The Cell Phone Cancer Question, Again

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


The debate over whether electromagnetic radiation from cell phones and other wireless technology causes cancer rages on. Yesterday, an advocacy group called the National Institute for Science, Law, and Public Policy sent a letter to journalists and lawmakers urging them to “learn about the health consequences of microwave radiation exposure from cell phones, neighborhood antennas, wireless networks, wireless routers, DECT portable phones, and the potential health consequences of further chronic exposures from wireless broadband and new wireless utility technologies.”

The folks behind this latest media blitz are some of the same ones who authored the controversial BioInitiative Report in 2007, which linked wireless radiation to cancer and a host of other health problems.* When I investigated the issue of whether cell phones cause brain cancer last spring, I was told by some BioInitiative authors that we’d finally have the answer in a few months, when the conclusive results from the multinational Interphone Study, the holy grail of cell phone health research, would finally be released.

But a year later, the results still haven’t been released. Why not?

 

Some say the Interphone scientists have serious qualms about publishing what could be seriously flawed research. The Economist reports:

One problem was what statisticians call selection bias. Interphone began by gathering a group of people who had had the cancers of interest (glioma, meningioma, acoustic neurinoma and parotid gland tumour) and questioning them about their past use of mobile phones. The researchers then approached a number of healthy people in order to compare them with the cancer patients, and find out if there was a systematic difference in mobile-phone use between the two groups. Some of those approached agreed, and some declined. Of those who agreed to take part, 59% were regular mobile-phone users as defined by the study’s protocol. Later on, those who had declined were recontacted and asked about their mobile use. Among this group, only 34% were regular users. That meant those in the control group were more likely than average to be regular users, and therefore were not representative of the population at large.

Moreover, the definition of “regular mobile-phone use” was itself questionable. Anyone who had used a phone just once a week for at least six months qualified. That is a pretty low rate of usage. If phones really do cause cancer, but only at high exposure, employing such a generous definition of regular use means that the effect might be diluted into undetectability.

Another potentially serious flaw is that participants asked in 2001-02 about their mobile use a decade earlier will have been using analogue, not digital, handsets. That would lead to a different pattern of exposure and therefore of potential risk.

So does this mean you can quit worrying that your cell phone will give you cancer? Unfortunately, no. It just means we need better research, the kind that tracks large groups of people over years, instead of relying on self-reporting. And that’s going to take a while. In the meantime, some people are playing it safe. For example: In May, France banned cell phones in primary schools.

So I’m curious: Do you use an earpiece to protect yourself from potentially hazardous cell-phone radiation? Do you worry about the health effects of wi-fi? Post your thoughts in the comments.

*Correction appended: I erroneously referred to the people of the National Institute for Science, Law, and Public Policy as the same ones who authored the BioInitiative Report. The two groups aren’t related. I apologize for the error.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate