Perhaps, but the Independent has a long history of posting spurious health and environment articles (e.g., "Mobile phone threat to honeybees", which was a massive press misunderstanding because CCD was such a headline-grabber at the time). Guilt by association is a real and valid reason to dismiss a news article about a complex scientific subject. Even the article itself mentions the general line:
> Late last week, the Mobile Operators Association dismissed Khurana's study as "a selective discussion of scientific literature by one individual". It believes he "does not present a balanced analysis" of the published science, and "reaches opposite conclusions to the WHO and more than 30 other independent expert scientific reviews".
People talk about the dangers of radiation, but electromagnetic radiation isn't the same kind of radiation we generally worry about. Anything that uses electricity and wires creates this kind of radiant energy, including pacemakers and implantable defibrillators.
That doesn't mean there is no potential for health risks, but thus far the science suggests no significant increase in risk. What's more, the mechanism for such health risks is likewise unclear as the wavelengths for cellphone radiation are quite long. It's also unclear why cellphones would cause problems but people living near radio transmitters wouldn't (and we'd have probably seen these effects by now, radio isn't exactly new).
Unfortunately, it takes a lot of work and a lot of time to build up long term clinical studies. In the meantime, all we can do is wait.
Dismissing a news article based on association is, for me, not a very good method. Following the link that it provides is a useful method. In this case to the actual paper in question:
If the Register ran an article on a startup company, would that invalidate what is really presented?
"Mobile Operator Association" sends up red flags for conflict of interest in this argument. Not that I dismiss, but would hope for a more independent assessment.
"the science suggests" is, to me, an appeal to the authority of a select number of papers and implies that the paper in question is not "science". I do not see a conflict on interest or false scientific reasoning in the paper in question. If anything, this paper could be considered "newer science with more data" with its 2008 publish date and recently cited studies.
The author directly contests the assumption that the long wavelengths used by cellphones result in less risk to the users. He also mentions a report of an office in the top floor being closed due to the "seventh working in as many years" being diagnosed with brain cancer that he attributes to a cell phone tower directly above the office.
The current body of medical literature is at best ambivalent about the risk of long-term exposure. That's not an appeal to authority, that's just checking on the state of the literature.
Science is always open to revision, and so I don't think it's impossible that this is true (indeed, I use a handsfree religiously to minimize my potential risk). But there isn't any hard evidence, and one study does should not a panic take, especially given the profound and subjectively positive social implications of mobile computing and mobile communication.
The article has nothing new for me, except sensationalist rhetoric and carefully worded (and carelessly paraphrased) "Mobile Operator Association points to these studies", when really that's the gross body of the current medical literature. It's not cherry-picked literature, the bulk of the literature suggests it is not true. That's not a conflict of interest, that's just pointing to the independently funded science.
As for the story about the top floor of the tower, why would only their heads be getting cancer if they're being universally exposed? The plural of anecdote is anecdotes, not data.
Whenever we have a somewhat difficult to reproduce condition with less-than-certain explanation in terms of the physical method, I demand more solid evidence before taking drastic action. I also think that news outlets like the register should take more responsibility and demand more evidence before pulling out the dramatic horn kicks and warming up a headline like this one.
People have been expressing fear over EMF for a long time now, and in general these fears have been dismissed and unsupported by scientific examination. Until I see some hard evidence, I consider a cellphone is about as harmful as a microwave. That is to say, there are small potential risks (particularly with damaged units), but I'm more likely to be struck by a car while commuting to work.
My point wasn't "guilty by association", though given the reputation of the original source, I can see how it would be read that way.
My point is that progress in the medical sciences isn't charted through "exclusive reports" to newspapers. As anyone who clicks through the link you've helpfully provided will note, this is a story based on a white paper, not a peer-reviewed journal article.
I'm sorry, I don't know offhand what the "DH" code is for the error this newspaper article made. I suspect it's a high number. 23, perhaps.
Sorry, my bad. I tend to confuse one pseudo-science endorsing rag with another. I corrected the article, confirmed that the Independent also ran the story.
Thanks for the time you took to offer the correction!
Sorry, there appears to be an incompatibility between us. Whereas you've wired your brain directly to Paul Graham's website, my thoughts and ideas are in fact dictated by a combination of Eric Sink and Joel Spolsky. Because we are parroting different web personalities, I see little chance for us to resolve this debate.
I humbly suggest that we simply agree to disagree.
When you put a device that transmits energy right next to your head, you're taking a risk that the transmitted energy interacts with the matter in your head/brain. The longer and more often you put the device up to your head, the more opportunities there are for the interaction.
Everything else is just a mathematical probability.
When you put a device that contains chemical potential energy over your legs, you're taking a risk that the energy is released and interacts with your legs/groin. The longer and more often you put the device over your legs, the more opportunities there are for the interaction.
Everything else is just a mathematical probability. Let's stop wearing pants.
To say that an activity is "taking a risk" with total disregard as to the magnitude of the risk is misleading to put it nicely.
How does this compare to the exposure from other electromagnetic signals? Should I immediately rip out the power lines going through the wall that I'm sitting next to? Destroy my tv?
Oh god. I bought an iphone and my landline went off for two weeks. I started getting a 'numb' head and my head 'tingled' from its use. I have tried to limit it and have also started to put back in Ethernet rather than the 3 wifi routers I currently have. This might sound stupid, but what scan would you need from the hospital to detect if you have a tumour?
The first is CAT, or Cancer Assisted Tomography. They can shoot high energy cancer rays (a particular type of radiation) through your skull and measure what comes out the other side. Tumors sometimes absorb more cancer rays (also called x-rays) than other tissue, basically creating a shadow they can see. This doesn't work all that great, also the cancer rays are also millions of times more likely to cause cancer than your iphone.
The other type of scan is nuclear magnetic resonance imaging or NMRI. In NMRI, they stick your head into a big magnet. Then they take a big cell phone transmitter, point it at your brain and turn it on (i.e., sending radiation into your brain). This (combined with the magnet) basically turns your brain into a nuclear powered cell phone transmitter. Then an RF coil inside the Nuclear MRI machine picks up the calls your brain makes, and they get a picture out.
Did I use the words nuclear and radiation frequently enough to make you afraid?
Interesting article. Still, I do yoga and meditate so don't feel too stressed. I think I'd feel happier if I get myself checked out. Going to look into it though being in the UK I'll probably have to pay if I want someone to take me seriously
You should look at the studies done on electromagnetic hypersensitivity. A very small segment of the population can "hear" radio waves at certain frequencies (they experience it as a subjective tone very high up in the 15khz range, even if they can't normally hear that high up).
But most people who are placed in controlled and blinded experiments to see if they can detect EMF find that they cannot. There is no good evidence that EMF hypersensitivity is anything more than stress, and seeing a psychiatrist would be of more help to you in this scenario.
Alternatively, I hear homeopathic practitioners are still getting state funding in the UK. Why not use a fake medicine to cure a subjective problem? At least you can be sure there will be no medicinal side effects! ;)
I have an Iphone too, and it seems to be the least shielded device I've ever had (as much as I can't live without it). It is the only device I have that interferes with all my electronics within a few feet whenever it interacts with a cell tower. (I hear a buzz on all my computer speakers).
All PDA phones emit relatively high amounts of radiation.
You can find the radiation level of your phone at the link below. Enter the FCC ID that is located on your phone. The lower SAR, the better. Anything over 1.0 is relatively high and 1.6 is the maximum legal limit. I think the iPhone is around 1.0-1.1.
"Mobile phones could kill far more people than smoking or asbestos"
I am surprised by the ease of spreading panic. Really bad taste of them.
There is not even a link to a a url of the research. the quality of YC submitted stories are in downhill.
If everybody has a mobile phone, then it's impossible to limit the cause for their health failure to a mobile phone, so no study can proove anything...
for every study that "proofs" the negative effects of a mobile phone there is another that does the opposite.
Until there is one that proofs the problem either use a hands free or limit the use...
The notion that brain surgeons are automatically qualified to conduct and evaluate complex biomedical research in oncology and neurology strikes me as approximately as valid as the idea that skilled software developers are automatically qualified to evaluate cryptosystems, compression algorithms, or semiconductor process technology.
But I am qualified! I designed a cryptosystem just last week, and nobody's broken it yet!
Moreover, the PDF that I published on my personal website sounds very erudite, and doesn't contain any obvious spelling errors. I have over fifteen years' experience in the lab [1], have authored nearly a dozen scientific publications in prestigious journals such as Physical Review Letters and Cancer Research [2], and have seven years' experience as a semiconductor process technologist. [3] So I don't see how you can dismiss my work out of hand, particularly since you, as a security professional, have an obvious conflict of interest. [4]
[1] At least two years of which involved making photocopies, washing glassware, and ordering pizza.
[2] This is actually true, for reasonable values of "nearly" and "prestigious". You must also remember that being Nth author counts as "authoring".
[3] Also true. And so relevant, too!
[4] Notice that "the desire to toot your own horn" never seems to count as a "conflict of interest".
While noting that nobody else is going to toot your horn for you, I'll say that cryptography was just the first thing to come into my head, for obvious reasons. I can't tell from the tone of your comment, but if you've worked in semiconductors, cancer research, and cryptography, let me be the first to proclaim that you have a bad-ass resume.
Oh, I totally lied about the cryptography. :) I have a copy of Schneier on my shelf that I occasionally put under my pillow at night... does that count?
All that I know about cryptography is that anyone who claims to have written their own unbreakable system, but hasn't had that system vetted by other cryptographers, is nearly 100% likely to be completely full of it.
The semiconductors and cancer research are true. It sounds so much more impressive than it actually is, though, which is kind of my point. Yeah, I've worked in several fields, and I like to think I learned something from all of that time, but if I wrote a crypto paper I would still be talking out of my ass. Hell, if I wrote my own cancer research paper I'd be talking out of my ass -- my role in the cancer lab was mainly "physics guy who knows how to change the light bulbs on the multiphoton microscope".
Well, I want to avoid insulting, e.g., my former co-author, a neurosurgeon who also does oncological research... but I don't think your analogy is bad at all.
It's generally true that the skills, the approach, and the techniques of surgeons and researchers are completely different. Surgery is a specialty. For example, I've had the head of surgical oncology at a very prestigious hospital tell me that he doesn't know much about chemotherapy -- there are other experts for that. And none of those clinical guys are necessarily experts in the causes of cancer, nor in its rate of incidence.
The stereotype, of course, is that every surgeon thinks that being a surgeon makes you an expert in everything. Sometimes that mold fits: Tremendous self-confidence is almost a requirement for being a great surgeon, and the side effect can be... an excess of confidence. And sometimes the mold is unfair. The field I briefly worked in -- antiangiogenesis -- was founded by the late Judah Folkman, a famous surgeon who did his even-more-famous research as his second job. Folkman had to spend a lot of years gathering data before other researchers were convinced that he wasn't just another surgeon with delusions of grandeur. But, as it happens, he wasn't.
In the end, you've got to show the data, and it has got to survive real criticism. That's the metric.
But more than a little more qualified than you are in this area, if you want to play that game.
At least the guy giving the "warning" argued from something a little more substantial than "look where this was published." And now your entire argument has further devolved to "look at the resume of this guy", instead of on the paper itself.
No wonder PG has to tutor some of you on logical thought.
Correct, but your statement assumes that there is some other field that is better attuned to "brain cancer and tissue interaction with EMF over prolonged periods." I dont know.
It does mean that he is most probably aware of trends in brain cancer, such as certain increases. He is also in the front lines in dealing with the possible results of cell phone EMF damage. He also could possibly have very good communication with other brain surgeons dealing with similar problems.
The field is called "epidemiology" or "biophysics", depending on whether you are studying the rate of brain cancers or the mechanism by which EMFs interact with tissue.
It does mean that he is most probably aware of trends in brain cancer, such as certain increases.
Not at all. To a brain surgeon, the world is full of brain tumors. They see lots of brain tumors every day. Meanwhile, cancer patients are even closer to "the front lines" than surgeons, yet they know even less about what causes tumors. In fact, they quickly seize upon whichever half-baked explanation the media offers them, which is why so many cancer patients now run around complaining about their cell phones, instead of cigarettes or environmental chemicals or obesity or -- just possibly -- sheer random chance.
What you're looking for is a paper by an epidemiologist -- a person who is trained in statistics -- that talks about the rate of incidence of brain cancer. The paper needs to be peer-reviewed, because even the people who are trained in statistics tend to make mistakes occasionally, particularly when the mistakes make their research more interesting or more personally profitable.
The field is called "epidemiology" or "biophysics", depending on whether you are studying the rate of brain cancers or the mechanism by which EMFs interact with tissue.
The study of interactions of radiation with biological materials is called radiobiology. Generally, the people who study these kinds of effects on populations are health physicists and epidemiologists.
> "Mobile phones could kill far more people than smoking or asbestos"
They may. They may not. Unlike smoking, it would be entirely foreseeable.
> If everybody has a mobile phone, then it's impossible to limit the cause for their health failure to a mobile phone, so no study can proove anything...
I disagree. A Finnish study found that cochlea cancer was more common in the right cochlea of mobile telephone users.
