RE: [IP] Re: insulin-pumpers-digest V11 #14
Here we go again with the junk science.
>From the article you point to:
> Additionally, an epidemiological study showed
> nearly a tripling in the incidence of certain
> cancers -- neurocytomas, which grow inward from
> the periphery of the brain -- compared with
> people who do not use cell phones.
Actually, the study (actually, it was just part of the Interphone
multi-centre study) showed a not-quite-tripling of the odds ratio,
with a 95% confidence interval ranging from 0.6 to 6.1. In other
words, the result is so vague that it is worthless; given the
range, it may even be that cell phone use _protects_ from
neurocytomas! Woot!
> Radio frequency emissions are generally
> regarded as dangerous and workers in
> broadcasting, aviation and similar
> fields generally try to avoid prolonged
> exposure to transmitting antennas.
Are the people who write such articles born that way, or do they
have to undergo a surgical lobotomy? The workers mentioned here
avoid working on live antennas because 100+ kW of transmitter
power will fry anything. Hold your hand close to a 100 watt light
bulb. Now imagine another bulb producing a thousand times the
heat. The second bulb will burn you to a cinder. Your 100W bulb,
the first one, will not.
To drive the point home, the difference in intensity between a
cell phone transmitter and the radio/TV broadcast emitters we are
talking about is even more lopsided -- I used an analogy with
bulbs of 100 watt and 100 kilowatt; to come closer to the cell
phone situation, I would have had to use a 0.2 watt bulb -- that's
right, the twenty-fifth part of our grandfathers' incandescent
flashlights.
Finally, the article is cherrypicking -- I already pointed out at
the suppression of information on the statistical
(non-)significance of that "3 times" result, right? Well, it turns
out the magazine is also lying, by omission, about the rest of the
study. A Pubmed search for "cell phone cancer interphone" will dig
up the interphone study which the article distorts mercilessly,
and it's rather boring -- this doesn't happen, that doesn't occur,
those other possibilities did not eventuate. There is also a
meta-analysis pooling nigh on a dozen large studies, also with
negative results.
The only statistically significant result I take from the article
is that consumeraffairs.com regards advocacy as more important
than truth. Sad, really.
Cheers,
Felix.
-----Original Message-----
From: email @ redacted
[mailto:email @ redacted] On Behalf Of John S
Wilkinson
Sent: Friday, May 30, 2008 4:01
To: email @ redacted
Subject: RE: [IP] Re: insulin-pumpers-digest V11 #14
Test Find Possible Link
Cell Phones & Brain Cancer
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/cell_phone_cancer_link.htm
.
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