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The Forum > General Discussion > No tumour link to mobile phones, says study

No tumour link to mobile phones, says study

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A very large, 30-year study of just about everyone in Scandinavia shows no link between mobile phone use and brain tumours, researchers reported on Thursday.

http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/mobiles/no-tumour-link-to-mobile-phones-says-study-20091204-kaqs.html

Yet this urban legend continues to circulate in spite of all the evidence to the contrary.

This testimount to the nature of humans to take action based on perception rather than fact.

Further holy cows that have been disproven:

Long term studies in the UK have shown no nutritional benefit to organic food,

Genetically modified food has yet to be shown to be harmful.

Nuclear power has been shown to be the safest electrical power source with a fraction of the fatalities of even solar or wind power.

Numerous studies of people living near power lines have yet to show any negative effects.

Etc, etc.

The greens are very quick to claim scientific validity for climate change, but quickly resort to anecdotal evidence when it comes to nuclear power or GM food.

When will we get a government that has the spine to stand up to the lunatic fringe and govern according to the science and not just the perception?
Posted by Shadow Minister, Monday, 7 December 2009 10:25:23 AM
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Back in the early days of GSM (late 80's) there was research done that proved that the RF generated by Mobile phones when they were "polling" (ie getting signal strength readings from adjacent cells - that di-dit-di-dit sound you sometimes pick up on the radio sometimes) - caused genetic damage.

However, the relationship between genetic damage and cancer was "outside the scope of the research" so it could be argued that there was no DIRECT connection between RF and cancer.

The scientists wanted indemnification from future findings (unusual?)and instead of calling a press conference to announce the findings, the research was "leaked" to the Illawarra Mercury where it was published and dismissed as typical sensationalsim by the rest of the media.

In this way, if a direct cause could be proven then the Telcos and scientists could argue that the research was in the Public Domain and that there was no cover-up.

This was all printed in Electronic Australia during the pre-Internet days so there are no links unless somebody wants to go digging for it and put it out there.

That's how it works sometimes in the real world and this could be the tobacco/asbestos industry of the 21st century.

Yet despite any negative findings, people will continue to use them - just as they continue to smoke, drink, speed, take drugs and live otherwise unhealthy lifestyles.

Telcos and manufactures will continue to do research - which is odd if it's been so conclusively disproven - and people will continue to self-justify their own beliefs despite any evidence either way.
Posted by wobbles, Monday, 7 December 2009 1:07:42 PM
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Great, we are supposed to take a “leaked” report to a newspaper as the “proof’ that mobile phones cause genetic damage in cells? With the research in question never having been published, presumably because of some giant conspiracy? Have you ever stopped to think how unlikely the scenario you have painted is?

There are indeed research studies out there finding DNA damage from the radiofrequencies as used in mobile phones. These used isolated cell cultures and 16 hours or more of continuous exposure. How realistic this research is to real people is hard to say. It is even harder to interpret, because other studies trying to repeat the research failed to find any damage.

The importance of the Scandinavian study is it has taken data on real people and real mobile phone usage conditions and found no increase in brain tumours relating to mobile phone use.
Posted by Agronomist, Monday, 7 December 2009 5:55:17 PM
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SM
You're smarter than this lame excuse for a comparison.

yes. I read it on a science web site too.
What you neglect to say is that the conclusion is statistically arrived at, as determined by *one* investigation. It, unlike AGW is not a synthesis of a number of different independent measuring sources, countless peer reviewed papers and well established physics concepts. There is no sensible comparison, I suggest this is driven by ideological prejudice rather than reason.

As for GM food issue there is still some scientific question such as spreading to weed species and crop contamination.

Personally my objection to GM is more the venders acting as gatekeepers to the most basic commodity, food. To me some license conditions to GM grain are just one step too far. This to me is primarily an ethical issue. AGW is an belief in the science issue.

Clearly trying to make comparison between these issue is plain poor reasoning. You are trying to compare lemons, grapefruit with oranges.
You can do better.
Posted by examinator, Monday, 7 December 2009 5:56:33 PM
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Shadow Minister

<< When will we get a government that has the spine to stand up to the lunatic fringe and govern according to the science and not just the perception? >>

I don't think there's anything settled about either the science or the perception and those who choose to be sensibly cautious don't deserve to be labelled the 'lunatic fringe'. The same label was applied thirty years or so ago to the small number of people who first started warning of human-induced climate change, and now the vast majority accept that fact as reality.

Same too will be the case with many of these issues you've listed here. The jury's still out on all of them, especially mobile phones. One study doesn't negate in my mind the doubts raised by people like brain cancer surgeon, Charlie Teo.

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,26270050-952,00.html

I think the real time bomb is yet to be realised. When today's kids - whose developing brains have been subjected to prolonged mobile phone usage from a very young age - start to feature in the statistics, the story could well be very different.

Since 1988, researchers in the laboratory of a Swedish neurosurgeon, Leif Salford, have been running variations on a simple experiment. They expose young laboratory rats to either a cell phone or other source of microwave radiation, and later they sacrifice the animals and look for albumin in their brain tissue. Albumin is a protein that is a normal component of blood but that doesn't normally cross the blood-brain barrier. The presence of albumin in brain tissue is always a sign that blood vessels have been damaged and that the brain has lost some of its protection. These researchers have consistently found for eighteen years now that microwave radiation, at doses equal to a cell phone’s emissions, causes albumin to be found in brain tissue. A one-time exposure to an ordinary cell phone for just two minutes causes albumin to leak into the brain.

http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2006/04/20/mobile_and_wireless_largest_biological_experiment.htm

For every study you hold up as 'proof', there'll be other studies that will just as legitimately cast very real doubt.
Posted by Bronwyn, Monday, 7 December 2009 11:06:23 PM
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Agronomist,

It was indeed real research and despite your assertions (not mine) that it's part of some giant conspiracy, it was published. I've given you the leads - look it up if you wish.

I never said it was "proof", only questioned the interpretation of the findings and the subsequent media related events.

However you must have noticed that the industry only makes a public announcement or holds press conferences if it's good news.

Strangely, any negative or inconclusive results just don't happen except by researchers outside the industry. What is their motive I wonder? Only one party seems to have a vested interest in any outcome.

Yet despite such overwhelmingly conclusive evidence of inherent safety, research continues.

Whether people continue to use mobile phones or smoke or whatever is of no personal concern to me. Give them to young children too by all means - it's good for my Telstra dividends.
Posted by wobbles, Monday, 7 December 2009 11:26:10 PM
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Didn't Ralph Nader first make a name for himself when he exposed the research cover-ups of General Motors Corvair back in the 70's?

The car was known to be unsafe but insurance actuaries figured it was cheaper to let people die and compensate their families rather than recall and fix the cars.

Some people insist that DDT is safe and beneficial and want it reintroduced.

I guess that money talks.
Posted by rache, Monday, 7 December 2009 11:48:49 PM
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Wobbles, you wrote “there was research done that proved that the RF generated by Mobile phones when they were "polling" (ie getting signal strength readings from adjacent cells - that di-dit-di-dit sound you sometimes pick up on the radio sometimes) - caused genetic damage.” Now unless the meaning of the word ‘proved’ has changed while I wasn’t looking, it rather looks like you were saying it was proof.

Then you came up with some story about how the researchers leaked the information to a newspaper because the scientists wanted indemnification. This smacks of conspiracy theories and is not how science works.

I merely pointed out that research in the area had indeed been published, its context and why it might not bear much relationship to human health.

Research occurs to test hypotheses. Questions have been raised about the safety of mobile phones, so research is conducted to determine whether these safety issues have any validity. Even if all future research on mobile phones finds no risk to safety, some research will still occur, because there will always be some unanswered questions.

Just dealing with individual studies can sometimes be unhelpful. http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1667/RR1507.1 This is why the Scandinavian study has some utility. If 'genetic damage' was occurring and inducing brain cancers, it is highly likely to have been observed in a long term analysis of brain cancer rates. A conclusion from this could be that if mobile phones are inducing brain tumours they are doing so at such minor rates that the incidence is hidden by the noise in the data. Or it takes more than a couple of decades of mobile phone use for the effect to turn up.
Posted by Agronomist, Tuesday, 8 December 2009 8:19:17 AM
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Bronwyn,

You post is a prime example. The links are to a small lab conducting experiments with the prime objective to reach a particular conclusion. What a surprise, their conclusions align with their objectives.

Anyone with even the most basic physics understands

1 The large amount of energy required to heat water.
2 That modern mobiles emit a fraction of a watt, most of which radiates away or reflects off the skull, and only a few milliwatts penetrate.
2 That the water molecule resonant frequency is about 2.45GHz and mobiles use 0.9 to 1.8GHz which while it will heat water, will do it inefficiently.
3 The blood supply to the brain is not only for oxygen, but for cooling too.
4 Localised heating is going to happen how? Microwaves cannot be focused onto a point smaller than 1cm due to their long wavelenth.

The single biggest study on millions of people over decades found no indication what so ever. I would say that this issue is pretty much dead and buried, and any argument to the contrary uses the same twisted logic that creationists use to deny evolutionary science.

As far as GM foods go there have been trillions of servings and not one credible example of any negative consequences.

etc etc.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Tuesday, 8 December 2009 9:32:55 AM
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Shadow Minister

<< The links are to a small lab conducting experiments with the prime objective to reach a particular conclusion. What a surprise, their conclusions align with their objectives. >>

The size of the lab is irrelevant. Many of the larger scale studies are sponsored by mobile phone companies and other vested interests. It's often the smaller outfits who are more truly independent.

<< Anyone with even the most basic physics understands

1. The large amount of energy required to heat water. >>

The article I linked to made the point that it's not just the heat factor, but also the risk of albumin crossing the blood-brain barrier.

<< 2. That modern mobiles emit a fraction of a watt, most of which radiates away or reflects off the skull, and only a few milliwatts penetrate. >>

As stated in the research I quoted, this in itself does not negate the risk -

"Reducing the exposure level by a factor of 10 or 100, thereby duplicating the effect of wearing a headset, moving a cell phone further from your body, or standing next to somebody else’s phone, did not appreciably change the results! Even at the lowest exposure, half the animals had a moderate to high number of damaged neurons."

<< The single biggest study on millions of people over decades found no indication what so ever. I would say that this issue is pretty much dead and buried. >>

Your blind faith in one study is touching. It's reassuring I agree, but as pointed out by Agronomist, it in no way means that questions shouldn't continue to be raised. Besides, results in a healthy Scandanavian society cannot automatically be translated to the Australian population, where awareness of health risk factors and general public health levels are much lower.
Posted by Bronwyn, Tuesday, 8 December 2009 9:56:56 AM
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Shadow Minister,

"modern mobiles emit a fraction of a watt, most of which radiates away or reflects off the skull, and only a few milliwatts penetrate."

That's true when transmitting in a static state. Those polling pulses I alluded to above are RF bursts transmitted at maximum power.

As cell sizes shrink, especially in metropolitan areas with microcells and in the case of 3G where even the main BTS sites are no more than 1km apart, the incidence of polling increases significantly.
Posted by wobbles, Wednesday, 9 December 2009 12:29:02 PM
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May be l have been in the mountains far to long GM is great well that is amazing that a person could possibly come up with that conclusion, how could growing a mono GM crops sprayed with Glyphosate and survive the ordeal then at the next stage in 20 years time what happens to insects and weeds . l know with have natural selection eventually insects will have a feast and Glyphosate will not work on weeds and farmers will all be in the hands of multinationals for more and more powerful chemicals . Then ever farmer in Australia will go broke and l am a dumb Hillbilly and top that get 3000 rats expose them to 5 hours a day of mobile phones and see the increase of brain tumors .
HILLBILLY
Posted by hillbilly, Wednesday, 9 December 2009 9:22:32 PM
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Bronwyn,

Just try googling "blood brain barrier microwave", and you will find that subsequent to the results being published, the experiments have been repeated many times with very different results. The only experiment I could find that showed a positive result also heated the rats to 42C by other means as well.

Independence implies that you have no stake in the outcome, which clearly the lab involved did.

The website you linked to also completely ignored any evidence or studies that did not reflect its particular agenda, so cannot in any sense of the word be said to be independent or reputable.

The only mode of causing damage would be through heating for which the miniscule amounts of power and superb cooling mechanism in the skull would completely obviate.

When you go into the sun your head is exposed to about 1000x as much heating and the body copes perfectly well.

This single study is without peer and shows conclusively that irrespective of all these fringe groups "studies" showing possible damage, that either no damage occurs, or the body is so good at repairing it that there is no negative long term health effects.

Wobbles, to heat an area, you need sustained high power levels. This simply does not occur.

The same “studies” are done for linking nuclear plants to cancer, but focusing on a cluster.

Examinator,

Sorry, but the same pseudo science is used by all these fringe groups.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Friday, 11 December 2009 6:39:07 AM
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