US Govt cellphone cancer study - clear dose response relationship

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#1561062 28-May-2016 07:14

With all these studies of a product or item already in the wild, no matter what they find there are far to many vested interests for it to have an impact.
A multi billion dollar industry is not going to easily let reports etc jeopardise those returns after all it has been decades since the health risks of smoking has been known and the stuff is still been sold.

I don't know if there is a risk with cellphone use, I , like most , am not a Doctor or scientific researcher so will need to wait until more is known or more is allowed to be known.

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#1561074 28-May-2016 08:18

Hammerer:

joker97:

You will find that proponents will hail this as a game changer,

While skeptics will say humans aren't rats.

Same old story.

In this controversy, skeptics have always been those who doubted the safety of cell phones.

Proponents are those who say there is no problem with cell phone radiation.

Proponents of the study results, skeptic of the study results.

jmh

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#1561080 28-May-2016 08:28

There were many studies showing that smoking was harmless. It's pretty easy to set up a study proving that something doesn't cause cancer, because most people who smoke don't actually get lung cancer. It also requires many years of exposure to get it. What they didn't study at the time was the link between smoking and heart disease. Now it's so clear as to be striking but nobody looked for it. Which is why I tend towards the precautionary principle in all these things.

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#1561084 28-May-2016 08:39

MikeB4: With all these studies of a product or item already in the wild, no matter what they find there are far to many vested interests for it to have an impact.
A multi billion dollar industry is not going to easily let reports etc jeopardise those returns after all it has been decades since the health risks of smoking has been known and the stuff is still been sold.

I don't know if there is a risk with cellphone use, I , like most , am not a Doctor or scientific researcher so will need to wait until more is known or more is allowed to be known.

There are risks with everything man-made or otherwise.

With ionizing radiation the effects are dose dependent.

With non ionizing radiation ANY effects are possibly dose dependent. UV light -> skin cancer for example.

Are there any effects with cellphones? Wifi? No comments.

Linuxluver

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#1561088 28-May-2016 08:45

joker97:

I have a feeling this link has been proposed before. (Cellphone <-> Brain tumour)

I've always kept my cell phone well away from my head when not in use and my calls tend to be less than a minute and at most a handful / day.

I started doing that after 3 people I know in the 80s died of brain tumors in the early 90s ...... who also happened to use those old Motorola 'bricks' a lot and for years.

The science wasn't in......but until they stack the bodies so high no one can deny it the science typically isn't yet in. I'm risk averse.

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Fred99

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#1561089 28-May-2016 08:47

Hmmmmm......

I started reading this thread with deep scepticism, but now I'm not so sure of anything except that regardless of what any experts may say about low level of risk, and what research follows, it's probably a game changer anyway - because a large number of people simply won't believe them.

Contrary to some comments, dose rates weren't much higher than real human exposure, FCC limit for exposure is 1.6W/kg, they tested at 0 (control) 1.5, 3 and 6 W/kg, checking some cellphone specs, then in use, they're quite close to that limit (but you're not a rat, and don't talk on a cellphone 24/7 I hope).

Given the high incidence of those tumours in the the rats exposed to RFR, the study can't be ignored. Converting those results to make any estimate of stochastic effect for "real life" exposure to RFR in humans is IMO impossible. That's also why some of the experts being quoted as stating that the risk is statistically insignificant to human risk are correct from one perspective, but wrong from another - as they're also stabbing in the dark to make any comment at all. The study shows that there is a risk. Hope it's wrong.

jonherries

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#1561099 28-May-2016 09:40

Looks like the paper is up.

http://biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2016/05/26/055699.full.pdf

Couple of thoughts from the paper:

Sample size isnt huge - 90 rats in each intervention group and 90 in placebo.
Significance is at p<0.05, not 0.01
There is some evidence that glial cancers have a familial basis/trigger, not sure how they breed the rats or what precautions they have for this or how allocation to the control/intervention groups was managed - it doesnt say.
The exposure level is pretty high - 9 hours a day at up to 6 SAR - iphone 6S is I think 1.6 SAR.

Most interesting is the difference between GSM and CDMA...

Jon

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#1561100 28-May-2016 09:40

Talkiet:

Wish I could find the cartoon - it's a lot better than my representation, and I fear, this situation may have SOME similarity. I am NOT saying I think the people behind this radiation study are frauds - I'm saying that if 1000 studies say no link found, and 1 study says "Hey, we found a link"... Well, I am going to go with the 1000 unless there's some crazy extenuating circumstances.

From what is available it sounds like the first controlled study that actually radiates, and so the conclusion of the study is that there is increased risks for those two cancers in rats. Its everyone else that reads the study an makes generalised statements like "Science proves cells phones will give you cancer" withouht any context. For me studys are always about quality and never about quantity - and I suspect this is the first of its kind, and the conclusions reached will need to be replicated and expanded.

John Oliver just put out a video couple weeks back about scientific studies and it is well worth a view.

Fred99

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#1561105 28-May-2016 10:04

jonherries:
The exposure level is pretty high - 9 hours a day at up to 6 SAR - iphone 6S is I think 1.6 SAR.

Most interesting is the difference between GSM and CDMA...

Jon

IMO the exposure levels for such a test are quite realistic. "Pretty high" - yes, but sensible levels at which to test. 1.6 SAR is the FCC mandated limit. They tested at 0, 1.5, 3.0 and 6.0.

The difference between CDMA and GSM isn't an anomaly which might suggest that there's some error in methodology - it actually suggests the reverse wrt dose dependency.

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#1561106 28-May-2016 10:05

Linuxluver:

joker97:

I have a feeling this link has been proposed before. (Cellphone <-> Brain tumour)

I've always kept my cell phone well away from my head when not in use and my calls tend to be less than a minute and at most a handful / day.

I started doing that after 3 people I know in the 80s died of brain tumors in the early 90s ...... who also happened to use those old Motorola 'bricks' a lot and for years.

The science wasn't in......but until they stack the bodies so high no one can deny it the science typically isn't yet in. I'm risk averse.

Conversely, my best friends father was a real estate agent and his entire firm had those massive "bricks" and they were on them all the time (I mean hours and hours a day), and recently at a reunion, none of them had died of brain tumors :)

I think if you are susceptible to cancer of a specific type, or in general, breathing will give you cancer.

In fact, in general, breathing can give you cancer.

UHD

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#1561111 28-May-2016 10:29

Eek, the peer reviews for this paper aren't looking promising at all.

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#1561120 28-May-2016 10:38

networkn:

Linuxluver:

joker97:

I have a feeling this link has been proposed before. (Cellphone <-> Brain tumour)

I've always kept my cell phone well away from my head when not in use and my calls tend to be less than a minute and at most a handful / day.

I started doing that after 3 people I know in the 80s died of brain tumors in the early 90s ...... who also happened to use those old Motorola 'bricks' a lot and for years.

The science wasn't in......but until they stack the bodies so high no one can deny it the science typically isn't yet in. I'm risk averse.

Conversely, my best friends father was a real estate agent and his entire firm had those massive "bricks" and they were on them all the time (I mean hours and hours a day), and recently at a reunion, none of them had died of brain tumors :)

I think if you are susceptible to cancer of a specific type, or in general, breathing will give you cancer.

In fact, in general, breathing can give you cancer.

That's correct everything can give cancer -

breathing, sun, probably mobile phones, sausages, bread crust, red meat, asbestos, ?the chemicals on your new clothes/shoes/car/????

I avoid the big ones and what I can and be happy.

alasta

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#1561150 28-May-2016 11:54

The problem with a lot of these studies is that they assume people are using their devices for handheld phone calls, thereby pressing the device up against their head. Who still does that these days?

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#1561160 28-May-2016 12:23

alasta:

The problem with a lot of these studies is that they assume people are using their devices for handheld phone calls, thereby pressing the device up against their head. Who still does that these days?

I do. But I don't make or take calls a lot. ANd I misplace pens, and stuff - you name it.

freitasm

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#1561295 28-May-2016 16:46

gzt: I can certainly agree there. There are no details or expert interpretation of the results so far. It is just the study leaders confirming the results unexpectedly show a strong dose response relationship.

One study, not yet peer-reviewed and for all we know it could have been flawed. Once it's accepted and published by an authority then we talk again.

Damn, even publication sometimes means nothing. The vaccine - autism study was published on The Lancet and then retracted when they found out the author was trying to hawk his own "non vaccine vaccine".

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