Good Analysis - Do Cellphones Cause Brain Cancer?

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Definitive as the date of publication.

Do Cellphones Cause Brain Cancer?

New York Times, April 13, 2011

by SIDDHARTHA MUKHERJEE

On Jan. 21, 1993, the television talk-show host Larry King featured an unexpected guest on his program. It was the evening after Inauguration Day in Washington, and the television audience tuned in expecting political commentary. But King turned, instead, to a young man from Florida, David Reynard, who had filed a tort claim against the cellphone manufacturer NEC and the carrier GTE Mobilnet, claiming that radiation from their phones caused or accelerated the growth of a brain tumor in his wife.

. . .

To keep ourselves on the right path on environmental carcinogens, then, we need not just standards to rule carcinogens “in” but also standards to rule them “out.” The final, definitive trials on phone radiation may settle this issue — but, as of now, the evidence remains far from convincing. Understanding the rigor, labor, evidence and time required to identify a real carcinogen is the first step to understanding what does and does not cause cancer.

Science man. Science.

 

[jayh]

There are millions and millions of cellphones in daily use and there is no surge of brain cancer.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

There are millions and millions of cellphones in daily use and there is no surge of brain cancer.

That's more or less what the article says. However, it also explains how that conclusion is reached and that is why the article is worth reading.

 

[Ray Brady]

I use a cell phone. I have not developed brain cancer. The only rational conclusion is that cell phones prevent brain cancer.

 

[Vorticity]

Cell phones cannot cause cancer.

 

[Fnord]

I use a cell phone, and:

a. Got dain no bramage I.
b. It clashes with my tinfoil hat.
c. It works best when we keep the string tight.
d. Whatever could possibly go worng?

(Choose one)

 

[AmandaM]

Cell phones cannot cause cancer.

Hmm -- I read the article, but there are 59 comments to it, the vast majority of which accuse the author of misunderstanding/misstating the science or the math involved.

This poses a great dilemma for lay persons like me. Is the author accurate? Or are the people leaving comments accurate? Comment number 20 sounds just as reasonable as the article itself, yet the two writers come to very different conclusions.

 

[randman]

Cell phones cannot cause cancer.

I think the article goes too far though in saying they cannot hurt the brain. The radiation is non-ionizing but it still heats things up.

I am actually very pro-wireless, with a financial stake in the industry. Nevertheless, I think the idea there can be no harm is misguided, even if they don't cause cancer. There should be and has been a trend of developing phones with less SAR. It'd be nice if they did the same with earpieces somehow.

There are also certain frequencies safer (if there is even a danger) for cells and less absorption due to their wavelength and properties.

But I'll say this about the opposition. You can tell they spew a lot of junk because they also talk of the risks of cell phone towers which is negligible in reality due to their distance. A location right beneath a fully loaded tower may have lower RF than an empty field, for example, and the more towers generally, the less RF exposure due to the phones not working as hard.

 

[Emet]

Hmm -- I read the article, but there are 59 comments to it, the vast majority of which accuse the author of misunderstanding/misstating the science or the math involved.

This poses a great dilemma for lay persons like me. Is the author accurate? Or are the people leaving comments accurate? Comment number 20 sounds just as reasonable as the article itself, yet the two writers come to very different conclusions.

There are many previous threads on the issue. Science-Based Medicine is a good source, even though the article was written a bit earlier:

New Data on Cell Phones and Cancer
May 19, 2010
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=5207

 

[Corsair 115]

I don't know if they cause cancer in the person holding the device. I can say cell phones have caused me to suffer brain injury when stuck behind someone blathering away on their cell phone, oblivious to the fact that nearby folks can easily hear their conversation, and I'm stuck listening to their vapid, shallow, meaningless, trite, inane, utterly trivial and insignificant conversation. A conversation so lacking in importance it could have easily waited until the two persons were face-to-face. But no, it was one they just had to have then and there on the phone, and everyone else subjected to the brain-numbing, mind-melting verbal diarrhea be damned.

It's all I can do to not reach out, grab the cell phone, throw it to the ground, and stomp it to pieces.

 

[Halfcentaur]

I heard him on NPR today and he did a good job of reinforcing the evidence. It was disheartening how many people called in asking questions which clearly demonstrated they ignored his previous points, and he consistently answered their questions adequately and backed up the idea that there's no more correlation with cell phones and cancer than there is for milk and sitting down to cause cancer. There's no spike in brain cancer coinciding with the fact that 70-90 percent of the population is making use of them.

 

[Emet]

Siddhartha Mukherjee on NPR:

http://www.npr.org/2011/04/19/135546449/jury-still-out-on-cell-phone-cancer-link

 

[LarianLeQuella]

I don't know if they cause cancer in the person holding the device. I can say cell phones have caused me to suffer brain injury when stuck behind someone blathering away on their cell phone, oblivious to the fact that nearby folks can easily hear their conversation, and I'm stuck listening to their vapid, shallow, meaningless, trite, inane, utterly trivial and insignificant conversation. A conversation so lacking in importance it could have easily waited until the two persons were face-to-face. But no, it was one they just had to have then and there on the phone, and everyone else subjected to the brain-numbing, mind-melting verbal diarrhea be damned.

It's all I can do to not reach out, grab the cell phone, throw it to the ground, and stomp it to pieces.

I totally understand what you are talking about. Although I must restrain myself from handling it like Stewie Griffin...

 

[AmandaM]

There are many previous threads on the issue. Science-Based Medicine is a good source, even though the article was written a bit earlier:

That's a great site -- thank you!! I just spent the last 2 hours reading the posts on vaccines and CAM. Fascinating!

 

[Emet]

That's a great site -- thank you!! I just spent the last 2 hours reading the posts on vaccines and CAM. Fascinating!

You're welcome. When I'm researching something medical (or medical woo) related, I often just google: ___________ Science-Based Medicine.

The founder of the site, Steven Novella, has his own blog.

Orac is supposedly one of the contributers to SBM.

Ben Goldacre is another source I sometimes read.

 

[AmandaM]

Thanks!! Bad Science I hadn't seen yet. More weekend reading

 

[MattusMaximus]

Why do these goofs always focus on the supposed brain cancer caused by cell phones? Why is it that we don't hear anyone moaning about the skin cancer on their hand they use to hold the cell phone?

ETA: Btw, here's a blog post I put together on this topic. It gets into the physics of how it is implausible for cell phones to cause any kind of cancer.

 

[Hamradioguy]

And hopefully the Daubert court decision will discourage lawsuits from those claiming their cancers were caused by cell phones.

 

[Soapy Sam]

There's no spike in brain cancer coinciding with the fact that 70-90 percent of the population is making use of them.

Perhaps because the other 10 - 30 have all the brains?

 

[George II]

This debate has been going on here in Sweden forever it seems. I'm so tired of it. As far as I know there is absolutely no scientific evidence to support this idea of cancer through the use of cellphones. But the people who believe that they do cause cancer, simply will not give up believing this. I expect them to continue to believe this 10 years from now, even if those 10 years are as devoid of evidence as the last 10 years have been.

Of course it's not just cancer they are worried about, they tend to blame all kinds of ailments on cellphones or "electromagnetic pollution".