Rift delays release of study on safety of cellphones

[Celebration]

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/29/business/mobile30.php

For 10 years, scientists have been waiting for the outcome of a global examination of the habits of thousands of brain cancer patients to explore whether there are links between cellphone use and brain tumors.

But now the findings of the €15 million, or $24 million, Interphone study are stalled, caught in an international rift among prominent cancer researchers who are divided about how to interpret the risks of radio-frequency radiation emitted by mobile telephones.

The research group's manuscript of results has drifted for almost three years among scientists in Europe, Israel, Japan and Canada without publication. Some of the researchers are barely on speaking terms, according to some participants. And there is the prospect of further delays because of an ongoing general debate about whether or not cancer patients accurately report their mobile telephone use.

....................

"We've heard that they can't agree on a manuscript and that's essentially where it comes down to," he said, adding, "We certainly have been encouraging the principle investigators to resolve whatever issues they need to get results to the public."

The GSM Association, a global trade organization of mobile operators, and the forum, which includes Nokia and about a dozen other manufacturers, contributed more than €3.5 million to help finance the project. The European Commission also helped fund the project with contributions passed through the International Union Against Cancer to create a barrier between the mobile phone industry and scientists.

[Jim__]

1. It sounds a little confusing to me.

Why do they think that cancer patients don't accurately report their cell-phone use? I would think that there would be a systematic error across all groups in inaccurate reporting of cell-phone use.

[hvn_nbr_2]

2. It sounds to me like a case of MSU

MSU = "Making Stuff Up", as in when you don't get the results you wanted so you make up explanations.

[trotsky]

3. No, it's actually a very valid question.

The issue at hand is asking patients with tumors, did you usually use your phone on one side of your head, and if so, which one? You're trying to isolate and determine if tumors appear more frequently on the same side of the head, on the opposite, or if it's random. Problem is, when someone with a tumoris asked that question, they're generally going to "remember" using the side of the head with the tumor whether or not they really did, because it makes sense to link them together too.

Or you can just believe in an evil conspiracy to kill everyone with cell phones. Your choice.

[Celebration]

4. false dichotomy

Killing everyone is one thing, but accepting a somewhat higher level of incidence for cancer is another. Could you possibly see the difference?

[trotsky]

5. Could you possibly read sarcasm

without a :sarcasm: tag?

[HamdenRice]

8. That's a kind of dumb observation

That would only make sense if one's use of either hand to hold the cell phone was a random choice each time.

In fact, people are right handed or left handed. A person with a brain tumor is not going to change whether he is right handed or left handed based on the experience of having brain cancer on the right side or the left side.

Once again, an example of sloppy, uninformed, uncritical thinking posing as critical thinking.

Par for the course.

[trotsky]

9. Yay! Hello, stalker!

Where else are you gonna come find me?

In fact, people are right handed or left handed.

Yup, they are. I'm right-handed, for instance, but I hold my phone on either side. Some folks always hold it with their dominant hand. Others only with their opposite hand. Everyone's different - only the simple minded, uncritical thinking folks would believe that all people are the same. Do you know any?

[hvn_nbr_2]

11. I'll buy part of your valid question

It's certainly likely that people could be unintentionally influenced to "remember" using a cell phone more or less than they actually did. However, at least in my experience, people generally use one ear or the other for a phone almost all the time, and it doesn't change over time. So if you ask them which side they "used," it would be the side they "use" because it's always been the same way for them and there wouldn't really be mis-remembering about that.

One could hope that the researchers made at least some effort to keep people honest, such as by including the cell phone usage questions among a bunch of other questions about other things so that people would just be answering a bunch of questions and not zero in their attention on the cell phone questions. But I rather doubt it. It would make for interesting statistics if they asked subjects if they believed that cell phone use is harmful--correlations of that information with other factors, such as "remembered" usage, might shed some interesting light on it.

Somebody else on this thread suggested using phone bills to verify usage, but I doubt that would work. How many people keep phone bills for 10 years? And getting records from the phone companies would have a whole host of privacy problems, especially in Europe. How many people even remember which carrier they used five years ago or when they switched?

As for the evil conspiracy, I'm an agnostic on this one. I haven't thought about it much or paid attention to the issue because I'm not a cell phone user. Even if I get one, I won't expect to use it enough to worry about it--if regular users aren't dropping like flies, then the amount I would use it isn't likely to hurt me.

[Celebration]

12. I use the same ear 90% of the time, at least

But my husband moves the phone around.

:shrug:

However, we both know that, and would be able to communicate that to researchers honestly.

Cell phone bills would work if the person got them from the company and gave them to the researchers.

For scientists to get so angry about the wording of the study that they don't speak--well, hmmm, bet there are some serious financial interests lurking around somewhere. I don't think it takes much of a conspiracy theorist to suspect that.

[Celebration]

6. why not look at their cell phone bills?

Honestly, wouldn't it be easy enough to look up the cell phone company records?

So much for science! I sort of LOL that the researchers won't even speak to each other. I should have put this in the science forum.

[Jim__]

7. Based on the article, they seem to have some idea what the error is.

Some of the delay, she added, was caused by the additional research that she was involved in to test how cancer patients, as compared to a control group, recalled past phone use. Those results, published this year, showed that cancer patients and control group users tended to underestimate the number of their calls while overestimating the duration of calls.

Looking at their cell phone bills sounds like a good idea.

It does seem like if they know that much, they have at least a fair idea of the error. The concern seems to be the wording of the report.

[Celebration]

10. that is *some* of the delay

But I bet *most* of the delay happens to be due to who funds which scientists.