed is similar to a type of brain tumor linked to
heavy cell phone use in some human studies.
3
It's worth nothing that the rats were exposed to radiation at a frequency of 900 megahertz, the frequency used in the second generation of cellphones that prevailed in the 90s, when the study was first conceived. For comparison, fourth generation (4G) and fifth generation (5G) phones employ much higher frequencies, which are "far less successful at penetrating the bodies of humans and rats," the NYT reports.
Study originated before 2000. They spent 30 million dollars. Studied 900 MHz phones. Now we are using the 5 GHz bands. So they need 150 million dollars, (five times higher frequency, they need fives times more funding) and another 18 years to study the link between new phones and rat cancer.
They might need another 30 million dollars to study if the rats were "holding the phone right", if they were using iPhones
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Non-ionizing radiation may not cause cancer via DNA alternation, but possibly via heating. If this is the case, then anything that causes localized heating could increase risks.
We seem fixated on the idea that everything new must be bad for us.
So we have studies after studies showing that Cell phones usage isn't directly affecting our health. So they turned the study up to 11 to an unrealistic version of cell phone usage, and they see a slight change. Then we can all go yelling CELL PHONES ARE BAD FOR YOU!
While you get more harmful affects from daily lives. Sunlight bad for you, lack of Sunlight bad for you. It almost seems like we as Animals have been surviving for billions of years and the ones who had traits that prevented the elements from killing them, survived.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Is there anything that won't give one cancer?
Unless you work for the cellphone industry, there is no harm in taking precautions. Even a bluetooth headset puts out far less power than your cellphone.
At one time, people thought that Diethylstilbestrol, Thalidomide, and radium were safe.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
Don't female rats spend a lot more time on the phone?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Was the energy transmitted in digital packets near the rats or were the cellphone radiation sources analog broadcast sources?
If digital, what was the nature of the digital packet?
It is conceivable that a digital non-stochastic regular pulse could cause more damage to organic systems which are used to bathing in stochastic (random) levels of radiation.
Non-ionizing? So what? That just means it isn't ionizing radiation, which we know to be terrible for you.
Non-ionizing radiation absolutely still has the potential to be harmful.
You have it exactly backwards:
Yes, the commonly used frequency of microwaves (2.4 GHz) is easily absorbed by water, fat, and sugar.
But the frequency is well removed from maximum absorption point. The frequency band was selected because the optimum frequency would prevent penetration beneath the surface of most foods.
And FWIW, industrial microwave ovens use various other frequency bands for the same reason.