Metastudies find Metacellphones cause Metacancer.
The LA Times has recently reported on a metastudy that finds cell phone users suffer 10 to 30% more cancer than nonusers. How well does the claim stand up to scrutiny?
Metastudies find Metacellphones cause Metacancer
The LA Times breathlessly reports that a new article published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology says that cell phone users suffer 10 to 30 percent more brain cancer than people who rarely use cell phones.This is disturbing news, especially I have argued that simple physics implies that cell phone radiation can not cause cancer. In a nut shell, the energy contained in cell phone radiation is far too small to upset cell chemical structure, and so cannot cause cancer. The radiation is capable of heating your head very slightly, but if this worries you, you should stop wearing hats.
Could this simple logic be wrong? Let's take a closer look at the article.
An analysis published Tuesday of data from 23 epidemiological studies found...So the research is actually a metastudy, that means the authors looks at a collection of other studies, instead of doing their own work. Sounds kinda lazy, but presumably more studies means more data means more reliable conclusions. So what did they find?
... no connection between cellphone use and the development of cancerous or benign tumors.What? So what's the stink about? Read on:
But when eight of the studies that were conducted with the most scientific rigor were analyzed, cellphone users were shown to have a 10% to 30% increased risk of tumors.
Wait. What? The authors just eliminated 15 of the studies? Are you allowed to do that? The statisticians have a clear answer to this question: no, unless you have compelling reasons to discount some of your data. What do the authors say?
"The other group of 15 studies were not as high-quality," said study coauthor Joel M. Moskowitz, director of the UC Berkeley Center for Family and Community Health. "They either found no association or a negative association or a protective effect -- which I don't think anyone would have predicted."Is that it? Data was discounted because it "either found no association or a protective factor"? Is this a joke? I think Bernie Madoff argued this way too: "I always make money on the stock market, except when I don't".
Maybe its not quite as bad as it sounds; the article goes on to say that the eight damning studies were singled out because "the researchers were not told which people had tumors and the studies were not supported with mobile phone industry funding." Fair enough. But then the other shoe drops:
However, seven of those eight studies were conducted by a single researcher, Dr. Lennart Hardell, an oncologist in Sweden.
Lennart Hardell?, the Lennart Hardell? You can read about Dr. Hardell in another post on this blog. But for your convenience, Hardell is a professor of oncology for University Hospital in Orebro, Sweden, and a vociferous member of the dangerously flawed Interphone study. He is also the principle author of Secret Ties to Industry and Conflicting Interests in Cancer Research. Can we really trust researchers who write hysterical books about how industry is trying to give us all cancer? How "fair and balanced" can he possibly be?
There is a lot of crappy research out there. It is the responsibility of good scientists to filter
this out, not help propagate it. This nonsense must stop or we are in real danger of repeating the
power lines-cause-cancer fiasco of the 90s.
