Swedish Study Finds Cell Phone Cancer Risk

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."

Assumptions

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.

All Balls, no Brains.

"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.

Re:Assumptions

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 yo

Re:Assumptions

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

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.

Not really

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.

Re:Not really

... 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

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.

Re:dangerous use of statistics

"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!

Re:dangerous use of statistics

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.

Re:dangerous use of statistics

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

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.

How high is the absolute risk

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.

I will feel vindicated one day

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

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.

link to the actual study (PDF)

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]

Flawed

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.

Re:News?

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

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.

Re:suprised?

"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?

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?

Re:suprised?

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 cel

Re:suprised?

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

Re:but it can't be

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.

Sarcasm makes a poor argument, try reason and fact

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