So let's say you're a science journalist at a podunk news outlet like the WHO's PR department. You're going to look at the first study, see the 1.39 OR, and report that heavy cell phone users are 40% more likely to develop gliomas. BUT HOLD UP THERE, SPARKY McPULITZER. Look at that wide-ass confidence interval (CI)! That CI there really means that the boffins out there in Denmark can only be 95% certain that the the whole population of heavy cell phone users is somewhere between 1% and 92% more likely than the rest of the world to develop these gliomas. Even then, there's a 5% chance that the numbers could be some crazy fluke, a statistical eddy in a large river of stochasticity.We conducted a population-based case–control study to investigate the relationship between mobile phone use and risk of glioma among 1,522 glioma patients and 3,301 controls.[...]For more than 10 years of mobile phone use reported on the side of the head where the tumor was located, an increased OR of borderline statistical significance (OR = 1.39, 95% CI 1.01, 1.92, p trend 0.04) was found, whereas similar use on the opposite side of the head resulted in an OR of 0.98 (95% CI 0.71, 1.37).
In this population-based case-control study carried out in three regions of Germany, all incident cases of glioma and meningioma among patients aged 30–69 years were ascertained during 2000–2003. In total, 366 glioma cases, 381 meningioma cases, and 1,494 controls were interviewed.[...] Overall use of a cellular phone was not associated with brain tumor risk; the respective odds ratios were 0.98 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.74, 1.29) for glioma and 0.84 (95% CI: 0.62, 1.13) for meningioma. Among persons who had used cellular phones for 10 or more years, increased risk was found for glioma (odds ratio = 2.20, 95% CI: 0.94, 5.11) but not for meningioma (odds ratio = 1.09, 95% CI: 0.35, 3.37). No excess of temporal glioma (p = 0.41) or meningioma (p = 0.43) was observed in cellular phone users as compared with nonusers.
A rating of “possibly carcinogenic” is the IARC’s third-highest rating, falling below “carcinogenic” and “probably carcinogenic.”This reminds me of a jewelry salesman pushing diamonds over sapphires, noting that sapphires aren't the hardest gems, so a sapphire could be damaged in real-world situations. What's harder than sapphires? Diamonds.
The experts added that it remains far from clear how cellphones could cause brain cancer, given that the electromagnetic radiation emitted by the devices is far too weak to have a biological effect.So cellphones could possibly be carcinogenic, even though they're too weak to have a biological effect.
In an occupational mortality analysis of 486,000 adult male death records filed in Washington State in the years 1950-1982, leukemia and the non-Hodgkin's lymphomas show increased proportionate mortality ratios (PMRs) in workers employed in occupations with intuitive exposures to electromagnetic fields. Nine occupations of 219 were considered to have electric or magnetic field exposures. These were: electrical and electronic technicians, radio and telegraph operators, radio and television repairmen, telephone and power linemen, power station operators, welders, aluminum reduction workers, motion picture projectionists and electricians. There were 12,714 total deaths in these occupations. Eight of the nine occupations had PMR increases for leukemia [International Classification of Diseases (ICD), seventh revision 204] and seven of the nine occupations had PMR increases for the other lymphoma category (7th ICD 200.2, 202). The highest PMRs were seen for acute leukemia: (67 deaths observed, 41 deaths expected; PMR 162), and in the other lymphomas (51 deaths observed, 31 deaths expected; PMR 164). No increase in mortality was seen for Hodgkin's disease or multiple myeloma. These findings offer some support for the hypothesis that electric and magnetic fields may be carcinogenic.See also, leukemia and ham radio operators. You know, ham radio ... much longer wavelength than cell phones. And yet ...
In an occupational mortality analysis of 486,000 adult male death records filed in Washington State in the years 1950-1982, leukemia and the non-Hodgkin's lymphomas show increased proportionate mortality ratios (PMRs) in workers employed in occupations with intuitive exposures to electromagnetic fields. Nine occupations of 219 were considered to have electric or magnetic field exposures.And in 1950-1982 a lot of the electric and electronic occupations had increased exposure to
The above mechanisms are pretty speculative, but saying "there is absolutely no physically conceivable mechanism" is untrue.Thanks hattifettener, I was just going to pop in and say this. I certainly don't see any evidence that there's a link to cancer, but the oft-repeated argument:
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posted by kinnakeet at 11:09 AM on May 31, 2011