The journal article on which TFA is based is embargoed behind Kluwer's academic firewall's and my school doesn't have a subscription to this one. So, I can't see the actual article. However, the comments from some of the people who *can* see the article are telling, to wit:
"Only by a stretch of imagination do you see a linear correlation in there. Look at figure 3 ... http://journals.lww.com/jcrani...
OMG!!..."
and......
"This is only a pilot-study, and should NOT be brought into the media before a larger and more rigorous study has been done. This study has very small sample groups, and they should have had a group with the cellphones at their waste, but turned off. It could be other things than the electromagnetic radiowaves, i.e. the weight of the phones, if there is an effect at all, which a larger study will clarify."
not to mention.....
"This is only a pilot-study, and should NOT be brought into the media before a larger and more rigorous study has been done. This study has very small sample groups, and they should have had a group with the cellphones at their waste, but turned off. It could be other things than the electromagnetic radiowaves, i.e. the weight of the phones, if there is an effect at all, which a larger study will clarify. "
and.....
"Also, the study doesn't say if the measurement and calculations were unblinded, and the sample groups were not randomized, and recruited by word of mouth locally. This is just the flaws without looking at the results. Again, please stop writing about pilot studies, unless you are giving it a critical evaluation."
as well as....
"Something is wrong with the user cited charts where the bone density declines on a range from zero to 80,000 hours.
Now at maybe 2000 hours exposure per year, that means 40 years exposure. How could they get that much data?
Chart labels must be wrong. "
followed up by....
"From the method section of the study:
'Men of the first group provided information about the
number of years they had used a mobile cell phone and the number
of hours per day that they carried the phone in the belt pouch. The
number of years of use and the product of years of use and hours per
day each year carrying the phones were used as rough estimates of
cumulative exposure.'
*****In other words*****
A small pilot study with questionable (or at least very simplistic) methods for estimating for cumulative exposure was conducted on a small and apparently undifferentiated sample and a statistically significant result was obtained.
As one of that "strange breed," I was initially concerned. Now, not so much...