Cell Phone Use and Tumors: Congress Hears What Science Has To Say
A US House of Congress Subcommittee on Domestic Policy heard what science has to say about cell phone use and brain tumors on Thursday. Witnesses included representatives from the Federal Communications Commission, two cancer institutes, university research centres, and Mrs Ellie Marks of
The hearing was chaired by Rep. Denis Kucinich of
Both men talked about a recent Swedish study by Dr Lennart Hardell of
However, Lennart's study has not yet appeared in a peer-reviewed journal, and until it does, it will not be treated as proper science. This was the sentiment expressed by another witness, Dr Robert Hoover, director or Epidemiology and Biostatistics Program at the National Cancer Institute, who said there was not enough research from which to draw firm conclusions one way or another and more should be done. "Larger studies are needed to sort out chance and bias", said
While some studies have suggested there is a higher risk of brain tumor occurring on the side of the head the cell phone is most often pressed to, others have not found this, said
Carpenter tended to support this statement, saying that based on a well known statistical standard, the 95 per cent confidence level (that is the result of the study is likely to be the same 95 times out of every 100 repetitions) research that says there is a link between cell phone use and brain cancer does not stand up. But Carpenter also said there is very little US-funded research in this area and suggested "Are we at the same place we were with smoking and lung cancer 30 years ago?" Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, is an important rule to remember in scientific investigation. If there is a risk, then it is greater for children than for adults, both Carpenter and Herberman agreed with this, and explained that the electromagnetic radiation from cell phones is able to penetrate much further into the brain of a child compared to that of an adult.
However, one might expect to see some changes in the incidence of brain cancer in children if there was a higher risk, and there has been no significant increase from 1980 to 2005 said
In July this year, Herberman sent a memo to all the staff at his faculty urging them to limit their use of cell phones, and to limit their children's use especially. He said at the time that it was important to err on the safe side, rather than wait for a definitive study linking cell phone use with cancer. He said that other countries like
Source: CNN, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
Written by: Catharine Paddock, PhD