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Study Shows Cell Phones Safe
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu Dec 07, 2006 06:24 PM
from the safe-for-our-human-brains dept.
from the safe-for-our-human-brains dept.
PreacherTom writes "In a move worthy of the Mythbusters, scientists in Denmark tracked over 420,000 cell phone users over the course of 21 years in an attempt to determine if the urban legend that cell phone use causes cancer is true. Their results: the RF energy produced by the phones did not correlate to an increased incidence of the disease. Please note that this doesn't make chatting on the highway at 85 mph any more safe." From the article: 'This so-called Danish cohort "is probably the strongest study out there because of the outstanding registries they keep,' said Joshua Muscat of Pennsylvania State University, who also has studied cell phones and cancer. 'As the body of evidence accumulates, people can become more reassured that these devices are safe, but the final word is not there yet,' Muscat added."
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They didnt let the facts get in the way before, (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
***
sigh...
Re: (Score:2)
Re:They didnt let the facts get in the way before, (Score:4, Insightful)
My question is - who paid for this study? Was it Nokia (caveat, I own shares in them) or some other cell phone firm?
Parent
Re:They didnt let the facts get in the way before, (Score:5, Insightful)
That depends on the study...most importantly, on its size. 21 years and 450,000 subjects makes for a pretty damn solid conclusion. And where are the studies that show any other conclusion?
Chris Mattern
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Could you show me the three independent studies that prove this fact?
Actually, what has been more often proved is that it doesn't matter how many studies you do - some people are terminally clue resistant and will continue to believe whatever the hell they feel like [wikipedia.org] regardless of evidence.
Re:They didnt let the facts get in the way before, (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
_other_ parts of the body (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:_other_ parts of the body (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:_other_ parts of the body (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
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Re:_other_ parts of the body (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, I do too, but only because I keep it on vibrate mode
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, if you are a female, one interesting finding the study came up with, was that cell phone use brings a 30% increased risk of Cervical cancer [wikipedia.org], which is usually caused by the sexually transmitted Human Papillomavirus [wikipedia.org].
The researchers suggest, while stressing that this is pure speculation, that women who were quicker to adopt cell phone use, might have been more sexually active with multiple partners than average women, for whatever reason.
The announcement, in Danish, along with some of the statistics, c
Misleading title... (Score:4, Insightful)
And what of it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Young Sebastion... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
-process hangs-
Somtimes... (Score:2, Funny)
Mabe worrying about cell phones causing cancer... (Score:4, Insightful)
Hey, at least there's a mechanism. Stress has been implicated in contributing to a lot of other diseases, why not cancer?
What about for driving? (Score:4, Insightful)
minor correction (Score:4, Insightful)
Fixed.
Parent
Mythbusters? (Score:5, Funny)
Mythbusters != science (Score:5, Insightful)
If I had an important paper published in a respected scientific journal and someone told me my work was 'worthy of the Mythbusters' I'd punch them in the face.
Mythbusters == science lite (Score:4, Insightful)
Mythbusters is probbably the only show on TV that actually DOES science and shows what it is rather than just acting as a mouthpiece for science. The do everything that other scientists do, albiet within the confines of a television show. They repeat experiments, they accept "peer review", they establish controls. They do everything but publish a paper in a journal. Tell me how what the Mythbusters do isn't science?
It might not be something you'd want to site in a research paper, so it's not really up to the standards of acadamia, but calling what they do not science is simply wrong.
Parent
Completely (Score:3, Insightful)
Just like scien
People plain just don't like cell phone users (Score:4, Insightful)
Or perhaps any less safe than chatting with a passenger while drinking a soda at 85 mph, unless we have data to show otherwise.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Not at all like MythBusters (Score:5, Insightful)
Evil Cancer Death Radiation! (Score:3, Interesting)
and other bullshit.
People want to believe in this stuff cause it sounds dangerous. Advocacy groups get funding, lawyers make money, politicians can scare people. Who's gonna listen to a bunch of boring Danish statistics?
Even the WHO subscribes to the 'precautionary principle'. Forget about it - its all futile! [webhotel.tut.fi]
What a HUGE crock! (Score:4, Informative)
Wow. I've come across some biased Wikipedia articles before, but the one you referenced sets a new low. It's current version, (with a single exception in non-bolded typeface buried in a paragraph), only mentioned studies which illustrate the safety of cell phone tech, and it does this using bolded headline entries. This is a shamefully poor representation of the available data on the subject. The article also fails to mention any of the many cases of conflict of interest which pollute many of the studies which claim safety. That's just pathetic and Wikipedia needs a solid re-write on this one.
I don't think the claims being made are bullshit, as you suggest, and I certainly am not motivated in my opinions because I like 'dangerous' sounding things. I just don't trust the telcos or the military, and there is plenty of reason not to. Anybody who argues differently is, in my opinion, either ignorant or willfully ignorant. It's the second variety of ignorance which baffles me.
-FL
Parent
Sweet Bleeding Jesus! (Score:3)
>'As the body of evidence accumulates, people can become more reassured that these devices are safe, but the final word is not there yet,' Muscat added."
I am just flipping appalled at the number of people in academia who have not internalized the concept that You Can't Prove A Fucking Negative! Can you prove that Neandertals are extinct? Can you prove that space aliens aren't controlling Bush and Blair with mind rays? Hell no! People seem to spend a huge amount of time worrying about shit that just might maybe could be true because, even though there is absofuckinglutely no evidence FOR it. On the other hand, they will blithely put up with 50,000 automobile deaths per year in the US and god knows how many deaths from tobacco and alcohol. Sheesh!
Speaking of which, I think I'll go have a medicinal gin and tonic and calm down.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You are right to be frustrated by the kind of reasoning that the OP was using, but not because it's impossible to prove a negative, but because it is impossible to completely prove anything so broad as 'Mobile phones do not cause cancer'. The article talks about taking the best bet, which is just looking at the evidence which is of course what everyone does every day with just about every action.
Pedantry regarding provability is pointless
The Control Group did not use cell phones? (Score:3, Funny)
If cellphones caused cancer... (Score:5, Funny)
It's not about Cancer. (Score:5, Interesting)
It's about fuzzing the brain.
Please pardon the bold face, but it seems this subject calls for it. . .
The blood-brain barrier becomes permeable when exposed to EM cell phone frequencies. This is shown by injecting dye into the blood of rats and exposing them to cell phone EM. The short version: control groups don't end up with dyed brains while the exposed groups do. This experiment has been repeated numerous times.
--Now aside from an artificially permeable blood-brain barrier making your brain more susceptible to whatever agents happen to be in your blood at the time, the really interesting question people should be instantly asking is, "How does cell phone EM cause this to happen?"
And better yet, "What OTHER cellular responses are stimulated by cell phone EM?"
This isn't rocket science. It's simply a matter of taking the data as it comes, remembering it as you read more articles, and applying it in a logical fashion to form more questions.
Why the heck is everybody so caught up by the Cancer question when there is OBVIOUSLY something else important going on?
-FL
Citings. . . (Score:3, Informative)
However, blood-brain barrier permeability due to EM radiation has been demonstrated numerous times.
here [blackwell-synergy.com]
here [ehponline.org]
and here [216.239.51.104]
and here's an actual post [bio.net] from an
Re:21 years? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
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But the US is almost entirely digital (Score:2)
It's like europe was in 1993.
Re:21 years? (Score:5, Insightful)
It is not always correct to assume that USA is on the edge of technology development and deployment.
Parent
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The article do discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the study, any blame on putting things in a better
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Re:Stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Stupid (Score:5, Informative)
"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen"
-- Albert Einstein
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Whats wrong with using common sense? During the days of Audrey Hepburn (who's dress is now worth thousands of dollars, can't be that bad) it was quite common to smoke. Guess what people told the scepticists of smoking during those days? Better yet: guess who is laughing last? (this isn't meant as a sick joke. its not my fault the truth is unforgiving).
Uhhh, you do realise you've just proved my point? Back in those days it was, as you say, "common sense" that smoking was good for you -- after all, it made you lose weight, and helps you relax, and those are medical benefits, right? Well, wrong. So who's laughing last? The people who decided not to listen to common sense and go out and do scientific research into whether smoking really was good for you. And guess what? It wasn't. So now who's laughing? Anyone who listened to the scientific research
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Way to pick the exceptional case mentioned in passing because it's interesting but not important at all to complain about. If the article is vaguely accurate then it looks like what they did was pull data from the cancer registry, pull data from the phone company, mush it together and shock horror people who use mobi
With all that worrying, you're going to get cancer (Score:4, Insightful)
Also according to my made-up numbers, 10 years ago people used to only worry about cell phones causing cancer 5 minutes a day. These days with people like you around people worry about cell phones causing cancer 20 minutes a day! Maybe the worrying wasn't detectable back then, but it is now! We'll only know in 30 years!
Putting a device that emits radiation next to your head is harmful. How much? Who knows.
Worrying about dangers that don't exist is harmful. How much? Who knows. But if I state things as if we don't know anything about it, that totally false sense of uncertainty sure sounds scary.
My prescription includes making fun of people that don't understand science.
Parent
Re:Stupid (Score:5, Funny)
The question now is... Are you giving your mobile phone cancer?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There is no serious study that can be 100% conclusive. If anybody comes to you preaching 100%-fool-proof numbers that is a sure tale-tale sign you are dealing with a wanker. What you can do is set extremely low chances for your study to be wrong (less than 2%, less than 1%, etc). Unfortunately the closer you get to zero, the more effort (read size of your case study) you must put into it. At some point you have to have some faith in probability.
There will always be incredulous people or con