FDA Questions Swedish Cell Phone Cancer Study

ZZeta writes "Following up on the Swedish study on cell phone cancer risk, the FDA released a statement today questioning its reliability. From the statement: 'These facts along with the lack of an established mechanism of action and supporting animal data makes the Hardell et al's finding difficult to interpret.' Also available several links to other studies."

Why the FDA?

[Vellmont]

Can someone tell me why the FDA is releasing a statement about this? Cell phones and RF are neither a food nor a drug, nor a medical device. Does this fall under some part of the FDA I'm not aware of?

Radiation + head = ???

[Call Me Black Cloud]

It doesn't seem like a good idea to put a transmitter strong enough to broadcast for miles right up against the side of my head. When I had a cell phone I used a bluetooth headset in the hopes of lessening the amount of radiation entering my skull.

A few years back my boss died of brain cancer (glioblastoma multiforme). The tumor was right above his left ear...the side he held his cell phone to. He went to the doctor in May for headaches and the next March we were at his funeral. Yes, it's only one anecdotal case, but still it reinforces my belief that holding a cell phone against your head just can't be good for you.

Re:LOL

[RexRhino]

I don't think that you could call a vast government beurocracy which costs industry billions every year and has almost absolute power to dictate policy to buisnesses a capitalist organization. I realize it is the fashion for Socialists to call anything they don't like "Capitalist", in the same way Pat Roberson and the Christian Right call anything they don't like "Satanist", but really your definition of "Capitalism" makes the word meaningless. Why not call things you are against "Badism", and say you are a "Goodist"... that would say about as much.

The FDA, in particular, is considered a bit overzealous if anything. Many drugs, food products, etc., which are totally legal most places in the world, get banned in the U.S. by the FDA. The usual critism is not that the FDA doesn't go far enough in regulation, but that it goes too far compared with places like Western Europe.

Such a strang place, Slashdot.

[some guy on slashdot]

When the study came out, most of the comments here were refuting it. Now that the FDA has refuted it, everyone seems to be claiming that they were bought by the cell phone companies.

So, what? Are all the people in the cellphone-cancer camp on one side of the globe or something?

Remember, the methodology for this study was step one: find people who already have cancer. Step two: do a survey (not a lab observation or a running record) to get data about their past cell phone usage. How can you bitch when someone contradicts that?

Re:Finding out the truth

[tgibbs]

Observations are observations. If someone wants to verify the study, he can copy the methods and see if the results support or discredit the original study, or he can show that the methods were wrong.

Observations are observations, but interpretation is another matter. The observation is that when the investigators questioned a group of brain cancer victims, they reported more cell-phone use than people without cancer. As for interpretation, there are multiple possibilities:

1. Were people who used cell phones back then also more exposed to other cancer-causing influences than people who didn't use cell phones?
2. Are people with cancer more likely to recall or overestimate their cell phone use than people without cancer?
3. Do cell phones induce cancer?

In such a case, it is certainly reasonable to look at questions of mechanism. The first two hypotheses certainly make sense in terms of known mechanisms:

    1. People who used cell-phones back then were probably more well-to-do and/or in a different social class than people who didn't, they probably were exposed to a multitude of different foods, liquors, environmental toxins, and drugs.

    2. People who have a serious disease often are looking for something to blame, and might reasonably be more likely to remember (and perhaps even overestimate in retrospect) their cell phone use.

On the other hand the 3rd hypothesis has a big problem--cell phone radiation simply doesn't have enough energy to alter chemical bonds, which is a requirement for all established mechanisms of cancer induction. The fact that some studies have failed to pick up such an association provides further reason for skepticism.