Would You Believe…
Specific Frequencies
Block Growth of Cancer Cells
December 1… A couple of months ago, the British Journal of Cancer published a
paper detailing some
extraordinary results: very specific types of weak electromagnetic (EM) fields were able to stabilize and shrink liver tumors
in advanced cancer patients who had exhausted other treatment options.
A press release was issued describing
how the EM treatment was far more effective than the only available FDA-approved drug. It was pretty much ignored.
No one believed it.
Today, the British Journal of Cancer is releasing a follow-up paper
by the same research group, led by Boris
Pasche of the University of Alabama medical school in Birmingham.
It might help convince skeptics that EM cancer therapy is more than pie in the sky.
The Danish Cohort Study:
The Politics and Economics of Bias
November 3, 2011 (updated November 4)… The latest update of
the Danish cell phone-cancer study is being touted as the biggest and best ever.
It shows "no link between mobile phone use and [brain] tumors," according to the press release.
Don't believe a word of it.
On October 20, the British Medical Journal released the third installment of the Danish Cancer Society's
cohort study, which has been tracking some 400,000
mobile phones subscribers since the 1980s. The whole enterprise has been dogged by controversy and political suspicions since the
first results were published ten years ago.
From the very beginning, the Danish project was criticized for eliminating more than 200,000 corporate subscribers, one third of the actual number of
Danish cell phone users, the intended study
population. The researchers had little choice: They did not know the names of the people using phones paid for by their employers and so had no way to match
those on mobile phone subscriber lists with those on tumor registries. Everybody agrees that those who were dropped were the heaviest users.
In the time period covered in the Danish project —from 1987 through 1995— cell phones were expensive and it's no stretch to assume that those who did
not have to pay their own bills racked up the most talk time.
In an e-mail to Microwave News, IARC's Robert Baan, wrote that
the exclusion of the corporate subscribers "seems remarkable."
October 28… The International Agency for Research on Cancer
(IARC) is playing some strange games, which will inevitably lead to
more public confusion about cell phone cancer risks. August 25, 2011 (last updated August 26) … The Interphone results on
acoustic neuroma (AN) are —finally— out. As in the Interphone
analysis of brain tumors, there does appear to be a higher risk among the heaviest users of cell phones. Yet, as before, the results are
uncertain and open to alternative explanations.IARC Tries To Play Down Cell Phone
Tumor Risks
A few days ago, IARC issued some
"Questions & Answers"
on mobile phones and cancer prompted by last week's release of a new update of the
Danish cohort study in the British Medical Journal (BMJ). (We'll have much more to say about
the Danish study in a later post.)
The Danish study finds no association between phones and brain tumors. IARC includes the following statement in its Q&A: The Danish paper in BMJ
"confirms the overall Interphone findings of no association." Huh? That doesn't make any sense.
Interphone did in fact report an association among long-term users. IARC is well aware of this
since Interphone was and continues to be an IARC project. In addition, last May's decision to classify RF radiation as a
possible human carcinogen was made by a
committee convened by IARC. Indeed in July IARC
officially announced that the decision was based in large part on the Interphone study.
We asked Joachim Schüz, who is
the head of IARC's section of environment and radiation as well as a member of the Danish study team and
the Interphone project, to walk us through this. (It's no secret that Schüz is a leader of the bloc that is deeply skeptical of any tumor risk.) Here's what he told us: "Interphone shows no increased effect estimates by time since first use, which is the most comparable metric to the Danish study."
That's true. On the other hand, if you use cumulative call time as the index of use, Interphone shows a 40% increase in the incidence of glioma brain tumors.
As has been widely discussed, Interphone reported risks that are consistently low. When the Interphone team compensated for what practically everyone believes is bias in
the way the data were collected, it found a doubling of the tumor risk "since first use," a statistically significant increase. (See:
"Interphone's Provocative Analysis of the Brain Tumor Risks.")
We asked Schüz about those calculations too. He rejects them. (This may help explain why they were buried in an appendix that was left out of the published paper and banished to the Internet.) Schüz
argues that the increase seen in those calculations are "incompatible with no excess seen in the incidence rates." To support this, he cited a
paper
he coauthored with Isabelle Deltour and others at the Danish Cancer Society (Schüz worked at the society before joining IARC).
But that won't wash because, as we pointed out long ago, that paper has nothing to say about risks for use of ten years or longer
(see the last sentence of the abstract and our post,
"Spin, Spin, Spin.")
IARC is known as the "gold standard" for determining what is a cancer-causing agent. Too bad that IARC's professional and communications staff is indulging in
reverse alchemy, trying to turn gold into base metal.
Interphone on Acoustic Neuroma:
Increased Risk Among Heavy Users
Here is the closing paragraph of the paper in Cancer Epidemiology:
The paper was made available to the IARC panel in May before its public release.
In a summary statement, issued after the meeting, IARC reported that the decision to classify
wireless radiation as a "possible human carcinogen" was based, in part, on these results."In conclusion, we did not observe an increase in risk of AN with
ever [sic] regular use of a mobile phone or in mobile phone users who
began use 10 years or more before the reference date. Further, we
did not see any trend in AN risk with increasing cumulative use;
the lowest [odds ratio] OR was in the 9th decile of cumulative call time.
There was an increased odds ratio for those with heavy (1640 h or more)
cumulative call time, particularly in long-term users and in those
who reported use of a mobile phone on the same side of their head
as the tumor occurred. This increase could be due to chance,
reporting bias or a causal effect. It is possible too that the interval
between introduction of mobile phones and occurrence of the
tumor we studied was too short to observe an effect, if there is
one, as acoustic neuroma is usually a slowly growing tumor."
Once again as in virually all the Interphone risk estimates, the majority of the odds ratios in the acoustic neuroma paper are less than one, suggesting some type of systematic bias.
In an appendix to the brain tumor paper, published last year, a method was presented to compensate for that bias, yielding some provocative
results pointing to a more consistent risk. That analysis was hidden away on the Internet. For acoustic neuroma, a similar, secondary analysis was also carried out, though this time with less dramatic
effect. It also appears in an appendix, but as part of the published paper.
At this writing, Cancer Epidemiology is offering free pdf downloads. These results
were made available to the IARC panel in May.
Very Weak RF Signals Show Promise
For Treating Inoperable Liver Cancer
Dose Is 100-1,000 Times Lower than from a Cell Phone
August 15, 2011… What if you could treat cancer without surgery, without chemotherapy and without ionizing radiation? What if you could extend a dying patient's
life by years without any side effects? And if the patient were in pain, you could get rid of that too? All that may be possible sooner than you think.
American and Brazilian cancer researchers have succeeded in stabilizing and shrinking inoperable liver tumors with
radiofrequency (RF) radiation that is no more powerful than that emitted by a typical cell phone.
This is "exciting" news, said Boris Pasche of the University of Alabama
medical school in Birmingham.
Frederico Costa of the University of São Paulo medical school, Pasche's collaborator, agrees.
"We observed significant tumor shrinkage in 10% of patients," he wrote in an e-mail to Microwave News. Costa points out that this is five times the
success rate of the best available chemotherapeutic drug —Sorafenib
—and that "there are essentially no side effects."
Costa and Pasche's new findings were published by the British Journal of Cancer last week.
(The paper is open access.) Costa is the director
of clinical research at the Brazilian Institute for Research on Cancer in São Paulo. Pasche is the director of the
Division of Hematology and Oncology at the University of Alabama School of Medicine.
Liver cancer is a massive public health problem. It is the second most frequent cause of cancer mortality among men worldwide; for women, it is the sixth leading
cause of cancer death. In 2008, there were approximately 750,000 new cases and close to 700,00 deaths around the world; half of these were in
China, according to the most recent statistics.
Not only could this new therapy, called TheraBionic, revolutionize the treatment of liver cancer, it might also stimulate new respect for
electromagnetic medicine, as well as prompt a major reevaluation of electromagnetic health risks, most especially with respect to the
safety of cell phones.
Prenatal Exposure to Weak Magnetic Fields
Leads to Childhood Asthma
First Prospective EMF Epidemiological Study Ever Done
August 1, 2011…A mother's exposure to weak power-frequency magnetic fields during pregnancy substantially increases the chances her child will develop asthma,
according to a new study
by De-Kun Li
and coworkers at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, CA.
An average magnetic field exposure of just 2 mG (0.2 µT) during pregnancy more than triples the child's risk of getting asthma by the age of 13, they report
in a paper released today by the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, a publication of the
American Medical Association (AMA).
"It's a very provocative finding that needs replication,"
Jonathan Samet told Microwave News.
Samet, an epidemiologist at the University of Southern California (USC) and a member of the National Cancer
Advisory Board, served as the chair of the IARC
panel that in May classified cell phone radiation as a possible human carcinogen.
If Li's findings are confirmed, they would have enormous implications for public health.
Asthma, inflammation of the airways to the lungs, leads to shortness of breath, wheezing and coughing.
It is the most common chronic disease among American children. Ten percent
of school-aged children have asthma. Over the last few decades,
the incidence of childhood asthma
has jumped from a rate of 2.9% among those under 18 in 1980 to 6.7% in 2004,
according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
Li's study is the first prospective epidemiological study ever carried out on any group exposed to any type of electromagnetic fields (EMFs).
The mothers' magnetic field exposures were measured during the first or
second trimester and the health of their children —a total of 626 boys and girls— was followed for the next 13 years. Li sees a clear dose-response:
Every 1 mG increase in median magnetic field exposure during pregnancy led to a 15% increase in asthma in the offspring. The trend is highly significant.
European Study Reports No Brain Tumor Risk
Among Young Cell Phone Users
Once Again, the Results Are Confusing
July 27, 2011… Here's the golden rule for all cell phone cancer studies: Nothing comes easy.
The first study to look at brain tumors
among children and teenagers who have used cell phones came out today and it shows no increased risk. Well actually, the study, known as CEFALO, does indicate a higher risk —the problem
is that it found a higher risk for all the kids who used a phone more than once a week for six months, regardless of how much time they spent on the phone. Because the risk does not go up with more use, the CEFALO team
argues that the results argue against a true association.
"The pattern of results looks to me as though there isn't a causal relationship in term of increased risk with long-term use,"
Martin Röösli told Microwave News.
Röösli, of the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute at the University of Basel, ran the Swiss component of CEFALO. The other participating countries are
Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The results were posted today on the Web site of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (JNCI).
The higher risks seen in CEFALO among 7 to 19 year olds are the opposite of those seen in last year's Interphone study.
Interphone showed a systematic lower risk among all users of cell phones, except
for those who were the most highly exposed. Practically no one believes that the protective effect of cell phones seen in Interphone is real. Yet, some observers are not willing to discount
the elevated risks seen in CEFALO.
Cell Phones and Tumors:
Mixed Signals as Epidemiologists Play Tit for Tat
Don’t Worry, Be Happy, Says ICNIRP
July 6, 2011… The battle over Interphone continues. This time it's in full public view as key players publish papers detailing where they stand
on cell phone tumor risks.
There haven't been any big surprises since their opinions have long been known. Yet, the diametrically opposing views have led to
conflicting stories in the media as each new study is released.
The latest chapter came late last week when the International Commission for Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection
(ICNIRP) announced that its epidemiologists
believe that phones are safe. They conceded that they couldn't be certain, though they sounded as if they were nearly there.
This is their bottom line: "The trend in
the accumulating evidence is increasingly against the hypothesis that mobile phone
use causes brain tumors." The
commentary
was published in Environmental Health Perspectives.
The BBC was in such a rush to announce the news that it was willing to break the journal's embargo.
"Mobile Phones 'Unlikely' to Cause Cancer,"
ran its headline. Just a month earlier, the same reporter wrote an item on the findings of another group —a larger one assembled by
the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). That expert panel had
a very different message: RF radiation from cell phones
is a possible cause of cancer.
"Mobiles 'May Cause Brain Cancer'," was the BBC headline on May 31.
The BBC was not the only one. Here's Reuters on June 1,
"WHO Says Cell Phone Use 'Possibly Carcinogenic'," and then on July 4,
"Evidence 'Increasingly
Against' Phone Cancer Risk." And CBS News on May 31:
"Mobile Phones May Cause Cancer, Experts Say."
Its July 5 story on the ICNIRP paper expressed what everybody must have been thinking by then:
"Cell Phone Cause Cancer. No They Don't. Yes They Do."
How is anyone possibly going to make sense of all this?
IARC RF–Cancer Summary
Published in Lancet Oncology
June 22… A short summary of the
IARC Working Group's decision to
classify radiofrequency (RF) radiation as a "possible human carcinogen" (2B) was posted this morning on the Web pages of
Lancet Oncology.
IARC has not paid for the two-page summary to be open access. [IARC later changed its mind and it is now a free download.]
Here is one key conclusion of the working group:
The Interphone study was published last year (see also our report). The Swedish analysis refers to the work of Lennart Hardell and coworkers. The Japanese study on acoustic neuroma appeared in Bioelectromagnetics."Although both the Interphone study and the Swedish pooled analysis are susceptible to bias —due to recall error and selection for participation— the working group concluded that the findings could not be dismissed as reflecting bias alone, and that a causal interpretation between mobile phone RF–EMF exposure and glioma is possible. A similar conclusion was drawn from these two studies for acoustic neuroma, although the case numbers were substantially smaller than for glioma. Additionally, a study from Japan found some evidence of an increased risk for acoustic neuroma associated with ipsilateral mobile phone use."
IARC reports that the 2B classification "was supported by a large majority of working group members."
R.I.P.
A.C.R.B.R.
June 10…
Today, the Australian Centre for Radiofrequency Bioeffects Research (ACRBR) is closing its doors.
The center has gone bust for the most commonplace reason: It ran out of cash.
To understand why no one wanted to give the ACRBR any more money —we concede that there hasn't been much around— you need
only read the last couple of paragraphs of the last
post by its outgoing executive director,
Rodney Croft:
End of story."[S]cience has not been able to identify any harmful effects resulting from RF in study participants, regardless of age. This is why expert committees are unanimous in their view that low-level RF is safe. Science, of course, can never be 100% certain of its conclusions, but a lot is now known. The result? We can be very confident that low-level RF is safe."
IARC: Cell Phone Radiation Is
a
Possible Human Carcinogen
Small Group Will File Minority Opinion
June 3…
It's not easy to reach unanimous agreement on anything to do with cell
phone radiation. And when it comes to cell phones and cancer, forget about it. But the International Agency for Research on Cancer
(IARC) nearly pulled it off. On Tuesday, May 31, more than two dozen scientists and doctors
from 14 countries —a group IARC Director Christopher
Wild called "the world's leading
experts"—
issued a joint statement that cell phone and other types of radiofrequency (RF) and microwave radiation might cause cancer.
Near the close of the eight-day meeting, there were six holdouts, but by the end only one dissenting voice remained in the room. (The group agreed that the person's name should remain
secret.) IARC released the news: Long-term use of a cell phone might lead to two different
types of tumors, glioma, a type of brain cancer,
and acoustic neuroma, a tumor of
the auditory nerve.
Another member of the working group would have also dissented had he not walked out of the meeting before the final vote.
Microwave News has learned that
Peter Inskip of the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI)
left early and did not return. Aleea Farrakh Khan
of the NCI Office of Media Relations confirmed that Inskip missed the final vote and said that he will join a "small group" of members of the working group
in a "minority opinion."
"[Our] conclusion means that there could be some risk, and therefore we need to keep a
close watch for a link between cell phones and cancer risk," said
Jonathan Samet, who
served as the chairman of the IARC RF working group. Samet, a professor at
University of Southern California in Los Angeles, was
appointed to the National
Cancer Advisory Board by President Obama earlier this year.
The decision "brings it to a new level," said Kurt Straif, the head of the agency's
monograph program, who helped organize the meeting —the first ever on RF and
microwave cancer risks. Many members of the panel agreed.
See also our exclusive reports from the
IARC RF–cancer meeting
IARC Drops Anders Ahlbom from RF–Cancer Panel
May 22… The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has removed
Anders Ahlbom of the Karolinska Institute from its
panel of experts which is set to evaluate the cancer risks posed by mobile phones. The committee will meet in Lyon, France, for a week beginning this coming Tuesday, May 24.
In an e-mail sent out earlier today,
Ahlbom wrote, "IARC has excluded me from the RF
Working Group because of 'possible perception of conflict of interest'."
IARC moved quickly after learning that Ahlbom is a director of his brother's consulting firm, Gunnar Ahlbom AB.
The company, which is based in Brussels, the European capital and a center for lobbyists, was established to help clients on telecom issues, with an emphasis on environmental and energy regulations.
Ahlbom failed to mention this sideline in his
"Declaration of Interests" that is required of all those who participate in IARC cancer assessments.
Apparently, IARC offered to allow Ahlbom to attend this week's meeting but only as a non-voting "invited specialist."
Ahlbom declined to attend under those terms. He recently filed an amended declaration of his potential conflicts.
Mona Nilsson, a Swedish journalist who has written
two books on mobile phones and health, unearthed
Ahlbom's connection to his brother's company.
She was about to post a
press release on what she had found out when Ahlbom announced he would not be going to the IARC meeting after all.
Nilsson says that this is good news. "Ahlbom absolutely should not be on the IARC expert group," she told Microwave News.
French TV Documentary Links IARC RF Panelist to Industry Interference
May 19 (last updated May 20) … A hard-hitting documentary aired on French television last night alleges that
René de Seze, a well-known member of the
French RF community, worked to delay, if not bury, a study that would be detrimental to the mobile phone industry. The 90-minute show reports that
de Seze coordinated a study on behalf of Bouygues Telecom, a leading cell phone operator,
and when the results supported a radiation health risk, he did everything he could to discredit it. De Seze works for French National Institute for the Industrial Environment and Hazards
(INERIS).
The allegation comes just days before de Seze
travels to Lyon to be a member of a panel
assembled by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) to evaluate the cancer risks
associated with cell phone radiation
Earlier today, for instance, Mast Victims, a U.K. group, circulated an imitation movie poster for "Science of the Lambs" under the heading "Opening in Lyon, France, May 24-31." One faux endorsement runs: "'Worth Every Penny' —Mobile Manufacturers Monthly." The poster takes a pot shot at Anders Ahlbom, a member of the IARC panel, who has been widely quoted as saying there is little chance of any cancer risk from cell phones. (See an interview with Ahlbom posted by the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research (FAS).)
The study, coordinated by de Seze, found that cell phone radiation could be lethal to chicken embryos. Led by Florence Batellier of the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA), it was designed to see if a similar study by Madeleine Bastide, published in 2001, could be replicated. Batellier says that her study is in general agreement with the results reported by Bastide. Batellier's paper took six years to come out due to interference from de Seze and Bouygues Telecom, according to the documentary; it finally appeared in 2008. De Seze has insisted that the observed deaths of the embryos were due to a thermal effect, Batellier states. When asked about the implications of the two studies by Sophie Le Gall, the filmmaker, de Seze deadpans, don't phone chickens. (Bastide died in 2007.)
The documentary also raises questions about the transparency of ICNIRP in terms of its failure to reveal its members' ties to industry, notably those of Bernard Veyret. It also features a rare interview with Pierre Aubineau, a French researcher, who had a falling out with Veyret over his paper showing RF-induced leakage through the blood-brain barrier (see MWN, N/D01, p.1). Aubineau has accused Veyret of trying to suppress his paper, much like de Seze stands accused of delaying Batellier's. Aubineau's paper has never been formally pubished other than as a conference abstract.
"Mauvaises Ondes" (Bad Waves) was broadcast in prime time on France 3, a public TV station last night. It may be viewed on the Internet until May 25th. It is only available in French. [Now you can see it here.]
The day after the broadcast (May 20), FFT, the French telecom industry association, called the documentary "biased" and an exercise in "disinformation." FTT's four-page letter to the president of French Televisions does not address the charges leveled against de Seze.
Chinese Put Cancer of the Parotid Gland on Center Stage
April 18… Chinese researchers in Beijing are seeing
some of the highest rates of cancer of the salivary glands ever reported in any cell phone study. They have found that long-term, heavy users have rates of
malignant parotid gland tumors that
are anywhere from seven to 13 times higher than might otherwise be expected.
The raw data —that is, before being adjusted for
other possible influences like sex, age, income, smoking status and the like— point to cancer risks that are elevated 10-fold, 20-fold, and even 30-fold,
depending on the type of tumor and how heavy cell phone use is defined. For instance, those who had used mobile phones for over ten years had more than ten times
the rate of epithelial parotid gland malignancies
the most common type of parotid gland cancer. Previous studies have rarely pointed to a risk that is more than double or triple the expected rate.
These elevated risks, though based on a small number of cases —at most 15 in the high exposure category—
are statistically significant. Importantly, Haizhong Zhang and coworkers at the
Chinese PLA General Hospital
see "general indications" of a dose-response relationship. The
new paper was posted on the Web site of the
Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery on April 6.
IARC Welcomes Industry to RF–Cancer Review
March 23… The International Agency for Research on
Cancer (IARC) has invited three industry operatives
to sit in on its weeklong
assessment of the cancer risks associated with exposure
to wireless radiation and other sources of RF/microwave radiation.
Representatives from CTIA, the
Wireless Association, the Mobile Manufacturers Forum (MMF) and
the GSM Association will all be allowed to attend the IARC review.
The meeting will be held in Lyon, France, May 24-31.
Two of the three, MMF's Joe Elder and CTIA's Mays Swicord used to work for Motorola's RF/MW research group in Florida. Jack
Rowley will be there on behalf of the GSM trade group. The only other observers at the meeting will be
Claire Marrant of France's Léon Bérard Centre
and Robert Nuttall of the Canadian Cancer Society.
By the end of the meeting, IARC's invited participants will decide whether RF/MW radiation should be
designated a possible or probable human carcinogen, or whether there isn't enough evidence to reach a conclusion.
It is unlikely that RF/MW radiation will be designated as either a known human cancer agent or as cancer safe, the
other two IARC classifications.
The IARC panel will later issue a Monograph to explain the
basis for its decision.
IARC Monographs are widely considered the gold standard for determining which chemical and physical agents
can or may lead to cancer. The IARC decision on RF/MW radiation will likely govern official perceptions
of the cancer risk from mobile phones for the foreseeable future.
Connecting the Dots:
Putting the Volkow Brain Scans in Perspective
March 8… "Cell Phones Affect Brain Activity." That headline has appeared all over the world since
Nora Volkow published a PET scan of a brain lit up by a cell phone last month.
Her colorful graphics, published in the high impact
Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA),
guaranteed Volkow a large and attentive audience. But all the
hoopla shouldn't obscure the fact that for more than a decade many others,
notably Peter
Achermann's group at the University of Zurich, have shown similar types of radiation-induced
changes in the brain as well as much more.
Indeed, in December 2002, exactly the same headline —actually it was in German,
"Handys Beeinflussen die Gehirnaktivitaet"— ran in Tages Anzeiger, a widely
read Swiss newspaper. Back then, the hook for the story was a new Achermann paper in
the Journal of Sleep Research. (If you put
that German headline in Google, the first four links take you to articles on the Volkow study and the
fifth to
Achermann's 2002 paper. The journal's news release on the Achermann paper was also titled, "Cell Phones Affect Brain Activity.")
Like Volkow, Achermann used PET scans to monitor brain activity. He too placed an
antenna on each side of the subject's head and activated only one; Volkow used two cell
phones. There were some differences, of course. Achermann used a GSM signal for 30
minutes, while Volkow used a CDMA phone for 50 minutes. More importantly,
Achermann saw changes in cerebral blood flow while Volkow saw them in glucose
metabolism. Both reflect brain activity, with glucose generally considered to be the more
sensitive indicator of what is going on in the brain.
Cell Phone Radiation Changes Brain Metabolism
Low-Level Effects Get a Boost
February 22… A well-regarded and influential team of researchers from
the National Institutes of Health (NIH)
and the Brookhaven
National Lab (BNL) is on the brink of resolving a
long-standing dispute with enormous implications for public
health. In a paper due out tomorrow, Nora Volkow and
coworkers are reporting that cell phone radiation
can affect the normal functioning of the human brain.
Whether these short-term changes will lead to health consequences (and what
they might be) is far from clear
—though Volkow already has preliminary indications of a
long-term effect. Nor is the mechanism of interaction yet
known. But the new finding, if confirmed, would at the very
least force a rethink of the prevailing orthodoxy, which maintains that
low levels of RF and microwave radiation are innocuous and can be disregarded.
Using positron emission tomography (PET), the NIH-BNL
researchers have shown that radiation from a 50-minute
cell phone exposure can speed up glucose metabolism, an established
measure of brain activity. The finding is highly statistically
significant. What is particularly remarkable about the new work is that those regions of the brain that were most highly
exposed to phone radiation had the largest increases in metabolic activity. The NIH-BNL paper
is published in the February 23rd issue of the
Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA)
"This paper is just dynamite," said David Carpenter, the director of the Institute for Health and the Environment in Albany, NY. "It's going to be very difficult to deny that RF radiation from a cell phone done not alter nervous system activity." Carpenter, a neurophysiologist, has been active in the electromagnetic research community for over 30 years. "This work will turn the whole issue around," he told Microwave News.
It is unlikely that the changes seen in the brain could result from a thermal effect, Volkow told Microwave News. Volkow is the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), one of the 21 institutes that make up the NIH.
Game Changer?
December 21… It's only a short letter buried in the back pages of a journal, but it could change the
entire cell phone–cancer controversy.
A group at Hebrew University in Jerusalem has reported a
sharp increase in the incidence of parotid gland tumors in Israel over the last 30 years.
Rakefet Czerninski, Avi Zini and Harold Sgan-Cohen found that these tumors have quadrupled since 1970, "with the steepest increase" after 2001
(see plot below). Their letter appears in the January 2011 issue of Epidemiology; it's a free download. They are with the Hadassah School of
Dental Medicine at the university.
The reason this is so important is that three years ago Siegal Sadetzki, the leader of the Israeli Interphone study group, reported that heavy users of cell phones "showed significantly elevated risks" of parotid gland tumors; the trend was apparent as early as after only five years of use.
Sadetzki's results and those of others pointing to increases in the risk of developing brain tumors or acoustic neuromas, have met with widespread skepticism because, critics say, no one has seen an uptick of the these tumors in the general population. Now, the team in Jerusalem has seen exactly that —though no one is claiming to have shown a causal association. Even so, the new finding is guaranteed to rekindle concerns about the possible link between cell phones and cancer.
The parotid gland is a type of salivary gland —the one that is closest to the cheek next to where most people hold their cell phones. Interestingly, the new Israeli data show no similar increases in the two other major types of salivary glands, the submandibular and sublingual glands that are further away from the phone (see bottom two plots in the figure above).
Earlier this year, another group at the Hebrew University's Hadassah School of Dental Medicine found that, in a test on human volunteers, the parotid gland adjacent to a cell phone had higher rates of saliva secretion, and lower protein secretion, than did the parotid gland on the other side of the face.
Israelis are well known as exceptionally heavy users of cell phones. There has been a sixfold increase in the number of minutes used from 1997 to 2006, according to Czerninski and coworkers.
Sam Milham: An Appreciation
Download a pdf of this
news and commentDecember 15… John Snow is known as the father of modern epidemiology, best remembered for helping end the
1854 cholera epidemic in London.
At the time no one yet knew that cholera is caused by bacteria, but Snow had long suspected that it was transmitted by food or water. In the hard-hit
neighborhood of Soho where hundreds had died, Snow mapped the location of the homes of the victims and could see that most lived near the Broad Street water
pump. Snow was able to persuade local officials to remove the handle of the pump and soon the epidemic subsided.
Sam Milham is a world-class epidemiologist who follows in Snow's footsteps.
After a long, productive career —detailed in his new autobiography,
Dirty Electricity — Sam is now on the
trail of another invisible agent that he believes is causing an epidemic of many different diseases, most especially cancer.
(Sam calls them the "diseases of civilization.") He is convinced that they are caused, at least in part, by EMFs and
especially by high-frequency transients (little bursts of electromagnetic energy) or what he calls dirty electricity.
Like Snow, Sam's top priority has always been public health. And Sam has never been afraid to say what's on his mind. If that means speaking out and taking action before every
"t" is crossed and every "i" is dotted, so be it. But that's as far as the parallels with Snow and cholera go. Sam's ideas about transients and cancer are not getting any traction.
This is nothing new for Sam. He's been ahead of the pack on EMFs for 30 years. Time and time again, Sam has come up with original and provocative ideas that have opened —or should
have opened—new avenues of research, only to see them fall by the wayside.…
Once Again, Cell Phones Linked to Tumors
December 1… The acoustic neuroma story is becoming quite compelling. October 20… "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public," H.L. Mencken, the American journalist,
famously said years ago. And so it continues today, not only in the U.S. but most everywhere else. The continuing EMF controversy, stimulated by
three new books —Sam Milham's Dirty Electricity,
Devra Davis's Disconnect and
Ann Gittleman's Zapped, —
has fueled the demand for quick fixes. (None of these authors recommends them.) Just about every day, someone contacts us, pitching a new product or, on the consumer side,
asking if they do any good. October 1… We just learned that David Eisen, the former Director of Research and Information at the Newspaper
Guild, died on September 16 at the age of 85. (A notice appeared in today's New York Times.)
We got to know Dave Eisen back in the early 1980s when we were reporting on the possible health
risks associated with video display terminals (VDTs), cathode ray tube (CRT) displays for computers. (From 1984 to 1995, Microwave
News also published VDT News.) We'll let the obituary
that ran in Maine's Kennebec Journal recount his life story, but we wish to salute him here. September 28… Who offers better scientific advice:
Lady Gaga or Scientific American ?
Okay, it's a trick question. Sometimes Lady Gaga does make more sense. June 30… Users of cell phones have another reason to be cautious. An Austrian team has found that
the risk of developing tinnitus, a ringing in the ears, doubled after four years. This is one of the first epidemiological studies to investigate the
long-term effects of mobile phones on hearing. May 17… There's an old saying that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. Welcome to Interphone. May 7… The first results of the
Interphone project will be released on May 18, Microwave News has learned.
The paper will be published in the International Journal of Epidemiology.
"It is scheduled to be in the June issue," said an assistant in the journal's editorial office in Bristol, England. An electronic copy of the paper will be posted on the
"advance access" page of the journal's Web site on the 18th.
Researchers in Tokyo have reported that they too found more of these tumors of the acoustic nerve among long-term cell phone users
—the third group to see this link.
Those who used cell phones for more than 20 minutes a day for at least five years had three times more acoustic neuromas than expected. The Japanese team also saw a strong
suggestion of a dose-response relationship: The longer people used cell phones —both in terms of minutes of daily calls and years of use— the greater their risk.
Reading the new paper published in Bioelectromagnetics,
one gets the feeling that Naohito Yamaguchi, the lead author, would have preferred that there be no association, as he and the
Japanese Interphone group reported in a separate study four years ago. This time around
he and his coworkers at the Tokyo Women's Medical University allow that the risk may in fact be real. "[W]e could not identify any convincing evidence for biases that would
entirely explain the observed increase of tumors," they wrote.
Strangely, Yamaguchi does not offer any reasons why the new study points to a risk while his Interphone study did not. (They
have different study designs.) And even more peculiar,
Yamaguchi does not cite one of the two other papers showing an association between cell phones and acoustic neuroma —he ignores
the work of the Hardell group. The third is the combined analysis from five Northern European countries that are part of the 13-country
Interphone project.
The Japanese study intensifies the pressure on the Interphone investigators to
complete their combined analysis of the acoustic neuroma data before IARC's–RF cancer assessment next May.
The acoustic neuroma paper is our priority," Joachim Schüz
told Microwave News. Schüz, who now works for IARC, is a member of both the Danish and German Interphone study groups.
Elisabeth Cardis, the head of Interphone, would only say that the Interphone
acoustic neuroma paper is "under preparation."
Scams Galore
The gizmos promising protection include
bracelets,
pendants and headbands.
Two of the best-known are BioPro and Q-Link,
which have been around for years. They are really no different from all the others. That's to say, they don't work.
The most charitable way to describe them would be as placebos, or more appropriately, very expensive placebos.
Last week, for instance, a Canadian outfit called MicroAlpha wrote to us about its
Neutralizer, which if installed "before the first frost" would stop
"bad electric energy" from rising and stunting plants and trees. It promises that a vineyard, once neutralized, would yield grapes as good as those in France and Italy. The Neutralizer is also
available as a "Peace Ball," designed to be worn as a necklace. It's yours for C$100. Or you can get the
ball in an industrial strength version
(600 times stronger) for C$450. In line with the old saying, never give a sucker an even break, MicroAlpha recommends that you go for the strongest one you can afford, that is, the most expensive.
And for those who have money to burn, there is the mighty
Diamond Edition Peace Ball, yours for up to C$8,000. While you're at it,
you might want to protect your pets with the
"Happy Ball" (C$165-$650).
We should acknowledge that there is
one paper in the peer-reviewed literature that claims
that these things might actually do something. In 2002, a group led by Rodney Croft,
currently the head of the Australian Centre for RF Bioeffects Research, reported
in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine that the Q-Link and its Sympathetic Resonance Technology did in fact "have an affect [sic] on
neural function." Croft's paper was sponsored
by Clarus Products International, which makes and markets the Q-Link. Croft is now well known as one of Australia's leading defenders of cell phone safety.
Alasdair Philips, the director of Powerwatch, a U.K. advocacy group, took
a look at how Croft had carried out his experiment and determined that the results were
"virtually worthless." Philips also took the Q-Link "Ally" apart and
found that it had been put together "in such a way as it could never, even vaguely, work."
What sets BioPro apart is that its business model is not too different from a pyramid scheme,
or to use a more genteel term, it's a multilevel marketing company. You too can get in on the scam and make money by becoming a
BioPro Independent Consultant and selling these worthless gadgets and recruiting others to do so too.
Don Bauder provides an inside look at how such companies work in a
recent article for the San Diego Reader. One take-home lesson is
that BioPro and its latest incarnation, Gia Wellness, look for any possible way to make you part with your money.
There is nothing special about
preying on people's fears of EMFs. Gia Wellness also sells "inspired nutrition" products. The most amazing (and appalling) of these is the
Gia Smart Card™. It looks
very much like a credit card, but, apparently, has some very special properties: It "is designed to transfer its vital energy onto any food or beverage you consume, to release its natural energetic potential,"
according to Gia.
Now that BioPro has lost whatever cachet it once had, Gia is marketing another cell phone protection device, the Cell Guard.
You can buy a pack of four for $147.50.
Cell Guard looks a lot like BioPro and there is every reason to believe that it is just as effective.
For a time, the most notable proponent of BioPro Technology was George Carlo, the sometime epidemiologist,
lawyer and entrepreneur. They formed a "Strategic Alliance" about five years ago.
In a video archived on YouTube, Carlo describes this alliance as a way to fulfill his "moral and ethical obligation to get [BioPro] in the hands of thousands
and thousands of people as soon as [possible]."
In 2008, however, the relationship soured and Carlo confessed that BioPro is nothing but quackery. This was one of "my most regrettable professional mistakes," he said.
That's saying quite a lot given that in the 1990s he ran a $25 million scam, known as Wireless Technology Research (WTR) on behalf of the cell phone industry trade group,
CTIA. Carlo and CTIA had promised a research program on the health effects of cell phone radiation but delivered practically nothing,
except to show, yet again, that H.L. Mencken knew what he was talking about.
Dave Eisen (1925-2010)
At a time when very few were willing to take seriously the potential health impacts of EMF emissions from VDTs
(there are many different types and some have complex waveforms), Dave made sure that the Guild stayed involved so that its members, many of whom spent long days at a glowing terminal,
might be protected.
He also made sure that the union's newspaper, The Guild Reporter, gave the story ink. Paul Brodeur covered much of this history in the
The New Yorker (June 26, 1989) and his 1989
book, Currents of Death.
These days, when practically everyone has a flat screen or a laptop, CRTs are fast becoming technological relics. But not long ago, millions upon millions sat in front of them all day, every day.
After the Swedes
disclosed that VDT EMFs could be largely eliminated for less than a dollar per set, companies had no choice but to shield them. The health concerns soon subsided.
Left unanswered, however, were some basic questions, such as
can VDT EMFs cause miscarriages and birth defects? Today, we face a very similar situation with cell phones, except this time billions of people are at risk of brain tumors
and acoustic neuromas. We can only hope that there will be other Dave Eisens who will want to help resolve this and other EMF health issues.
“Scientific American” vs. Lady Gaga
Two items crossed our desk this morning. A dispatch from Next-Up, the European EM activist group,
under the title "Lady Gaga Says No to Radiation from Mobile Phones."
That in turn was based on an August 31 story in the U.K. Sun newspaper —admittedly not one of the most reliable sources of news, but then again
this is not a complicated story.
"Mobiles Send You Gaga," warned the
headline (don't miss the Sun's accompanying photo of Lady G. in her retro phone hat). Citing a "source close to the star," the Sun reported: "Even though there's no firm evidence, it's really freaked her out.
One of her team has to hold the phone so it isn't too close to her head. She then listens on the phone loudspeaker." That's one way to practice
precaution, at least for those lucky enough to have an assistant always at the ready.
A few minutes later, a friend e-mailed us a column by Michael Shermer, the publisher of
Skeptic magazine, which appears in
the October issue of Scientific American (p.98). According to Shermer, "Physics shows that cell phones cannot cause cancer."
What physics? Apparently, the well-known fact that microwaves don't have the quantum energy to break chemical bonds. This is the same tired argument cited just about every
week by physicist, now rabid blogger, Robert Park. (Disclosure: Park writes
nasty things about Microwave News and its editor Louis Slesin, often messing up the most basic facts about who we are and what we do.) Another skeptics' magazine (how
many are there?),
the Skeptical Inquirer, ran a long piece, "Power Line Panic and Mobile Mania", late last
year making the same general argument.
Yes, yes, yes, we can all agree that microwaves are too weak to disrupt molecular bonds. Can we now please move beyond that? We have been covering
this topic for decades, with special emphasis on the possibility that power-frequency EMFs and cell-phone radiation may lead to DNA breaks. Yes, again,
not break them directly — but perhaps by inhibiting the repair process. We all know —or at least we should— that DNA breaks are common events in human biology.
What would happen if the repair mechanisms that can usually fix the breaks no longer work? In the end, there isn't much net difference between breaking a bond
and failing to repair an already broken bond. Either way, you end up with potentially compromised genetic material.
A couple of years ago, a news article in Science magazine also claimed that cell phone radiation could not break DNA. When we and others pointed out that
there was a large body of work in the peer-reviewed literature showing that microwaves could indeed affect DNA, Science conceded that the matter
was far from resolved. (For our coverage of the Science dispute, click here.)
The possibility that microwaves can lead to more broken bonds does not tell us whether they can lead to brain cancer or other types of tumors.
But as long as physicists and those pretending to know some physics continue to confuse the issue, we will never move forward to that key question. Then again, that might
be the whole point of promoting all this misinformation.
Score one for Lady Gaga.
And Now … Tinnitus
Hans-Peter Hutter of the Institute
of Environmental Health at the Medical University of Vienna, and coworkers report that the observed association
is "unlikely" to be spurious and could have important implications for public health. Their
new epidemiological study, based on 100 cases and 100 controls,
will appear in an upcoming issue of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.
The "possible association of mobile phone use and tinnitus is plausible," according to Hutter, "because the cochlea [the inner ear] and
the auditory pathway are located in an anatomical region where a considerable amount of the power emitted by mobile phones is absorbed." The risk of tinnitus was greatest
on the side of the head the phone was used. The doubling of the incidence after long-term use is of borderline statistical significance. Hutter
also raises the possibility that other factors may be responsible: For instance, blood flow near the ear could be affected when the user is in a constrained posture while on the phone.
Two large European research projects, GUARD
and EMFnEAR, have investigated the possible impact of cell phones on human hearing. But both have
focused on short-term exposures —mostly for just 10 or 20 minutes— and have generally found no
effects (see, for example, a recent paper in Radiation Research.) These two projects
cost a total of $3-4 million.
Michael Kundi, thancer (IARC)
The appointment signals a calculated gamble for IARC and for Wild, at least with respect to making further progress on Interphone. The $25 million, 13-country project has tarnished the agency's reputation
as factions within Interphone have battled for years over whether cell phones present a cancer risk. Now, immediately following the release of the Interphone paper on
brain tumors, Wild has picked
Schüz, a well-known member of the project's no-risk camp, to bring the feuding parties together. Schüz must begin by forging a consensus on the
equally contentious question of whether mobile phones can lead to a second type of tumor,
acoustic neuroma. And he has to do so on a tight schedule.
Schüz, a prolific epidemiologist, has worked with both the German
and Danish Interphone study groups. While at the University of Mainz, he
led the German team, which published its first Interphone paper on brain tumor risks
more than four years ago: Schüz himself reported that long-term users had more than twice the rate of brain tumors, but that the increase was not statistically significant
(see "Is There a Ten-Year Latency
for Cell Phone Tumor Development?" Jan'06). In 2005, he moved to
the Danish Cancer Society in Copenhagen, where he has collaborated with
Christoffer Johansen on the Danish analyses. Schüz is currently the
head of the department of biostatistics and epidemiology at the society's
Institute of Cancer Epidemiology. (See also Schüz's full CV.)
When Christopher Wild took over as the head of IARC in January 2009, he sought to break the deadlock over Interphone.
Wild picked Schüz to join him on a
three-member panel to redraft the Interphone brain tumor paper. Schüz represented the skeptics
— also known as the ICNIRP
contingent, which includes Sweden's Maria Feychting
and the U.K.'s Tony
Swerdlow. Rounding out the panel was Australia's
Bruce Armstrong,
who along with
Elisabeth Cardis and
Israel's Siegal
Sadetzki, is seen as more open to the idea that there might be a long-term tumor risk
(see Armstrong's lecture: "Cell Phone Link to Tumors? — 'We
Don't Know'," Mar'09).
Interphone will move forward, Schüz told Microwave
News. "The mandate is to finish all the work —the sooner, the better,"
he said. Wild is helping to meet that goal. Wild has recently allocated funds so that data
analyses can continue at the agency's headquarters in Lyon, according to
Nicolas Gaudin, the head of communications at IARC.
Elisabeth Cardis will continue as the head of the overall Interphone project,
Schüz said. Cardis, the former chief of IARC's radiation group, led
Interphone from its very beginnings in the late 1990s. She left the agency two
years ago to join the Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology
(CREAL) in Barcelona.
Completing the Interphone paper on acoustic neuroma is the top priority, according to Schüz:
"The results for acoustic neuroma are the most urgent on our list."
Asked about the current status of that work, he replied, "The analysis
is still in progress." Schüz conceded that a paper has not yet been drafted.
The results on acoustic neuroma would no doubt play an important role at the IARC RF review,
scheduled for May 24-31, 2011 —if they are finished in time. The cancer monograph finalized at that meeting will likely
be the last word on RF radiation tumor risks for the foreseeable future.
Vincent Cogliano, the head of IARC's
Monograph Program, told
Microwave News that due to "intense interest among national health
agencies and among the general public," the review would not be delayed to
wait for any further Interphone results. "We hope that this deadline —more
than 11 months in the future— will encourage investigators to swiftly
complete and publish their analyses of the data they have already collected,"
he said.
But the Interphone study team seems unlikely to meet the deadline.
The brain tumor paper was finally published last
month after four years of wrangling (see "Interphone Points to Long-Term
Brain Tumor Risks; Interpretation Under Dispute," May'10).
The acoustic neuroma paper promises to be just as controversial. The pooled data from five Northern European
Interphone groups —as well as a separate study from Lennart Hardell's team in Sweden— have linked
acoustic neuromas to long-term cell phone use. But here too, as with the brain tumor results, the no-risk faction within Interphone sees these results
as unreliable.
Other Interphone work that still must be completed is the analysis of the parotid gland tumor data, as well as an investigation of the location of the tumors
relative to the radiation plume of the phones. Using such already-collected Interphone data would be the quickest way to resolve some of the uncertainties about the tumor risks, according to
Joe Bowman of the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), who helped the
Interphone team assess radiation exposures. "Analyses of these other Interphone data should help clarify
whether the reported increases in cancer risks are due to the phone's radiation or resulted from the study's design weaknesses," Bowman noted in
a "Questions & Answers on Interphone," prepared with NIOSH's Robert Park. (In addition, no one has yet looked at what role the use of DECT, and other cordless phones, and
the use of hands-free kits, may have played.)
Schüz on Long-Term Tumor Risks: “Very Unlikely”
In a wide-ranging interview, Schüz said that the Interphone study group had learned more
about epidemiological methods than about cell phone tumor risks.
"The entire association [seen in Interphone] can be explained by bias —
There are a lot of competing biases," he said. "If there were a stronger effect,
we would have seen it." Schüz believes that a doubling of the risk
following 10-15 year of cell phone use is "very unlikely."
Schüz said that his outlook on long-term risk is largely based, not on Interphone, but on his and
Johansen's Danish cohort studies and especially on their
more recent analysis of the
incidence of brain tumors in the Nordic countries, published late last year. Neither points to an
increase in brain tumors among the general population.
Others, such as Michael Kundi of the Medical University of Vienna, argue that, it is
still far too early to be able to detect any increase in national statistics that could be linked to the use of mobile phones. Even under "extreme assumptions," it would not
be possible "to find an increased risk at the population level," Kundi told Microwave News.
(See also "Spin, Spin, Spin," Dec'09.)
When asked whether he can heal the fractures within the Interphone group,
Schüz replied that, "It's not unusual in science for there to be
differences in opinions." He added: "At the end, all of the 17 principal
investigators signed off on the [brain tumor] paper. A lot of work was done.
We should look forward not backward." Armstrong, his colleague on Wild's
three-member panel, told Microwave News that he has "great
respect" for Schüz. "His motivation throughout was to get the science
right."
Convincing members of the EMF activist community that he will serve as an
impartial broker at IARC will be more difficult. Many of them see Schüz as
too willing to discount possible risks. "Schüz does his best to serve
industry," said Lothar Geppert of Diagnose Funk in Zurich.
According to his "declaration of
interests", submitted to the EC last year, Schüz has received industry funding under a six-year contract with the Electric Power
Research Institute (EPRI) for studies on childhood leukemia. He also received support from the mobile phone industry through the Interphone and COSMOS projects. In addition, Schüz has
consulted for Wissenschaftlicher Beirat Funk (WBF), an Austrian mobile phone advisory group that has received
funding from telecom companies.
When he joins IARC this summer, Schüz will become one of the most
prominent EMF researchers in the international cancer establishment. He has
been working in the field his entire professional career. Schüz wrote his
doctoral thesis on the link between childhood leukemia and power-frequency
EMFs at the University of Mainz in the mid-1990s. ("I am pretty sure that
bias does not explain the association," he said recently; see also MWN, J/A97,
p.10.) And Schüz has just been elected president of the
Bioelectromagnetics Society (BEMS). A formal announcement will be made
at the BEMS annual meeting in Seoul next week.
Schüz is a member of the EC's Scientific
Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks (SCENIHR).
He is also a member of two ongoing research projects on the brain tumor
risks associated with mobile phones:
COSMOS and CEFALO. Schüz
said that he would continue with CEFALO since it is drawing to a close, but
that he would step down from COSMOS, which is still in its very early
stages.
IARC's environment section has two groups, one on radiation and the other
on lifestyle and cancer. Ausrele Kesminiene, the current leader of the
radiation group, will stay on, reporting to Schüz. Kesminiene's
research has focused on ionizing radiation, specifically on the effects of the
meltdown of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor in 1986. Schüz himself
will head the lifestyle group (see IARC's organizational chart).
Interphone Points to Long-Term Brain Tumor Risks
Interpretation Under Dispute
The good news is that the Interphone paper has finally been made public after a four-year stalemate within the 13-country research team.
But it comes at a price. A series of compromises over how to interpret the results of the largest and most expensive study of cell phones and
brain tumors ever attempted has left the paper with no clear conclusions other than more research is needed.
Everyone anticipated that Interphone wouldn't offer any definitive findings, and they were right. "An increased risk of brain cancer [has not been] established,"
said Christopher Wild, the director of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in Lyon, which coordinated the study.
IARC is part of the World Health Organization (WHO).
But, there are "suggestions of an increased risk" at "the highest exposure levels," according to the
abstract of the paper published by the International Journal of Epidemiology.
How should those "suggestions" be interpreted? At the very least, the risks are greater than many believed only a few years ago.
Interphone Results Due Out on May 18
Interphone is the largest and most expensive epidemiological study of the possible tumor risks associated with the use of mobile phones
ever attempted. Research teams in 13 countries are participating in the project which is being coordinated by the International Agency
for Research on Cancer (IARC) in Lyon, France.
The Interphone project, which has cost approximately $30 million to date, was originally scheduled to be
completed in mid-2005, but work
came to a halt as the individual national teams could not agree on how to interpret the findings of an increased incidence
of tumors among long-term users of mobile phones (see
"Set Interphone Free"
and "The Cracks Begin To Show").
A spokeswoman at the Oxford University Press, the publisher of the journal, said that the press release is in the process of
being finalized by IARC and will be distributed under embargo, probably at the end of next week.
Nicolas Gaudin, IARC's head of communications, did not respond to a request for comment on the timing of the release.
It is not yet known whether IARC will allow the paper to be open access, that is, available to all at no charge.
There are reports that Elisabeth Cardis, the
head of Interphone, has been
invited to present the results on May 27 in Bordeaux, France at a meeting sponsored by the
European BioElectromagnetics Association,
COST and URSI Commission K. Cardis told Microwave News
that she is awaiting confirmation from the conference organizers.
The Interphone stalemate has become a major embarrassment for IARC. When Christopher
Wild took over as IARC director in January 2009, he made publishing the results a top priority. Five months later, the paper was
submitted to a journal.
Even so, it took another year for the group to complete the rewrites that are part of the peer-review process. This prompted
rumors that the epidemiologists were, once again, fighting among themselves —or as some have remarked, behaving badly.
But, the paper to be released on the 18th will only address brain tumors, not acoustic neuromas or parotid gland tumors. Work on those parts of the project
stopped years ago, as did efforts to use location data to see whether the tumors are in the cell phones' radiation plume
(see "Much Remains To Be Done"). Some believe that these
analyses may never be completed. "It appears unlikely that the Interphone investigators will work together to finish the rest of what was supposed to be done," Joe Bowman of U.S.
NIOSH in Cincinnati told Microwave News, "It would be a crime if that happened, so I hope
I'm wrong." Bowman is on the exposure assessment team for the Interphone project.
Study teams from Individual countries, as well a group of five northern European countries, have published their own results —some as early as 2005. IARC posted
a list of these papers, as well as full list of all project publications in its last
Interphone status report, dated October 8, 2008. At that
time, the project had produced a total of 42 papers. IARC has also posted a copy of the
study protocol, which was completed in 2001.
May 6… Today, the President's Cancer Panel issued its report,
Reducing Environmental Cancer Risk. The #1
recommendation is to adopt a precautionary outlook: "A precautionary, prevention-oriented approach should replace current reactionary approaches to environmental contaminants
in which human harm must be proven before action is taken to reduce or eliminate exposure" (p.103). The panel also states that, "It is vitally important to recognize that children are far
more susceptible to damage from environmental carcinogens" (p.111).
One notable quote from Martha Linet,
the head of the Radiation Epidemiology Branch at the National Cancer Institute (NCI):
"[T]he most urgent issue that we need to address … is whether children or adolescents using cell phones are at increased risk" (p.58, see also p.A-55).
With respect to cell phones, the panel advises: "Adults and children can reduce their exposure to electromagnetic energy by wearing a headset when using a cell phone,
texting instead of calling and keeping calls brief" (p.112).
Children and Cell Phones:
Time To Start Talking Sense
May 3… Fifteen years ago Om Gandhi pointed out that
children are exposed to higher levels of
radiation from cell phones than adults. He was right then and he is right today. Yet, no one could blame you for thinking otherwise.
In an article
published in the May issue of Harper's,
Nathaniel Rich uses
this putative controversy, among a number of other examples, to make the case that confusion reigns in all aspects of cell-phone research.
"The brain of a child absorbs a much greater amount of radiation from a cell phone than does
the brain of an adult," he writes, adding immediately after, "No, it does not."
The truth is that there should be no controversy. Children do have higher radiation exposures and if cell phones are indeed doing
us harm, then children are at greater risk than their parents.
"There is nothing complicated about why children absorb more radiation than adults,"
Gandhi told Microwave News from his office at the University of Utah not long ago.
Children have thinner skulls and smaller ears than adults, he explained, and so the radiation has a shorter distance to travel
from the phone to the brain. (Every millimeter of separation makes a big difference.) Because more radiation gets to the brain, the specific
absorption rate (SAR), the preferred way to measure the radiation dose, increases. That's it.
You don't need any complicated equations, or even a computer to see the big picture. "The higher SARs have nothing to do
with sophisticated models," Gandhi said, "It's all about separation distance. This is something you can explain to your mother-in-law."
April 14… Men's Health has gotten into the act too. The May issue offers its take on cell phone radiation health risks with "Is Your Life on the Line?" by Paul Scott. He covers much of the same ground as Nathaniel Rich in Harper's —except his is shorter. Like Rich, Scott begins with the story of Lloyd Morgan, a brain tumor survivor and cell phone activist
, who, Scott says, "has made it his mission to spread the message that cell phone radiation is carcinogenic."Scott leans towards believing that there may well be a brain tumor risk, but tries to stick to the center. His editors, on the other hand, are playing both sides. In a separate post, Men's Health lists the question as a phony health scare. That verdict is based on the opinion of John Moulder, who has long served as an industry consultant (see "Radiation Research and the Cult of Negative Studies").
Unlike Harper's, Men's Health gives Internet readers free access; Harper's wants you to subscribe first.
April 13… Out today: The May issue of Harper's magazine with a cover story on mobile phone and other
EMF health risks: "For Whom the Cell Tolls:
Why Your Cell Phone May (or May Not) Be Killing You" by Nathaniel Rich.
March 11… The CBS Evening News took on the brain tumor-cell phone story tonight with
"Maine Considers Warnings for Cell Phones." The focus was
on State Representative Andrea Boland's bill,
the Children's Wireless Protection Act, which would require cell phones be sold with warning labels.
That bill has practically no chance of getting through the legislature. Members of the Health and Human Services Committee unanimously (13-0) opposed it earlier in the week, according to the
Associated Press. And even if the legislature were to pass the bill,
Gov. John Baldacci would likely veto it.
Last night, CNN's Campbell Brown ran a segment, "How
Safe Is Your Cell Phone?" on her prime time news show. Her guests were Time magazine's Bryan Walsh who has a cell-phone feature in this week's issue
and John Boockvar, a neurosurgeon at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City. Boockvar, who appeared on the CNN set wearing his scrubs and white coat, expressed
skepticism that there might be any link between cell phones and brain tumors. The RF radiation emissions, he said, "probably do not cause any significant tissue damage that would cause brain tumors to form." He went on to note that the
incidence of brain cancer in the U.S. has stayed "relatively stable over the last ten years" as the use of cell phones has risen exponentially. Boockvar joins Ted Schwartz
as the second Weill Cornell neurosurgeon to take the national stage to downplay public concerns over cell phone risks.
March 4… Time magazine has posted a piece on "Cell-Phone Safety," which will appear in
next week's print edition (March 15).
Also, in its March issue, Popular Science offers a detailed look at the EMF controversy.
"Disconnected" runs a full ten pages, with a promo on the cover:
"Killer Cell Phones: The Real Science Behind the Health Scare." The magazine's Web site pitches the story as an exploration of electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS):
"The Man Who Was Allergic to Radio Waves." The "man" is Per Segerbäck, a former Ellemtel telecom engineer who now lives deep
in the Swedish countryside.
To see, once again, how little has been learned about EMFs and health over the last generation, take a look at David Kirkpatrick's article,
"Do
Cellular Phones Cause Cancer?, which ran in Fortune magazine 17 years ago this week (it too was promoted on the cover). In a sidebar,
"Maybe the Swedes Are Right," Kirkpatrick cited
Segerbäck's case of EHS —though not his name. Years later, Kirkpatrick reported that his 1993 article "caused quite a ruckus," adding that, "Motorola
was not thrilled." That was an understatement. Motorola got so ticked off, it pulled all its advertising from Fortune for a long time.
The magazine lost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
February 16… The Washington Post's health section offers its take on the cell phone–tumor story today.
In "Not Exactly a Ringing Endorsement,"
reporter John Donnelly presents a variety of opinions from DC area residents: "Everything is a risk. I'm a bodyguard. That's risky. You got to have a life. Cell phones don't scare me," said one.
"It makes me nervous," said a pregnant 26-year-old, "I use the speakerphone as much as I can. I keep it away from my body. I try to use it very little."
Donnelly offers a similar wide range of views from those who are more directly involved. "I absolutely believe there is a risk, said
Andrea Boland, a lawmaker who has introduced
the Children's Wireless Protection Act in the Maine legislature.
It would require cell phones be sold with warning labels.
"The peer-reviewed scientific evidence has overwhelmingly indicated that wireless devices do not pose a public health risk," countered
John Walls, VP for public affairs at
CTIA.
NIEHS' Michael Wyde, who is running the $25 million
cell phone animal studies for the
National Toxicology Program (NTP), took the middle ground: "Everyone has to make their own decision on
whether to limit exposures or not," he told the Post.
February 14… Tomorrow's Los Angeles Times features a package of four stories on the EMF–health controversy: February 6… Assessing health risks is a tricky business. Teaching others how to do it is no easier.
To see this, you need to look no further than a recent report from the Geneva-based International Risk Governance Council (IRGC), a self-described
"independent" group run by a group of government, industry and academic leaders. The title of the report is a mouthful:
Risk Governance Deficits: An Analysis and Illustration of the Most Common Deficits in Risk Governance.
A better title would have been, Common Pitfalls in Risk Analysis, or perhaps, Risk: A Guide to Better Decision Making. We conclude that risk management of EMFs has certainly not been perfect, but for power-frequency EMFs risk
management has evolved and can be largely considered a success. Lessons from the power-frequency experience can benefit risk governance of radiofrequency EMFs and other emerging technologies. (p.68) The main lesson to be learned from power-frequency experience is that an open and proactive approach to research allowed for a successful management of a potentially
volatile issue that could have had tremendous societal costs. While some uncertainty remains, it is widely accepted that the health effect, even if real, is not of major public health significance.
• "On Different Wavelengths over EMFs"
• "Victims of Electrosensitivity Syndrome Say EMFs Cause Symptoms"
• "Electromagnetic Field Studies Reach Different Conclusions"
• "How Strong Are Different Magnetic Fields?"
Chris Woolston, the Times reporter, does not take a stand, leaving the usual cast of scientists to voice their now well-known opinions. On the there's-nothing-to-worry-about side:
• NCI's Martha Linet: She says studies so far suggest a weak connection [between EMFs and cancer], so weak that it might not exist at all.
• University of Pennsylvania's Ken Foster: "You have a whole population of people that are scared to death of electromagnetic fields;
People latch on to fears that mainstream science doesn't take seriously."
• Robert Park, the former DC rep of the American Physical Society: "I don't understand how anyone with a knowledge of science could believe this stuff."
And, on the side favoring precaution:
• New York's Institute for Health and Environment's David Carpenter: "It's apparent now that there's a real risk; The evidence is growing stronger every day."
• Cleveland Clinic's Ashok Agarwal: Agarwal says there's not enough evidence to tell men with fertility problems to give up
their cellphones, although he personally believes that spending 10 hours a day on the phone isn't exactly a fertility-friendly lifestyle, radiation or no.
No sign anywhere of a meeting of the minds.
Beyond Risk and Reason
The handbook runs 91 pages with case studies on hot-button issues, including genetically modified food, mad cow disease and EMFs.
It offers some sensible recommendations, such as: Don't provide biased, selective or incomplete information about potential risks,
especially from stakeholders who may seek to advance their own interests (pp.22-23). Just about everybody would agree with that advice,
but when the report turns to EMFs, forget about it. Once again, the basic rules governing conflicts of interest don't apply to EMFs.
Here's the summary of the EMF case study reprinted in the IRGC report:
A success? Hardly. The only EMF success stories over the last 30 years tell how the electric utility and cell phone industries have prevailed —largely by suppressing research and marginalizing
the health issue. We have made very little progress understanding what power-line or cell phone EMFs do to us over the last 25 years, and that owes a lot to the success of their game plan.
The case study itself paints an even rosier picture:
If this reads like industry propaganda, that's because it is. The case study was written by two long-time operatives of the electric utility industry: Leeka Kheifets and John Swanson (together with Shaiela Kandel, an Israeli associate).
Anyone with even the most rudimentary knowledge of the EMF health issue would be aware that Kheifets has been associated with EPRI
for most of her professional career and that Swanson is an employee of the National Grid, one of the world's largest electric utilities.
Clearly, they are "stakeholders" of the utility industry and IRGC should have asked a more neutral party to write the EMF case study, if it had operated under its own rules. (For more on Kheifets and Swanson's activities, see
"The Real Junk Science of EMFs.")
If those who teach us the rules of conduct can violate them with such ease, what hope can there be for evenhanded risk assessment?
One of the four principal authors of the IRGC report is John Graham, who is himself
a controversial figure in the risk business. He was the founder of the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis,
whose corporate sponsors read like a roster of the S&P500.
More surprising is that the chair of the IRGC's Scientific and Technical Council is Granger Morgan
of Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). Morgan was a coauthor of an influential EMF report back in 1989
—the first to introduce the concept of precaution for EMF health risks; they called it "prudent avoidance." (One lesser known fact: Morgan was Graham's thesis advisor at CMU.)
Graham is no stranger to EMFs either. He provided cover for George Carlo's research project for the cell phone industry.
Carlo paid Graham's Center for Risk Analysis over $400,000 to help him camouflage the fact that Carlo's enterprise, known as WTR, was a scam, whose primary objective was to avoid doing health research.
Swiss Re, a large reinsurance company, was a sponsor of the IRGC report. Some 15 years ago, Swiss Re issued its own report on
EMFs, Electrosmog A Phantom Risk,
which warned that the EMF problem could "threaten [the insurance industry's] very existence" (see MWN, J/A97, p.8).
That won't happen as long it's so easy to break the most basic rules of risk and reason.
February 1… Two news items, both posted today, show once again the polarization within the RF–health community.
The Oman Daily Observer features a report
from a meeting held in Muscat over the weekend, under the headline, "International Conference Allays Fears on Effects of RF Exposure."
Mike Repacholi, the former head of the WHO EMF project and chairman emeritus of ICNIRP,
is quoted as reassuring the 400-strong audience that none of the close to 3,000 studies that have been done to date worldwide has established that there are any adverse effects below the level set by the international standards. The
invited speakers at the meeting reads like a Who's Who of ICNIRP, past and present —including Anders Ahlbom, David Black, Jim Lin, Ken McLeod, Paolo Vecchia, Luc Verschaeve and Bernard Veyret. The cell phone
industry was also well represented. Mike Dolan, Mike Milligan and Jack
Rowley from the MOA, MMF and GSMA,
respectively, were all on the schedule. Two representatives from ICEMS, Libby Kelley from the U.S. and Nesrin Seyhan from Turkey, were also invited. ICEMS, unlike ICNIRP,
favors a precautionary approach. Kelley decided to withdraw two weeks ago.
Before we had a chance to finish the story from Oman, we received the latest bulletin from
NEXT-UP, the European
activist group. "Repacholi has betrayed the obligations of his office [at WHO]," it charged, "he is corrupt, he must answer for what he has done. He must be brought to justice!"
Where's the middle ground?
January 22 (updated January 26)… Out on the newsstands today: the February issue of GQ magazine with a feature article on cell
phones and cancer. "Warning: Your Cell Phone May Be Hazardous to Your Health," by Christopher Ketcham, draws a parallel between the cover-up of incriminating research on tobacco and microwaves. Ketcham cites
the work of Allan Frey, Henry Lai,
Jerry Phillips, Leif Salford — and the
coverage by Microwave News. The article is available on the magazine's
Web site.
Will NIEHS Ever “Get” EMFs?
January 18… Most managers at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
(NIEHS) refuse to allow that the EMF–cancer playbook may be different from the one for chemicals.
Even now, when there is ample evidence that
power line EMFs can increase the risk of childhood leukemia and there is a growing suspicion that cell phone radiation is associated with three different types of tumors,
NIEHS prefers to look the other way. The institute has long resisted endorsing precautionary policies for any kind of EMFs.
The latest case in point involves John Bucher, a senior NIEHS official who
runs the National Toxicology Program (NTP). During his 27-year career at NTP/NIEHS, Bucher has
evaluated the dangers of any number of chemicals. He is currently taking the lead on BPA, the
controversial plastic additive, as well as radiation from cell phones.
In a story featured on the front pages of North Carolina's
leading newspapers earlier this month, Bucher declared that he doesn't believe that cell phones can cause cancer. "I anticipate either no correlation or, if anything
is seen at all, it won't be a strong signal," he said.
Bucher was referring to a massive NTP project designed to see whether long-term exposure to cell phone radiation can cause cancer in rats and mice.
It is the largest single cancer study ever undertaken by the NTP/NIEHS with a budget of $25 million, maybe more. NIEHS spent ten years planning the project.
What's not explicitly stated in the news article is that the long-term study has not actually started.
Spin, Spin, Spin
December 18… Pity those who are trying to follow the cell phone–brain tumor story. Their sense of the cancer risk is most likely a reflection of the last thing they read or
saw on TV —It all depends on whose sound bite they happen to catch.
Take, for example, a paper published earlier this month in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (JNCI)
by a team of Scandinavian epidemiologists, under a rather bland title —
"Time Trends in Brain Tumor Incidence Rates
in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, 1974–2003." But its message is anything but:
Because there has been no increase in brain tumors between 1998 and 2003, a period when the use of cell phones "increased sharply,"
cell phones are cancer safe.
December 7… Bioelectromagnetics has posted
“Comments” by Louis Slesin,
the editor of Microwave News on
the call to stop research on power-frequency electric fields by
Leeka Kheifets and John Swanson (see “The Real Junk Science of EMFs,” below). The two electric utility insiders declined the journal's
offer to respond. The comments are now on the journal's Web site and will be published in its February 2010 issue.
The Real Junk Science of EMFs:
Stop Electric Field Cancer Research,
Say Industry Scientists
See also “Three Cases of Alleged Scientific Misconduct”
November 23… A decade after some of the world's leading epidemiologists agreed that exposure to power line EMFs could lead to childhood leukemia, the denial continues.
Some people still believe that the studies that link EMFs to cancer are nothing more than junk science. Even those who should know better refuse to acknowledge the risks.
The World Health Organization (WHO) says the association is so weak that it can be pretty much ignored, and the
leading radiation protection group, the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP), has refused to endorse precaution.
Here in the U.S., the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) scarcely acknowledges that EMFs are even a health issue.
As a result, money for research has dried up, and any number of promising avenues that might have moved the issue forward remains unexplored.
How did this happen? The answer has a lot to do with junk science, but not the kind often associated with EMFs.
No one would deny that the EMF literature is peppered with poor studies —those that claim to show effects that can't be repeated.
This happens with EMFs, as well as all other types of research. In this case, we are referring to industry's own brand of junk science that promotes misinformation
and confusion and presents a distorted picture of EMF science.
The story that follows illustrates how electric utilities play the junk science game. It shows how two of its long-time operatives are corrupting the EMF literature.
Leeka Kheifets and John Swanson, together with two utility
associates, are calling for an end to research on the links between power-line electric fields and cancer.
In a paper that will appear in the February 2010 issue of Bioelectromagnetics, Kheifets and Swanson argue that studies on electric fields and
cancer have come to a dead end and that its time to close the book on them. There is "little basis for continued research," they claim. In fact, it is just the opposite.
Epidemiologic studies on electric field effects on workers have produced some of the most provocative findings in the entire EMF cancer literature. This work has been
ignored for years and now Kheifets and Swanson want to bury it for good.
Very Weak Magnetic Fields Lower Sperm Quality
November 6… De-Kun Li's new epidemiological study showing that extended
exposure to weak magnetic fields as low as 1.6 mG (0.16 µT) can have negative effects on sperm quality was published today by Reproductive Toxicology.
"This is the first demonstration of a link between EMF exposure and the decline of semen quality," Li told Microwave News. The study, which was carried out in Shanghai, has important
implications for overall fertility because approximately 40% of the Shanghai population is exposed to more than 1.6 mG for 2.4 hours on a daily basis.
The study, a collaboration with Chinese researchers, documented detrimental effects on a number of different indices of male fertility including semen morphology, motility, density and vitality. The effect on sperm
quality follows a dose-response relationship: the longer the daily exposure above 1.6 mG, the greater the risk. Men who were exposed for more than six hours a day were three-to-four times more likely to have decreased fertility.
The research team notes that the real risk is probably higher. "[S]ince everyone is exposed to some levels of magnetic fields, we did not have a totally 'unexposed' reference group in our study population. Therefore, the magnitude of
the effect observed in this study is likely underestimated," they note.
They also comment that what they have seen is biologically "plausible" because experimental studies in China and Korea have shown that magnetic fields can affect the reproductive system of mice.
Li first announced this finding at a scientific conference a year ago last summer: see our
post of July 3, 2008. Now the full
details are available in the new paper. Li is with Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, CA.
Deleterious effects have now been shown for both power-frequency EMFs and RF/microwave radiation (see
"Keep That Phone Out of Your Trouser Pocket!"). The same mechanism could be at work at both high and low frequencies," Li said.
Interphone: U.K. “Telegraph” Jumps the Gun
October 28… Saturday's lead story in the Telegraph made believe that the U.K. daily had gotten hold of the much-delayed and
much sought-after final results of the Interphone study — and that they showed that using a cell phone does
indeed increase the risk of developing a brain tumor. Under the headline "Mobiles: New Cancer Alert," the newspaper proclaimed that, "Long-term use of mobile phones may be linked to some cancers, a landmark international study
will conclude later this year." In its inside pages were a number of related stories, notably "People Must Be Told About Mobile Phone Dangers, Say Experts" and a sidebar about
Larry Mills who had developed a tumor "exactly
where he held the phone." The story was pitched as an "EXCLUSIVE" and was soon picked up by many other newspapers and Web sites.
In fact, the Telegraph had no scoop. Its reporters did not have an advance copy of the Interphone brain tumor paper. The story was mostly a rehash of what has
already been disclosed —a lot of it a long time ago. For instance, quotes from Elisabeth Cardis,
the head of Interphone, which ran three paragraphs on the front page, were exactly the same as had been reported in Microwave News back in June 2008
(see: "Interphone Project: The Cracks Begin To Show; Cardis Endorses Precaution").
Cardis was also quoted in the Telegraph as saying the Interphone paper would include a public health message. "I said of course there would be one," she told
Microwave News, "We need to make a statement about the public health relevance of our findings." But, she added, she had also told the Telegraph that she was "not at liberty to discuss it or the results of the
study." Cardis is with the Center for Research in Environmental Epidemiology (CREAL) in Barcelona.
The source of the Telegraph story remains unknown. (The obvious possibility is the newspaper's marketing department in a ploy to boost circulation.)
"I have no clue what initiated this article," Joachim Schüz told Microwave News. Schüz, the head of the German Interphone group, is now in Copenhagen at the Danish Cancer Society.
Two other members of the Interphone project have also stated that that there was no basis for the story. "There is, as far as I know, absolutely no information circulating at the
moment that is accurate and correct with respects to the results of that study," Bruce
Armstrong, the head of the Australian Interphone team at the University of Sydney, told the Australian Broadcasting
Corp. Earlier this year, Armstrong gave a public lecture in which he said that the Interphone study is inconclusive but that the suggestion of a long-term risk
prompted him to advise taking precautionary measures such as discouraging children from using mobile phones (see: "Cell Phone Link to Tumors? — "We Don't Know").
The harshest criticism of the Telegraph came from the Karolinska Institute's Maria Feychting, who
leads the Swedish Interphone group. "It's unethical and astounding for this to be in the press before the study is completely and fully analyzed," she told the
Expressen, a Swedish
tabloid. Feychting also voiced her disagreement with the substance of the Telegraph's story. "There is no indication that cell phones pose any health risk
over the short term," she said. "In the long run, that is, for more than ten years, the data are less reliable."
When then can we expect to see the Interphone results? Ten months after the new director of IARC,
Christopher Wild,
made their release a high priority, that is still a matter of speculation (see "IARC Director
Forces Publication of Interphone Brain Tumor Results"). When asked this question at a conference
in Paris last week, Dan Krewski, of the University of Ottawa and a member of the Canadian Interphone team, replied that the paper is
currently under review at a journal and that "hopefully" it would be available "this calendar year." But in the halls outside the lecture room, some expressed a less sanguine outlook. They
predicted that the results would not be available until sometime in 2010.
New Analysis Reaffirms Long-Term Tumor Risk
October 14… A new analysis of already-published studies points to a tumor risk following long-term use of cell phones. This
meta-analysis by a joint Korean-U.S. team of 13 past studies was published yesterday in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Its conclusions support
two previous similar efforts: All three indicate a 20-25% increase in tumors after ten or more years of cell phone use. September 30 (last updated on October 2)… Mice that were placed under short-term stress before being exposed to UV radiation, a known cancer-causing agent,
developed fewer skin tumors than those that just got the UV. These new findings from
Firdaus Dhabhar's lab
at Stanford University medical school were released by Brain, Behavior and Immunity a few days ago.
"I went into this really dubious that anything was going on," Joel Moskowitz
of the University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health, told the
Los Angeles Times.
"Overall, you find no difference. But when you start teasing the studies apart and doing these subgroup analyses, you do find there is reason to be concerned."
Moskowitz is one of the coauthors of the new study; the lead author is Seung-Kwon Myung of South Korea's National Cancer Center.
The Korean and U.S. researchers argue that the epidemiological studies by Lennart Hardell, of
Sweden's Örebro University, are of a higher quality than those from the
Interphone project.
A team from the University of Utah published the first meta-analysis with long-term exposure data two years ago.
Hardell's group published the second last year.
Still no word on when the Interphone group will release its paper on brain tumor risks.
Stress Can Protect Against Cancer;
New Study Confirms Confounding in Cell Phone Animal Project
Dhabhar's study is the first specifically designed to test the hypothesis that stress can protect against tumors.
But his results are eerily similar to those obtained in a set of $10 million animal experiments, known as PERFORM-A,
that were supposed to investigate the cancer risks associated with cell-phone radiation.
In each case, the animals were restrained inside plastic tubes: in Dhabhar's study to put the mice under stress, and in the PERFORM-A project to keep the animals in a fixed position in order
to deliver a well-defined dose of radiation. And, in each case, the stress had a dramatic —and very similar— impact on the animals.
In the six PERFORM-A experiments, carried out in six different countries, mice and rats that were
restrained for a few hours a day developed, in most cases, fewer tumors than free-roaming animals. See, for instance,
the graph below from the PERFORM-A study on rats by Robert Hruby at what is
now known as the Austrian Institute of Technology.
Compare the incidence of tumors among the shams (in pink), which were restrained inside the tubes and placed in a Ferris wheel exposure system but did not
get any radiation, with that of
the cage controls (top, in blue), which also did not get any radiation, but were allowed to run free. (The three middle curves are for the rats that were exposed to varying
levels of RF/microwave radiation in the Ferris wheel.) The shams had much fewer tumors —a result that is consistent with Dhabhar's study.
Dhabhar applied the stress intentionally to see its effect on tumor formation; the PERFORM-A researchers did it in error, a side effect of the experimental design.
The two sets of results may help us get a better handle on the biology of stress. But it also means that the PERFORM-A results cannot do what they were supposed to do. They cannot shed
light on whether cell phones can lead to cancer because the effects of the stress are mixed up with any possible effects of the radiation, and they cannot be disentangled.
There are many differences between the two studies. For instance, in the Dhabhar experiment, the mice were placed inside the plastic tubes for two-and-a-half hours before their 10-minute UV
exposures. In the Hruby study, the rats were restrained in the tubes for four hours a day during the radiation or sham exposure. Also Dhabhar only put the mice under stress for the first ten weeks of
his 32-week study. Hruby's sham-exposed rats were placed in the tubes throughout the six-month experiment. And most of all Dhabhar's animals were treated with radiation, while the shams in
PERFORM-A were not. Nevertheless, the similarity of the results is remarkable.
Members of the PERFORM-A project chose to ignore the possible confounding effects of stress on the animals, even after a preliminary
experiment clearly indicated that mice placed in the exposure system were showing biochemical signs of stress.
For a detailed discussion of these RF-animal experiments, see our special report:
"Wheel on Trial: $10 Million Industry Research Project Flops."
Nor has there been any detailed discussion of the potential role of stress in the PERFORM-A studies since the final results were published. All the while, they
continue to be cited as evidence that mobile phones are cancer-free. PERFORM-A was the brainchild of Motorola and
was largely funded by the mobile phone industry through the MMF and the
GSMA, with support from the EC's Fifth Framework Program.
For more on Dhabhar's study, see his abstract, the
Stanford press release and the write-up in
The Scientist. For specifics on each of the PERFORM-A
experiments, including tumor counts, see the Table of Cell Phone Animal Studies (1997–2007),
which is part of our special report, "Wheel on Trial."