

Left-sided Cancer: Blame your bed and TV? - Confusion
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=left-sided-cancer-blame-your-bed-an-2010-07-02

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thirdusername
As was mentioned by several of the commenters in the article the researcher
(named _Olle_ not _Ollie_ ) received the Swedish Sceptic Societys "Misleader
of the year" prize in 2004.

Allow me to translate the last two paragraphs of their motivation for the
prize, for you:

 _The Swedish Sceptic Society has noted that Olle Johansson frequently makes
claims outside of his area of research. Electromagnetic fields are without a
doubt outside of his area of knowledge. As an example when Johannson speaks
about microwaves it's implied that these are comparable to X-rays and gamma
radiation, despite the fact that it's two completely different physical
phenomenon. The important parameters when discussing these phenomenons is
frequeny and intensity. If these aren't specified then the discussion about
dangers is meaningless. Even Olle Johanssons claims about ruptures in DNA-
strings shows a lack of knowledge. As an example Johansson recently gave
(Stockholms Fria Tidning 2004-12-24) an understatement on the natural
occurance of such breaches with a factor of 100 000. Someone who wants to be
taken seriously should at least be using the right scale for their numbers.

Lastly it's noted that Olle Johansson has claimed a long line of sicknesses,
like cancer, blood preasure problems, asthma, allergies and insomnia, could be
caused by electromagnetic fields. He claims that you can get skin cancer from
tv- and radioemissions. Especially noted Johansson was a few years back when
he claimed that brain damage and especially mad cow disease could be caused by
mobile phones. (Aftonbladet 2001-03-12)._

(From the Swedish Sceptics Society:
[http://www.vof.se/folkvett/20051obestyrkt-om-farorna-med-
ele...](http://www.vof.se/folkvett/20051obestyrkt-om-farorna-med-
elektromagnetisk-stralning))

Hes been making claims in this area of research since the 1970's according to
his own bio page at Karolinska Institutet. The cynic in me is guessing the
university unofficially keep him employed as a money making machine, by
getting all of those electromagnetic scare grants, especially during the 90s
mobile scare.

------
Groxx
_Thus, as we sleep on our coil-spring mattresses, we are in effect sleeping on
an antenna that amplifies the intensity of the broadcast FM/TV radiation._

How, precisely, does this work? The perpetual-motion-machine club would love
to know. If it's just referring to _focusing_... I'm still curious as to how.
And I'm still doubtful that this amount of energy has even remotely as much
impact in breast cancer as the increased complexity of your left chest
compared to your right.

And comparing nation A's cancer rate to nation B's and claiming it's strongly
related to one difference is, I suspect, nuttery, unless an entire nation
decides to camp _on_ Chernobyl annually. How about diet? Different building
materials? Different chemicals in the ground-water? Or the giant, radioactive
lizards doing daily battle with the monster-of-the-day? (how DO they rebuild
so quickly?!)

Still, if this _is_ the case, wouldn't grounding your mattress solve the
problem? Why not do that and see if it's different? All those metal springs
are attached together by wires anyway.

------
hugh3
Seems incredibly speculative. As far as I know there's no convincing evidence
that radio-frequency waves can be linked to cancer, let alone that radio waves
plus bedsprings can be linked to cancer.

And yet I'm sure there'll be thousands of people going to sleep tonight,
spooked that their beds are about to give them cancer.

~~~
thaumaturgy
Well, it's _possible_ that the coils in a spring mattress -- being conductive
and of a regular height and at regular intervals -- could have some kind of RF
field effect. It would still be miniscule, but it could cause a phase
alignment maybe or something equally strange.

But you're right, this is nothing but speculation. I would expect that a
reasonable field strength meter would be all that's required to test the
theory out, so I wonder why it wasn't tested before publication?

Also, one of the two researchers is Ollie Johansson, who earned Swedish
Skeptics Society's illustrious "Misleader of the Year" award:
<http://www.vof.se/visa-forvillare2004eng>

He also formulated a theory that lung cancer wasn't due strictly to smoking,
but also that it had something to do with the increase of radio waves starting
in the 50s.

In this case I think it would be appropriate for amateurs to view his work in
a skeptical light.

EDIT: I couldn't remember the term for them, but basically the mattress
_might_ be able to form a very crude kind of passive repeater.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_repeater> ...but, again, this ought to
be tested rather than speculated.

~~~
Groxx
The passive repeater is for getting around things which don't allow line-of-
sight, and passive because it's just routing a signal without any
amplification. The image on the article receives a signal, and sends it via
coax to a transmitter. Other forms mention a waveguide, used to connect two
dishes. And the output is _weaker_ than the input (necessarily), which seems
to imply background noise would be stronger than the signal from your bed. Or
at the very least, the bed would provide a _slight_ shielding effect due to
the cost of conducting the signal.

ie, a passive repeater looks like this:

    
    
                    ______(dishes)______
                    |                  |
                    V                  V 
      
                    \__________________/
                 )  /|  (waveguide)   |\  )     signals _ (weaker)
              )      |________________|      )           \
           )       /                    \       )        |
        )      /                            \      )     |
            /            (Ground)              \      )  V
          /                                      \       )
        /                                          \
    
    

Maybe you're thinking of some kind of electromagnetic lens?

(had fun making the image, part of the reason for this comment :)

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mike463
This is really stupid.

We get lots more exposure to sun on the left-hand side because of driving.

Think "truckers tan".

This explains the anomaly with the japanese, who sit on the right-hand side of
their car.

~~~
hugh3
In which case, why do the Japanese get it equally on both sides rather than
with a right-side preference? Also should check vs other right-hand-drive car
countries.

I'm unconvinced, though, because we're talking breast cancer rather than skin
cancer. Few women drive around with their breasts exposed.

~~~
andrewbadera
I bet Japanese drive a lot fewer miles per capita. Small islands. Lots of
public transpo.

~~~
whatusername
Then compare to Australia.

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soramimo
the author of the article was voted misleader of the year in 2004, so go
figure...

<http://www.vof.se/visa-forvillare2004eng>

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jsz0
Is it inevitable that every major science publication written for non-
scientists out there is going to give in to sensationalism? I wouldn't mind
reading about this on someone's personal blog but Scientific American? Really?
Looking forward to their hard hitting expose on Big Foot next month.

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wanderr
Shouldn't this effect of amplification of RF waves be directly measurable? Why
write a speculative article about it without doing any tests?

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CamperBob
Well, this is the dumbest thing I've read today, but it's still early. I guess
SciAm is trying to reclaim some of the lucrative New Scientist demographic.

