Subject: Brain Tumor/Cell Phone Epi Study Published in JAMA (Slesin),
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 061112 -0600
From: Roy Beavers
To: guru
--------------------------------------------------
........From EMF-L.......
Hey folks!! Lookee this!! A big court case is underway against the cell
phone industry!! And -- lo and behold -- suddenly an "industry friendly"
study appears. One, indeed, which appears to have been **hurried into
publication** in an "industry friendly" (CONFLICT OF INTEREST PAST HISTORY)
Journal.....!!!
Remember the Linet Study......???!!!
Let's just wait on this one ... until some independent -- experienced --
EMF researchers have had an opportunity to examine the data......!!!
(Including the method of collection -- which may be suspect here....)
Perhaps the slower sales of cell phones that are being reported this
Christmas is also a factor in this "hurried" report..... The authors,
themselves, admit that this study covers only a three year "look back".
That is like a tobacco study that concludes cigarets are safe -- based
only on three years worth of data........guru.....
(This one really SMELLS......!!!)
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Brain Tumor/Cell Phone Epi Study Published in JAMA
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 16:29:47 -0400
From: mwn@pobox.com (Louis Slesin / Microwave News)
To: Colleagues LS
Reprinted below is the press release issued by the Journal of the American
Medical Association, The Muscat study appears in the Journal's December
20th issue.
HANDHELD CELLULAR TELEPHONE USE NOT ASSOCIATED WITH RISK OF BRAIN CANCER
Study suggests risk not increased with short-term cell phone use
CHICAGO - The use of handheld cellular telephones does not appear to be
associated with the risk of brain cancer, but further studies are needed to
account for longer induction periods, especially for slow-growing tumors,
according to an article in the December 20 issue of The Journal of the
American Medical Association (JAMA).
Joshua E. Muscat, M.P.H., of the American Health Foundation, Valhalla,
N.Y., and colleagues conducted a case-control study from 1994 to 1998 to
test the hypothesis that using handheld cellular telephones is related to
the risk of primary brain cancer. A total of 469 men and women aged 18 to
80 with primary brain cancer and 422 matched controls without brain cancer
took part in the study. Patients were interviewed at Memorial
Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York University Medical Center, and
Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York; Rhode Island Hospital in
Providence, R.I.; and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
According to background information cited in the study, there were more
than 86 million cellular phone users by the end of 1999. The use of
cellular telephones is one of several suspected risk factors for brain
cancer, although the causes of this disease remain poorly understood. The
health effects due to using cellular telephones are currently being studied
in a number of populations. In preliminary reports of a case-control study
conducted in Sweden, the risk of brain cancer was unrelated to using a
handheld cellular telephone.
Cellular telephones include handheld or mobile telephones, car telephones,
and portable or bag telephones that operate on radiofrequency (RF) signals
in the 800- to 900-MHz range. Concerns have been raised about possible
adverse health effects due to exposure to these signals. In particular,
the concern that the use of handheld cellular telephones causes brain
cancer is based on the close proximity of the antenna, which is
incorporated into the telephone receiver, to the head of the user.
The authors used a structured questionnaire to interview patients. The
patients were asked if they had ever used a handheld cellular telephone on
a regular basis. "Regular" was defined as having had a subscription to
cellular telephone service. Information was obtained on the number of
years of use, minutes/hours used per month, year of first use,
manufacturer, and reported average monthly bill. Information on which hand
was used to hold the cellular telephone was collected from 700 (78.6
percent) of the 891 patients.
"The use of handheld cellular telephones was unrelated to the risk of brain
cancer in the current study," the authors write.
"The median monthly hours of use were 2.5 for cases and 2.2 for controls,"
they report. "Compared with patients who never used handheld cellular
telephones, the multivariate odds ratio (OR) associated with regular past
or current use was 0.85. The OR for infrequent users (less than 0.72 hours
per month) was 1.0 and for frequent users (more than 10.1 hours per month)
was 0.7."
"The mean duration of use was 2.8 years for cases and 2.7 years for
controls; no association with brain cancer was observed according to
duration of use," they continue.
The study found that among brain cancer cases, cerebral tumors occurred
more frequently on the same side of the head where cellular telephones had
been used (26 vs. 15 cases). But in cases of temporal lobe cancer, a
greater proportion of tumors occurred in the opposite side of the head (9
vs. 5 cases).
The authors report the odds ratio was less than 1.0 (i.e., no increase in
risk) for all histologic categories of brain cancer except for an uncommon
type of brain cancer called neuroepitheliomatous.
"The current study shows no effect with short-term exposure to cellular
telephones that operate on (primarily) analog signals," the authors
conclude. "Further studies are needed to account for longer induction
periods, especially for slow-growing tumors. The RF fields emitted from
digital cellular telephones might have different effects on biological
tissue than analog telephones, and studies are under way in several
European countries that use primarily digital telecommunication networks."
(JAMA. 2000; 284:3001-3007)
Note: This work was supported by a contract from Wireless Technology
Research LLC and by grants from the Public Health Service.
__________________________________________________________
Louis Slesin, PhD
Editor, Microwave News
A Report on Non-Ionizing Radiation
Phone: 212-517-2800; Fax: 212-734-0316
E-mail: , Internet:
Mail: PO Box 1799, Grand Central Station
New York, NY 10163, U.S.A.
Archive provided courtesy of WaveGuide, http://www.wave-guide.org
Reprinted with permission of Roy Beavers, http://www.emfguru.com