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Swedish Study Finds Cell Phone Cancer Risk

Posted by Zonk on Sun Apr 02, 2006 02:40 AM
from the i-call-my-tumor-tummy dept.
Communications Science
dtjohnson writes "A new Swedish study has found that heavy users of cell phones had a 240 percent increase in brain tumors on the side of their head that the phone was used on. The study defined 'heavy' use as more than 2,000 total hours, or approximately one hour of use per workday for 10 years. An earlier British study was previously discussed here that didn't find an increased risk, although that study covered fewer subjects and only followed one type of brain tumor for a shorter period of time. Or course, the biggest epidemiological study of all is the one we are all participating in whenever we use our cell phone. The results from that study won't be available for a while."
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[+] NYC Subway Cell Service, No Cell-Related Cancer 234 comments
Luke PiWalker wrote to mention a CNN article discussing a bid process for offering cell phone service to NYC subway stations. The contract is only to wire up stations; moving trains will not have service. Those New Yorkers will also be safe from their phones, as the BBC reports on a study indicating cell phones don't cause cancer. From that article, submitted to us by Dan Hope: "She acknowledged that there appeared to be an increased risk among brain cancer sufferers on the side of the head where they held the phone. The team, however, did not put this down to a causal link, because almost exactly the same decreased risk was seen on the other side of the head, leaving no overall increase risk of tumours for mobile phone users. Instead, they blamed biased reporting from brain tumour sufferers who knew what side of the head their tumours were on."
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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."
[+] Mobile: Cell Phone Use Study Sees Increased Cancer Risk 222 comments
Dotnaught writes "Frequent cell phone users face a 50% greater risk of developing tumors in the salivary glands than those who don't use cell phones, according to a recently published study. The study, led by Tel Aviv University epidemiologist Dr. Siegal Sadetzki, appeared last December in the American Journal of Epidemiology 'Sadetzki's findings are sure to add to confusion surrounding the already contentious debate about the health effects of cell phone radiation. Many other studies in recent years have found no increased risk of cancer due to mobile phone use, but a few have stopped short of ruling the possibility out and a few have said increased risk of cancer is small but real.'. Even with the increased risk, however, you're still about three times more likely to die in a car crash in a given year."
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Swedish Study Finds Cell Phone Cancer Risk 50 Comments More /

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  • News? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by eMartin (210973)
    Um... Didn't we know this like 20 years ago?

    • Re:News? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by MoonFog (586818) on Sunday April 02 2006, @02:46AM (#15044615)
      Don't know if you're joking or not, but even in the summary it is mentioned the British article which goes against this, so no, we didn't "know" this 20 years ago. Hell, we still don't KNOW that it causes tumours either. What's significant about this study is the timespan of it.

    • Read the Study (Score:4, Insightful)

      by raydulany (892228) on Sunday April 02 2006, @11:52AM (#15045959) Journal
      If you read the study (and know anything about experimental design) you will see that the "results" aren't nearly so impressive as they claim. The short of it: they looked at a bunch of people who already had brain cancer, and then determined how many of them used a cell phone (roughly) an hour per day. I don't know about you, but most people I know use cell phones that often on average, and so it comes as no suprise to me that approx. 85% of the people in the study had high cell phone use. What this shows is ALMOST NOTHING because it doesn't compare what the rate of high cell phone use is among the general population. All it proves is that in a group of people who had brain cancer a lot of them used cell phones. In case it seems like I'm talking circularly, think of this analogous example: if I took a group of people with brain cancer and surveyed them we would probably find that a very high percentage of them (1) drink coffee every day (2) watch television every day (3) breath air every day, but you wouldn't immediately say "OMG, [Coffee, TV, Breathing] causes brain cancer!" Anyone who believed this story without at least reading a description of the study should stop breathing now so that they don't get cancer.
      • wrong answer, 85 out of 905 CA patients were high users; that's 9.4 %, much less than the amount what you're ridiculing the study for being alarmist over.

        One thing I'd be curious about is because the study reported that people who use cell phone have a 240% greater chance of their tumor being located on the side of the brain that they hold their cells on, what percentage of right-handed people have malignant tumors on the left-side of their brains (left brian controls right body) and left-handers with malig

  • Assumptions (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MichaelSmith (789609) on Sunday April 02 2006, @02:47AM (#15044619) Homepage Journal
    Kjell Mild, who led the study, said the figures meant that heavy users of mobile phones, for instance of who make mobile phone calls for 2,000 hours or more in their life, had a 240 percent increased risk for a malignant tumor on the side of the head the phone is used.
    "The way to get the risk down is to use hands-free," he told Reuters.

    How does he know that? Did his study make that conclusion? The article doesn't say anything about use of hands free kits beyond that statement.

    I think Mr Mild is making assumptions about the reason for the apparent 240% increase, and factors which he thinks may be important.

    • Well, what is identified as the main reason behind tumours is the radiation that comes from the antenna of the cell phone. Using a hands-free set makes sure that the antenna is far away from your head. Now, having it in your front pocket ...
      • Well, what is identified as the main reason behind tumours is the radiation that comes from the antenna of the cell phone.

        TFA doesn't say that except with reference to a British study.

        Using a hands-free set makes sure that the antenna is far away from your head.

        Some phones put so much RF into the hands free kit that radiation exposure is worse on hands free. It would be even worse if you leave the earpiece in between calls.

        • Re:Assumptions (Score:5, Insightful)

          by ByteSlicer (735276) on Sunday April 02 2006, @06:46AM (#15045090)
          Some phones put so much RF into the hands free kit that radiation exposure is worse on hands free

          Riiight... If you can make the GHz RF radiation travel into the wire of your earpiece, then you should patent it quickly, because then you've managed to do something that no radio engineer deemed possible... There's something called matching impedance you might want to investigate.

            • Re:Assumptions (Score:5, Informative)

              by Nightlight3 (248096) on Sunday April 02 2006, @01:02PM (#15046215)
              While we are at it we can argue about how a few watts of photons with less energy than infrared can cause cancer while kilowatts from a nice comfy open fire do not.

              The penetration depth of EM waves is roughly of the size of wavelength. Hence, the infrared radiation from a fire doesn't even penetrate the human skin (the heat will eventually transmit deeper via molecular vibrations but that is a slower mechanicsm and we have evolved a biological warning system via pain sensation), while the RF radiation from the cell phones (or similarly the microwave ovens), which is several orders of magnitudes longer, penetrates and is absorbed by entire brain. Since the presence of RF emitter near brain is a very recent occurence on evolutionary time scales, we don't have a built in biological warning for the damage it does. The whole generation of current teenagers will be going senile in their thirties.
              • Most people concider the word sunburn to mean the internal cellular damage and inflamatory resonse caused by low energy ionizing photons eminating from the sun commonly refered to as UVA and UVB rays. I suspect that the damage you are reciving is from non-ionizing infrared, if your so close to the fire that your getting burned from IR absortion, you need to make smaller fires and move back a bunch or you'll never live long enough to get cancer.
                • "Virtually all fires emit some radiation in the UVB band, while the Sun's radiation at this band is absorbed by the Earth's atmosphere." That comes from the wikipedia link I posted below to budgenator. It doesn't matter what the hell I burn. Hydrogen flames will emit high levels of UV and low levels of IR, while a coal flame will produce lower levels of UV, and high levels of IR. Either way, I'm still getting exposed to UV radiation. Now read my sig and go someplace else.
    • "The way to get the risk down is to use hands-free," he told Reuters.

      Now we need a study on testicular cancer. They are sensitive, you know. Handedness might not matter as much there, but it can make you blind.

  • There's got to be some long term damage to putting a radio transmitter which radiates electromagnetic energy right beside your head. I do mean *long term* damage, the only people that really have to worry are yappy pre-pubescent teenage girls, and we have too many of them anyways.

    • Re:suprised? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Guppy06 (410832) on Sunday April 02 2006, @03:06AM (#15044673) Journal
      "There's got to be some long term damage to putting a radio transmitter which radiates electromagnetic energy right beside your head."

      Why? As has been repeated ad nauseam whenever this debate comes about, the frequencies used by cell phones are non-activating. If holding a tiny, low-power transmitter next to your head causes cancer, then people who work at TV and FM stations should be dropping like flies.

      All we know at this point (assuming the study's methodolgy holds water) is that there is a correlation between cell phone use and brain tumors. It could mean that cell phones cause brain tumors, it could mean that people prone to brain tumors talk on the phone a lot.

      And even if it is eventually shown that cell phones cause brain tumors, that still doesn't necessarily mean it is the radio transciever aspect of the phone that is the culprit. It very well may be exposure to toxic chemicals used in the displays or the batteries, for example, much the same way toxic pesticides used around electrical pylons had people thinking high-voltage lines caused cancer.

      • Re:suprised? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by rbarreira (836272) on Sunday April 02 2006, @03:30AM (#15044724) Homepage
        And how would you explain that the tumors were more likely to be located on the side of the head closest to where the user would put the phone?
        • And how would you explain that the tumors were more likely to be located on the side of the head closest to where the user would put the phone?

          "It very well may be exposure to toxic chemicals used in the displays or the batteries..."


          That's how.
        • And how would you explain that the tumors were more likely to be located on the side of the head closest to where the user would put the phone?

          Well, if it is unrelated, that would be easy to prove. What side of the brain are most tumors found? Or is it equal on both? What side of the head do most people hold the cell phone on? I know I use phones mainly with my right-hand/ear, so preferences do exist. If there is an unrelated propensity for right-brain tumors and right-hand cell usage, then the causa
      • people who work at TV and FM stations should be dropping like flies.

        Except that they don't go nea the antenna (or they would be cooked), and thee is such a thing as the invese squae law.

        Howeve, if the study coves 20 yeas, then it coves the time when cellphones put out a steady 4 watts. Now they can pehaps peak at that, but now they use adaptive power levels, the average power level while transmitting is generally below 100mW, and often below 4mW.However, the power from a domestic light bulb in that band

        • However, the power from a domestic light bulb in that band is? and the SUn's radiation is massively greeater
          Can you provide some references for the claims you're making here (that incandescent light bulbs and the sun both output significant amounts of radiation on the same frequencies as cell phones)? It's seems unlikely - neither cause obvious interferrence with cell phones, which I'd expect if the power levels are remotely similar.

  • Not really (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NitsujTPU (19263) on Sunday April 02 2006, @02:50AM (#15044625)
    Or course, the biggest epidemiological study of all is the one we are all participating in whenever we use our cell phone. The results from that study won't be available for a while.

    Not really. The metering is lousy. The control group is corrupted. Heck, the technology is changing, so the signals are different. As a study, the world at large makes a lousy experiment for this.
    • ... and you forgot: those who don't answer the phone in fear of radiation get killed off by their spouses when they get home by night.

  • dangerous use of statistics (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Lord Ender (156273) on Sunday April 02 2006, @02:52AM (#15044630) Homepage
    This article is poor (I would say unethical) coverage of a scientific study.

    For example, to say something is associate with a 240% increase in risk can be technically accurate, but horribly misleading to most readers. If one in a billion people get a disease, a 240% increase makes your chance of getting it 2.4/1000000000. That is absolutely nothing to worry about.

    Also, with this studay, they found out people who had tumors, then asked them if they used cell phones. The subjects probably had no doubt as to why this question was being asked, therefore this was not really a double blind experiment.

    Has anyone ever been able to give a rat cancer by blasting it with amplified cellphone-type radiation? That would convince me of the possibility of cell phone risk much more than digging backward through statistical inormation does.
    • "Has anyone ever been able to give a rat cancer by blasting it with amplified cellphone-type radiation?" can't say I've ever blasted rats with cellphone radiation, but you should see what a microwave does to them!
    • For example, to say something is associate with a 240% increase in risk can be technically accurate, but horribly misleading to most readers.

      I think the problem there is with "most readers", not with an accurate statement of the risk increase. Furthermore, the absolute numbers are stated in the article, and knowing the population of Sweden, it's easy to compute the absolute risk.

      Has anyone ever been able to give a rat cancer by blasting it with amplified cellphone-type radiation? That would convince me of

      • Re:dangerous use of statistics (Score:5, Insightful)

        by ceoyoyo (59147) on Sunday April 02 2006, @03:06AM (#15044676)
        If the incidence is so low that you can't do a study to demonstrate it properly then we've got FAR more important things to worry about. I bet your increased risk of getting hit by a bus because you're talking on your stupid phone instead of paying attention is more significant.

          • Re:public health (Score:4, Insightful)

            by ceoyoyo (59147) on Sunday April 02 2006, @12:28PM (#15046086)
            No, the argument applies equally well to public health. Better in fact. If the rate is so tiny then public health money and attention is FAR better spent on other areas.

            For example, should we introduce new regulations on cell phones that force cell companies to build twice as many towers which will statistically save ten lives over the next twenty years or use the same amount of money to introduce subsidized prostate and breast cancer screening programs that will statistically save a thousand lives per year?

            Public health is all about the economics. You put your money where it will do the most good. Not that any of these studies are actually conclusive enough to justify anything.

    • Re:dangerous use of statistics (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ceoyoyo (59147) on Sunday April 02 2006, @03:04AM (#15044666)
      Another problem with a lot of these studies is that they use the other side of the brain as a control. You're supposed to get tumors more often on the side of your head you use the phone on. How consistent are people always using it on the same side?

      Not to mention I suspect the people who used cell phones extensively twenty years ago are probably a very special group... probably with all kinds of interesting common factors.

  • How high is the absolute risk (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mocm (141920) * on Sunday April 02 2006, @02:54AM (#15044637) Homepage
    A 240% increase sounds huge, but they never tell you what the original risk is. There is a difference between doubling a 10% risk or a 0.00001% risk.
  • when all the shitty drivers that have pissed me off so much get tumors... no, i'll just feel bad for them - yet again. =/

  • mibile phone health risks (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Techojoe (704378) on Sunday April 02 2006, @02:59AM (#15044653)
    While it has been suspected for some time that cell phones may cause tumors there has been considerable debate over the subject. Telcos and phone makers taking the anti health risk stance for obvious reasons.The phone companies have put large sums of money into reaserch to tell them and us that the phones themselves are harmless. It looks now as if an independant? researcher has added to the body of evidence that there is in fact a real risk. To temper that however it appears you have to be a pretty heavy user to be at risk. Interestingly the mobil phone towers them selves seem to escape the scruting that the handsets have been subjected to.

    • The phone companies have put large sums of money into reaserch to tell them and us that the phones themselves are harmless.

      No, "the phone companies" are spread across both ends of the issue. The telcos without cell-phone interests would much rather show cell phones to be dangerous.

      Neither fact should, in any way, lead anyone to jump to the opposite conclusion.

      It looks now as if an independant? researcher has added to the body of evidence that there is in fact a real risk.

      No. Correlation != Causation.

      You c

  • link to the actual study (PDF) (Score:5, Informative)

    by nfarrell (127850) on Sunday April 02 2006, @03:21AM (#15044708)
    I don't know why it's not linked to any any of the articles, but here's the scientific paper. If we're going to critique it, we might as well do it right:

    http://www.arbetslivsinstitutet.se/pdf/060331MildH ardell_Article.pdf [arbetslivsinstitutet.se]
    • Thanks for the link to the study. For the record I am a 2nd year medical student, have taken (and passed!) coursework on epidemiology, and have been published as first author in a reputable journal, the point being that I am a bit more qualified than Joe Sixpack to comment on the study. Reply to this post if you want a link to my study, but be warned that it is of limited general interest (cardiology).

      First off, in response to another poster in this thread, the choice of controls is correct. In case control
  • The article offers no details, so it's impossible to evaluate this work meaningfully. Based on the limited details provided, it would be really easy for anyone with even the least background in research or statistics to think up a zillion reasons to be skeptical. But research almost always sound simplistic and inept when it's subject to simplistic and inept reporting. This brief report reads like the confused ramblings of someone who's overheard a conversation in an elevator.

    Fortunately, a kind Slashdot
  • Please use the !word to negate a tag.

    While off-topic from the article perspective, I think this comment has some merit given that at the time of this comment, the tags for this article include 'gay', 'straight', 'bi'.

    I suspect the 'straight' is to offset the 'gay' tag which appeared on all April 1 articles, and overflowed into April 2 articles. The system, I don't believe, knows that 'straight' is opposite of 'gay'. It does however know that '!gay' is opposite of 'gay', and will (likely) drop the tag that p

  • Flawed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by xtieburn (906792) on Sunday April 02 2006, @07:40AM (#15045207)
    I read the PDF detailing the study and there are a couple of gaping holes in this whole thing.

    First off, despite multiple studies done that prove no correlation between brain tumours and mobile phones this claims to have found something. Now I guess other factors may have come in to those other studies some bias etc. However, this article details an initial study that also showed _no_ connection. It was only after they altered the questionaires and retested people that they found something. Whats more, they then did no further alteration to the questions and simply ran with the same test only on a bigger scale.

    There may be a detailed explanation of why that occured but with currently released information weve no idea how many times they were willing to alter the questions to get the answers they wanted, and no explanation of which questions were altered or why. What adds to the suspicion is the fact that the only reason the first test was thrown out was 'short latency' and 'low numbers' of people. Neither of which affect the questionaire.

    So what we have is a group of people who rely on getting a result for there funding. (No differently to the previous studies.) After they got no real results from a first test, altered it in a way that appeared to have no bearing on that initial test. They then found they got results... Doesnt really inspire any confidence in there impartial testing.

    Secondly, something others have pointed out already, asking a bunch of people with tumours when they started using mobile phones and then roughly getting rid of other factors that could have caused them based on a questionaire... Not a great method of working this out.

    Whatever you thought of the study seen on the BBC site it raised a very good point about something that would cause a bias. 'reporting from brain tumour sufferers who knew what side of the head their tumours were on.' etc. This test doesnt even begin to try clamp down on these kinds of bias. Even if this test was entirely fair, the results are far from dramatic. With excessive use it shows only a relatively small increase in cases. With a potential for people to be increasingly suspicious of there mobiles the more they use them this could easily be put down to false assumptions.

    As far as im concerned this study is severly flawed. The other studies are also flawed, to a degree, but until someone actually has decent evidence that these things are causing damage then its not going to stop the millions of people who use them. I certainly wouldnt say mobile phones are safe but there is still little to no evidence suggesting they harm us. (and arguably more evidence to suggest that they dont.) The presure is definately on those who have to prove a link.

  • Feed Your Head (Score:3, Funny)

    by Doc Ruby (173196) on Sunday April 02 2006, @11:49AM (#15045948) Homepage Journal
    Those aren't "brain tumors" - not the familiar cancerous growths. They're neural phone links our brains are growing to directly interface the phones. Rather than shielding radiation or moving phones away from our heads, we should be investing in more and faster growths. Because this development is the fastest way to move phones inside the head, where annoying ringtones and semversations don't bother bystanders.
    • You sound awfully bitter, did you fail physics in university or something? :)

    • Re:but it can't be (Score:5, Insightful)

      by agentcdog (885108) on Sunday April 02 2006, @03:16AM (#15044695)
      Actually, that is right. But you can understand if you study a little. Which is a more controlled study, particle physics experiments or experiments done on groups of people? It's a no-brainer. Years ago they tried to scare us about power lines, only to find out the guy fudged [ncpa.org] his data. So 100's of studies say no, and one more crackpot says "Hey... here's a link!!" and now we should all start running. The nice thing about science is the results are repeatable; I can go check for myself. I have checked e-m radiation theory and it checks out.

    • Yes, I'm a physicists and I resemble your comment.

      You could do better. You might have something if you point to the known link between cancer and chronic irritation and then prove cellphones irritate nerve tissue. There should also be a rise in auditory canal and skin cancer of the ear at that rate, not to mention head and neck cancers. Hell, you might even score some points if you cited the 85 heavy cell phone users of 905 brain case numbers and told us, which the article fails to explain, how that's 2

    • You've got good reasons to be biased and you disagree. Not too surprising. It's fine that you have an opinion, but surely you can't expect anyone to take you too seriously unless you back up your argument with some verifiable facts. A study has been done, you probably haven't read it, and yet you're waving it away as FUD.

      An increase from 1 person getting cancer to 2.4 people getting cancer is pretty serious. If the risk is linear, maybe 20% of your customers are doubling their chance of getting cancer with
      • Some brief googling reveals very little about the study discussed in this article; the closest it comes to is a compilation of several different studies.
        Link to the former-pdf, now HTML-ized Google cache of the study from the original site, in both Swedish and English: Here. [72.14.203.104]

        Even a cursory look at the linked study will show that there have been many, many studies on the effects of RF on animals with conflicting, confusing, and uncertain results. Unfortunately, I'm not a scientist specializing in this fi
      • Potentially true! But, like the tobacconist, I don't hold a gun to anyone's head and make them buy a cell phone. If they wanna rot their brain / not, or rot their lungs / not, it's entirely up to them. I just profit. ;)

    • The british study is automatically suspect. I don't think the country that gave us Mad Cow Disease can be trusted with anything scientific. Ever. Would be like asking a german about human rights.

      Isn't that a bit like saying
      The American study is automatically suspect. I don't think the country that gave us Intelligent Design can be trusted with anything scientific. Ever.

      I'm not even going to touch the German/Human Rights issue. Europe doesn't have its own PATRIOT act or Guantanamo yet, you know.

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