World's Largest Animal Study On Cell Tower Radiation Confirms Cancer Link (digitaljournal.com) 242
capedgirardeau shares a report from Digital Journal: Researchers with the renowned Ramazzini Institute (RI) in Italy announce that a large-scale, lifetime study (PDF) of lab animals exposed to environmental levels of cell tower radiation developed cancer. The RI study also found increases in malignant brain (glial) tumors in female rats and precancerous conditions including Schwann cells hyperplasia in both male and female rats. A study of much higher levels of cell phone radiofrequency (RF) radiation, from the U.S. National Toxicology Program (NTP), has also reported finding the same unusual cancer called Schwannoma of the heart in male rats treated at the highest dose.
The Ramazzini study exposed 2448 Sprague-Dawley rats from prenatal life until their natural death to "environmental" cell tower radiation for 19 hours per day (1.8 GHz GSM radiofrequency radiation (RFR) of 5, 25 and 50 V/m). RI exposures mimicked base station emissions like those from cell tower antennas, and exposure levels were far less than those used in the NTP studies of cell phone radiation. "All of the exposures used in the Ramazzini study were below the U.S. FCC limits. These are permissible exposures according the FCC. In other words, a person can legally be exposed to this level of radiation. Yet cancers occurred in these animals at these legally permitted levels. The Ramazzini findings are consistent with the NTP study demonstrating these effects are a reproducible finding," explained Ronald Melnick PhD, formerly the Senior NIH toxicologist who led the design of the NTP study on cell phone radiation now a Senior Science Advisor to Environmental Health Trust (EHT). "Governments need to strengthen regulations to protect the public from these harmful non-thermal exposures."
The Ramazzini study exposed 2448 Sprague-Dawley rats from prenatal life until their natural death to "environmental" cell tower radiation for 19 hours per day (1.8 GHz GSM radiofrequency radiation (RFR) of 5, 25 and 50 V/m). RI exposures mimicked base station emissions like those from cell tower antennas, and exposure levels were far less than those used in the NTP studies of cell phone radiation. "All of the exposures used in the Ramazzini study were below the U.S. FCC limits. These are permissible exposures according the FCC. In other words, a person can legally be exposed to this level of radiation. Yet cancers occurred in these animals at these legally permitted levels. The Ramazzini findings are consistent with the NTP study demonstrating these effects are a reproducible finding," explained Ronald Melnick PhD, formerly the Senior NIH toxicologist who led the design of the NTP study on cell phone radiation now a Senior Science Advisor to Environmental Health Trust (EHT). "Governments need to strengthen regulations to protect the public from these harmful non-thermal exposures."
Seriously (Score:4, Insightful)
When did slashdot start posting bullshit unscientific studies.
Re:Seriously (Score:5, Funny)
When did slashdot start posting bullshit unscientific studies.
According to Wikipedia, October 5, 1997.
Look at the results (Score:5, Informative)
It’s like 2 out of 200 rats got cancer in the control group and 4 in the exposure group. But rates of cancer don’t seem to increase with amount of exposure.
Can someone familiar with these methodologies explain the criteria for statistical significance of these numbers?
What is the hypothetical mechanism for low-level non-ionizing radiation to cause tumors?
Re:Look at the results (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Look at the results (Score:5, Informative)
It’s called P-hacking [fivethirtyeight.com].
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I love it how they use a 0.05 p-value for groups of size in the hundreds, with a "detected" non-null probability of about 1%. This is a joke, there's no statistical difference between the distributions of the control and the other groups in their data. What happened, the "paper" did not pass peer review in a serious journal and they tried disseminating it online?
Re:Look at the results (Score:5, Informative)
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You're confusing cause and effect. The cell phone towers are attracting researchers with bad methodology and poor statistical skills via a well known profit mechanism.
correlation != causation (Score:2)
Hunting for p values (Score:2)
Can someone familiar with these methodologies explain the criteria for statistical significance of these numbers?
Basically it's big enough to have a p value [wikipedia.org] greater than 0.05 which implies statistical significance. But this doesn't mean much. Obligatory XKCD [xkcd.com].
What is the hypothetical mechanism for low-level non-ionizing radiation to cause tumors?
They don't know and that is why nobody should get excited about this. Weird correlations happen all the time between unrelated events. Until they can show a causal mechanism for the cancer then the only conclusion you can draw from this research is that more research is warranted.
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There really isn't. Their significance level is 5% but they had more than 20 conditions, so you would expect one or more to be accidentally significant just by chance, even given the (already poor) internal logic of these measures. The state of statistics in experimental sciences is really rather poor and there is a replication crisis [wikipedia.org].
No UV from cell towers. (Score:2)
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Failed joke. What Physics would allow interaction? (Score:2)
Anything that conducts electricity can be an antenna.
Anyone wanting to avoid electromagnetic energy would wrap himself in 2 layers of electrically conducting foil. The outer layer would be grounded so the energy would flow into the earth.
My joke didn't do well. Darn.
The underlying issue: Only a tiny amount of energy arrives on people from cell phone towers. There doesn't seem to be any law of Physics that would cause an interaction between that tiny amoun
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But the thing is, as I stated earlier RF power falls at the square of the distance from the transmitter. So our average exposure is likely sub 1W. Not enough to heat up anything.
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Fake News... (Score:5, Informative)
If you trace it back, you find that:
1) This is a press release that was picked up by a minor news service, then picked up by other news services.
2) The original source is a web sight: https://ehtrust.org/ [ehtrust.org] if you go to the About page, you see that website is headed by someone with a new book out. Guess what the book is about...
3) Yes, the book is about power lines causing cancer. Funny how the same person that has already published a book about something that has been thoroughly discredited is now claiming a study proves her right.
4) The websight mentions no other person except their own 'head', but mentions her several times. It has two addresses listed, one of which is a po box in Wyoming, the other is a home in Wyoming. No office.
5) She is a real doctor, but is famous for this EMF controversy.
In other words, the study is not to be trusted, and the news release is fake news, at least until a real news agency can thoroughly check something rather than just accept the word of someone that already has a reputation for accepting junk science
Re:Fake News... (Score:4, Informative)
If you trace it back, you find that the NIH is not a wholly-owned subsiduary of someone with a book. Sorry, whilst the replication study may have flaws, you haven't shown one in the NIH study, which is the peer-reviewed one.
Re:Fake News... (Score:5, Informative)
The only thing I can see referencing the NIH is the link in:
A study of much higher levels of cell phone radiofrequency (RF) radiation, from the U.S. National Toxicology Program (NTP) [nih.gov], has also reported finding the same unusual cancer called Schwannoma of the heart in male rats treated at the highest dose.
You'll note the important point in the quote there: "much higher levels of cell phone radiofrequency (RF) radiation"; ie, not environmental levels.
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My post was titled fake news, not fake study. I did not bother to attack the study because when a crazy man literally wearing tin foil on his head hands you a paper, only a moron attempts to refute him. For all you know everything printed on it is a lie, as in the study did not happen, or was performed by the Neurotic Idiots of Humanity, rather than the National Institute of Health.
In this particular case, I highly suspect that the study was true but the results were being heavily misinterpreted.
Not all
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Sorry, whilst the replication study may have flaws
Such as not being a replication study.
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The press release refers to a peer reviewed paper in a reasonably reputable journal:
Falcioni, L., et al. "Report of final results regarding brain and
So you're tellihg me (Score:2)
Now I have to wrap my house in foil, and put on my foil hat and cup again? Make up your minds.
Click Bait (Score:2, Informative)
Read the darn paper. There's barely a statistical link in male rats at the highest dosage. For everything else there no statistical difference than control.
I'd hardly call this confirming a link.
No, no it didn't (Score:5, Informative)
I'm calling bullshit: the study did absolutely no such thing. In fact, I'm just going to link to a screenshot of their results [imgur.com] (can't link to the actual study as it's behind a paywall). First, a couple of things to note: while their underlying population is large, the number of cases of tumors and lesions is tiny, so any results are going to be highly subject to statistical fluctuations (if the rate for a rare disease is 1/1000, a sample of 1000 people could easily still have 2-4 people with the disease, or none, just by chance). Secondly, there is little or no correlation between exposure and tumors (I'm not actually going to try to fit a line, but by eye the correlation is not great: in some cases the control groups showed a higher rate than the exposure). Third, they subdivided by male/female into separate groups. While there's some justification for doing that, what it means is that they've essentially doubled the number of studies they're conduction (actually kinda tripled, since they take male+female as another group, but that's not independent, so it's a bit more complicated than that), so finding something statistically significant (by chance) is twice as likely. In fact, given they made tests for 4 different conditions, with 3 different exposures, all divided into 2+ groups, they essentially made 24 tests. If you set your statistical significance at 0.05, you'd expect\* (by chance) 1.2 statistically significant results. They found one.
\*I'm simplifying here, it's more precise to say that if you conducted an infinite number of identical studies the average one would produce 1.2 "statistically significant" (p less than 0.05) results by pure chance.
Results (Score:2)
From the abstract:
Results: A statistically significant increase in the incidence of heart Schwannomas was observed in treated male rats at the highest dose (50 V/m). Furthermore, an increase in the incidence of heart Schwann cells hyperplasia was observed in treated male and female rats at the highest dose (50 V/m), although this was not statistically significant. An increase in the incidence of malignant glial tumors was observed in treated female rats at the highest dose (50 V/m), although not statistical
Re:No, no it didn't (Score:5, Informative)
You're exactly right.
I took a brief look through the paper. Table 3, glia (rightmost columns) seems to sum up this study nicely. Control group had 817 mice, 3 malignant brain tumors. Highest dose had 409 mice, 3 with malignant brain tumors. Not a significant difference in this entire table at any dose in any sub-population, even at p = 0.05 levels.
Table 2 focused on schwannomas, and they had to dig deep to male mice at highest exposure (n = 207) to get a significantly significant (at p = 0.05) difference. We're talking 3 / 207 male mice with malignant schwannomas at highest exposure. The control males had no cases (n = 412), but we're really in the weeds here where a stochastic variation of +/- 1 mouse makes a huge difference in their tallies. No other significant difference in any other dose in any other sub-population in any other table in this paper.
Kaplan-Meier survival curves (Figure 3 g-h) look just about identical for all doses: we're not seeing a big difference in survival times at any doses. And there's no effort to estimate error bars for those curves. That's a hint about (lack of) replicates.
From what I can see, there was exactly one replicate for each group / arm (e.g., mice exposed to a specific dose). This is not good, because technical and biological variability can cause flukes and false differences. 1 technical replicate per arm: if a technician had a bad day or screwed up a protocol when the exposing the mice to the highest dose, your one measurement set could be off. 1 biological replicate per arm: a weird batch of mice, or a batch of sick mice, etc., could throw off your one measurement set for the arm. Most cell line experiments we've worked with have at least 3 technical and biological replicates, in very controlled culture conditions. You'd be amazed at the variability, even in "identical" cells.
Oh, and read the neat Nature story (summary) [nature.com] where the sex of the scientist performing the experiments on mice can cause statistically significant differences. Because the male and female scents in our clothing can actually induce stress hormone changes in mice. Experiments are sensitive. Replicates are a good thing.
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Thanks for that informative post. I was about to post the same observations.
This study does not confirm any such thing. Finding one subgroup with a small effect in one measured outcome over a large study with many subgroups and many potential outcomes is pretty much the definition of P-hacking.
As an observational study, I suppose this might work. It has pretty much eliminated all other groups and all other cancers as possible effects. A follow on study with more rigorous controls focusing solely on male
Re:No, no it didn't (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh bullshit. Has the study been reproduced showing that the effect is not a fluke? No!
This is just another example of people manufacturing headlines from normal statistical variations of naturally occurring cancers.
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It's another example of the replication crisis [wikipedia.org].
There are quite a few studies showing some effect of non-ionizing radiation on tissues, effects plausibly linked to cancer. They may all be the result of statistical flukes and publication bias, or maybe not.
But what I find fascinating is how select
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> There are quite a few studies showing some effect of non-ionizing radiation on tissues
With people claiming "scientific results" without strictly adhering to the method that defines it, it's no wonder that so many have become critical of "scientific" claims. It boils down to my beliefs versus yours with no common ground to evaluate.
If it doesn't use the scientific method and results of "studies" are not reliably reproducible it isn't Science. It may be art, it may be religion, but it's not Science and s
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Well, lucky then that they do use the scientific method and are easily reproducible. Whether microwave radiation at low doses can cause cancer is an open question; whether there are non-thermal, non-ionizing effects of microwaves on proteins, cells, and tissues is settled, reproducible science.
That's OK, I prefer actual science to capital Science.
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Not really. In Poisson statistics, the variance is the expected value, in the case of the both groups, 3. So the expected standard deviation is sqrt(3), or 1.7. That means in a population of 409, you expect 1.5+/-0.85 cases of cancer, purely by chance, based on their control group. They measured 3+/-1.7. Oh yes, you have to account for Poisson errors on that side as well (the former errors come because of statistical fluctuations on the control cancer rate, the latter on statistical fluctuations on your exp
Re: No, no it didn't (Score:2)
Re:No, no it didn't (Score:4, Informative)
The e-field figures (5, 25 and 50 V/m) are pretty unrealistic as well. An LTE macrocell has 20-69 watts [google.com] of energy at the antenna feedpoint. If you concentrate 69 watts with a 10 DBi gain lobe (typical for cell antennas and completely ignoring radiation efficiency losses of the antenna) you have to be within about 3 meters line-of-sight to get 50 V/m, 6 meters to get 25 V/m and 29 meters to get 5 V/m. There probably are cases in densely populated urban areas where you find yourself in the main lobe of an antenna at these distances, but cellular transceivers in these areas necessarily operate at the low end of the power range due to cell density, so it's pretty difficult to imagine a scenario where large populations of people are getting the amount of continuous e-field exposure used in this work.
And there is no power correlation (Score:2)
Wonder why? (Score:4, Insightful)
The rats were anywhere from 6" to 6' from the full power antenna. Now lets rerun the same test with the rats being 100 feet or more away and see if there is any increase.
Re: Wonder why? (Score:5, Informative)
Given that they're engaging in P hacking, you could put the rats 10,000 miles away from the antenna and probably get similar results. Or just get rid of the antennas entirely. Either way, if you test for enough things you're going to get at least one "significant" result.
Xkcd explains:
https://xkcd.com/882/ [xkcd.com]
Straight up lies (Score:2, Interesting)
This couldn't be further from the truth. The linked pdf from ehtrust.org is a preprint version. It is NOT the published version of the paper. I pulled the published version of the paper down from my university account and the abstract is completely different, and the results show no statistical differences between those exposed to the magnetic fields vs controls.
The pubmed entry has the correct abstract: http://pubmed.gov/29549848 [pubmed.gov]
Read it for yourself.
The ehtrust.org should be reprimanded for knowingly sprea
Re:Straight up lies (Score:5, Informative)
Posting anonymously because I can't avoid moderating your post "overrated" (because "huge mistake" is not an option). The abstract you are linking is a different paper, which studies the impact of 50Hz electromagnetic radiation. The paper being discussed now studies the impact of 1.8GHz radiation, eight orders of magnitude higher. The actual link for the paper under discussion is this one [sciencedirect.com].
There are other comments presenting and discussing the flaws of the study, but linking to a different paper is completely misleading.
No apparent link, bullish OP confirmed (Score:2)
As above, the link by AC to the published version's abstract (which I've double-checked and it is from the Ramazzini Institute) shows the OP to be bullshit. capedgirardeau should not be allowed to submit stories on medical or scientific topics in general, and /. should correct itself on this.
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You're confusing two different papers:
Results of lifespan exposure to continuous and intermittent extremely low frequency electromagnetic fields (ELFEMF) administered alone to Sprague Dawley rats ("Exposure to ELFEMF alone does not represent risk factor for neoplastic development.")
Report of final results regarding brain and heart tumors in Sprague-Dawley
rats exposed from prenatal life until natural death to mobile phone
radiofrequency field representative of a 1.8 GHz GSM base station
environmental emission
How does a blue whale study confirm a cancer link? (Score:3)
I didn't even know that whales could use cell phones.
I know they make them waterproof now, but sheesh!
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I didn't even know that whales could use cell phones.
Have you not seen any talking on their phone in Walmart?
2.4Ghz (Score:2)
Several studies have been released on this subject.
The IAEA [iaea.org], the Russian Federation has also produced a report [magdahavas.com], with the effects on males and the American Association of Physicists in Medicine has also produced a report. [wiley.com]
The question being What is the safe level of microwave irradiation for the ovarian follicles during the first 100 days development of the embryo?
One analysis [springer.com] revealed that in the study group, the number of follicles was lower than that in the control group. The decreased number of fo
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And the difference in wattage between microwave ovens and wifi is pretty significant. 1 watt (FCC max) vs. 1100 watts.
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How would the emissions from wi-fi routers get all the way to the ovaries?
wavelength at 2.4 Ghz is 13cm
They can't even penetrate the outermost layer of our skin.
And the power threshold for this is?
And the difference in wattage between microwave ovens and wifi is pretty significant. 1 watt (FCC max) vs. 1100 watts.
The point is the sensitivity to the wavelength because we're not talking about cooking children in a microwave oven, we're talking about the threshold for damage to mitochondrial DNA.
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Give me a break!
No need to get all emotional.
Wifi transmitters typically produce 5 milli-Watts, and microwave power drops off with the square of the distance from the antenna.
The FCC doesn't regulate the "default" output power, just the maximum and the maximum is 1 Watt (1000 mW). With high-power PAs, 30dBm ( == 1000mW == 1 full Watt) APs are increasingly common. This is because of the prevalence of high quality Low Noise Amplifiers which increase the receive gain for the AP are becoming more common. Asides for being roughly 200 times what you say, the other thing you don't take into account is pulse width, duration and transient pulses.
Then we c
Re: 2.4Ghz (Score:2)
Sooooo, the point is the sensitivity to the wavelength because we're not talking about cooking children in a microwave oven, we're talking about the threshold for damage to mitochondrial DNA. Biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig difference.
Cool story. So how long does it take for lightbulbs and cabdles to damage your mitochondrial DNA?
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So you lump x-ray weapons checking machine together with Microwaves ?
He's a match so you can burn your strawman.
Why? (Score:2)
What I want to know is why do some people so desperately want to believe this nonsense? What's the angle? What does anyone have to gain from "proving" their nonsense right?
(I guess you could ask that about any kind of nonsense, but I'm asking about this one in particular).
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Mmmmm.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Scientist here.
First thing that strikes me is... they don't have replicates, so there is no measure of experimental error. So when they show in Table 2, for example, that the control group had a 0.7% incidence of hyperplasia Schwann cells... we don't know the error. I think this is important because if the (standard) error is, say, plus/minus 0.5%, then some of the results would be within the experimental error. The 95% confidence given that error would be, approximately (0, 1.7) --technically (-0.3 1.7), b
Towers at School (Score:2)
One of the most popular locations for cell towers is at or next to schools.
(Because they get money from the lease.)
Are we irradiating our children?
Renowned Institute? (Score:5, Informative)
The Ramazzini Institute has been publishing dubious studies for more than a decade. They have been accused of data fabrication and deliberate misinterpretation of their own source data (which they tend to keep under wraps even to government institutions) on multiple occasions, and most often publish on environmental and health topics which already got a lot of press (glyphosate, aspartam, methanol, now cell tower radiation). EPA, its Euro equivalent and other reputable institutions have more or less ceased taking these studies seriously (and not just since the new administration took office) and are actively reviewing and updating their older reports which referenced data from that source: http://www.epaarchive.cc/node/92139.html
Given this history, I am really skeptical wrt this new study.
Authors get stats wrong (Score:2)
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What he said....
You can't have 36 different measured endpoints (degrees of freedom) and then use a p-value of .05 for each of them as your threshold of significance. That isn't how statistics work.
Small effect sizes in a study with large numbers of measured variables pretty much guarantees that this is nothing more than p-hacking.
Cell towers (and power lines) DO NOT cause cancer (Score:2)
Only ionizing radiation can effect the cells and cause mutations (and possibly cancer)
Cancer Testing (Score:2)
Political ideology masquerading as science (Score:2)
Not such a bad study even if not conclusive. (Score:2)
The responses to this post tend to refute the conclusions or point out fallacies or biases or weak statistics or correlation factors. Much of that critique is valid - a whole lot of people here jumped onto the problems with the study. But, there are also a few points worth noting.
Biological effects -
Beginning in the latter 19th century, chemistry became the basis for understanding biology, and physical influences on biological systems were, and still are, relegated to lesser rank, not so robust methods, a
insurance companies know the truth (Score:2)
If cellphone radiation was causing cancer, the insurance companies would see higher incidents of cancer treatment payouts for cellphone tower technicians. They would then lobby OSHA to modify regulations surrounding cellphone tower work.
Environmental levels needn't be simulated. (Score:2)
They're what happens in the natural environment where people live and work everyday. DUH. :P
If you want to derive conclusions about environmental levels of radiation you compare shielded with unshielded. Right?
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Since this isn't about cell phones, but cell towers, I assume you know your question is irrelevant and rather boring.
Re:If cell phones cause cancer (Score:5, Insightful)
Then shouldn't there be a significantly higher incidence of cancer in people who live closer to cell towers than in people who don't?
Re: If cell phones cause cancer (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes there should.
I just had a look at their data and it's all over the place. There's no dose response curve at all. Some types of cancers occurred more often at the lowest dose than at the highest dose.
It looks almost like P hacking to me. But I've only had a brief glance at it, and I'm not a scientician. Would love to hear from someone who does actual scientific research for a living.
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How about Albert Einstein?
The wavelength of ionizising radiation (the type that can cause cancer) is well known. Cellphone towers don't emit it.
Re: If cell phones cause cancer (Score:5, Insightful)
The wavelength of ionizising radiation (the type that can cause cancer) is well known. Cellphone towers don't emit it.
Yes, any layman with an interest in physics knows that. However that does not necessarily exclude the possibility of some other type of unknown mechanism, no matter how slight that possibility might be. The lack of a known mechanism is not enough; it's just an appeal to ignorance.
If a well designed rigerous study found a link between cell tower radiation and specific type(s) of cancer, and followup studies successfully replicated those results, I would be quite willing to accept that cell towers probably are causing cancer, even if we have no idea how. The problem has been that all of these studies are crap, and that real world data shows no link either. That, combined with the lack of a plausible mechanism, leads me to conclude that there's almost certainly no danger. I'm always willing to be proven wrong, but this study definitely isn't the way to do it.
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This is a large scale lifetime Italian study, finding statistically significant increase of a specific and uncommon cancer which replicates the results of a U.S. National Toxicology Program study which found a connection between this radiation and an increase of this same uncommon cancer.
Re: If cell phones cause cancer (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a large scale lifetime Italian study, finding statistically significant increase of a specific and uncommon cancer
Not really. This appears to be a large scale farce which subdivides a large population into 24 subgroups and then tries to pretend that the result is still statistically significant, despite it being pretty much what you would expect from chance alone.
Show the causal mechanism (Score:2, Insightful)
"study found a link between cell tower radiation and specific type(s) of cancer, and followup studies successfully replicated those results"
There are all kinds of weird statistical correlations [buzzfeed.com] that don't actually have any causal relationship. Just because they (supposedly) found a correlation does not necessarily mean cell towers cause cancer. There could easily be other factors in play or it could be experimental error or just one of those weird coincidences. Until they can detail a causal mechanism of action the only conclusion one can draw is that further study appears warranted.
Example of model (Score:3)
However that does not necessarily exclude the possibility of some other type of unknown mechanism, no matter how slight that possibility might be.
Such a not yet known mechanism could be :
- at microwavelenght, most of the absorbed energy is converted to heat (see micro-oven as an example where this phenomenon has been put to good use - though using a frequency band of 2.4Ghz. That one *also* lies whithin the range at which water will absorb micro-waves into heat. But that one is less heavily regulated than 1.8Ghz).
- the varying train of pulses and jumps at 1.8Ghz, could cause small varying trains of heat pulse in the water medium of the body.
- such t
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Re: Example of model (Score:2)
Random speculation can be fun, but before you start trying to figure out what's going on there it's usually best to figure out if there's a "there" there.
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How about Albert Einstein?
The wavelength of ionizising radiation (the type that can cause cancer) is well known. Cellphone towers don't emit it.
I wonder how that world you live in, where science knows it all already, is. In my world, science is still discovering new things and maybe there are other processes involved in this situation. Remember, 150 years ago no one knew about ionizing radiation at all.
I'm not saying the article is correct. But your quick dismissal of this type of subject is a bit too cocky.
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"Quick dismissal"??
The electrosensitives have been trying to find something to justify their cause for many decades now.
If there was any effect you'd think they'd have found it by now.
Sorry, but the burden of proof is firmly in their court now and the standard of evidence required is well into the levels of "extraordinary". This ain't it. Nothing to see here. Move along.
Re: If cell phones cause cancer (Score:5, Interesting)
How about Albert Einstein?
The wavelength of ionizising radiation (the type that can cause cancer) is well known. Cellphone towers don't emit it.
While not ionizing radiation, RF radiation can and does have physical effects - Usually heating.
So I'm not going to write off the entire idea of carcinogenic effects, but I think it is very unlikely. And unless there is some homeopathic thing going on, holding a cell phone right up to your head exposing it to the the near field is going to dose you a hella lot more than being in the far field of a cell tower.
Humans have been carrying that experiment on for years now, I know people who spend hours every day soaking up near-field radiation from their smartphones. We should see some human results.
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unless there is some homeopathic thing going on, holding a cell phone right up to your head exposing it to the the near field is going to dose you a hella lot more than being in the far field of a cell tower.
Hell if it homeopathic you'd better strap a handset to your head permanently, increasing the distance could be deadly...
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unless there is some homeopathic thing going on, holding a cell phone right up to your head exposing it to the the near field is going to dose you a hella lot more than being in the far field of a cell tower.
Hell if it homeopathic you'd better strap a handset to your head permanently, increasing the distance could be deadly...
That's why we can't leave the solar system. At some point the radiation from the sun will burn us to a crisp when we get far enough away.
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It‘s brain cancers so you‘ll be ok with that tinfoil hat.
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Just put tinfoil through your neck too.
You just need neck protection on the outside, so a tinfoil mullet might be enough.
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But I've only had a brief glance at it, and I'm not a scientician.
That's ok. I'm pretty sure nobody else is either.
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Seems like it could be a natural instance of p hacking.
We just run the same study over and over and over, everyone hoping to find the link, but only the people who find what they want publish."Cell phone still don't cause cancer" isn't sexy.
Re: If cell phones cause cancer (Score:3, Insightful)
It is true that you have close to a 50% chance to develop cancer over your lifetime.
This is because cancer is very strongly age-linked, and as expected lifespans increase the aggregate probability gradually approaches 1.
In days past, people would die before they had time to develop cancer. Then they would die with undiagnosed cancer. Now we are quite good at detecting cancer.
Also, cancer cures would be extremely profitable themselves, and would allow for customers to continue to buy other products. Viagra a
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no effective = so effective
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no effective = so effective
That was kinda obvious, Mr... Oh, wait
Re:1.8 GHz (Score:5, Informative)
"Microwave ovens operate at a frequency of 2.45 GHz (2.45x109 Hz) and this is NOT the resonant frequency of a water molecule"
cite: http://www.schoolphysics.co.uk/age16-19/Wave%20properties/Wave%20properties/text/Microwave_ovens/index.html [schoolphysics.co.uk]
LTE Band 20 (Score:2)
effective.
I'm not sure there's any significance to 1.8 GHz being numerically close to 2.45 GHz (is it even considered close at 30% difference?)
I would expect a far greater power density using FDD20, which has a down-link (from the tower) and uplink (from the phone) that both have a harmonic around 2.45 GHz. Of course, this is known already, which is why the power density limit for FCC and Canada gets lower as the frequency is reduced. Anything over 2GHz in the US just goes to 1mW/cm2, but it is way more strict for Canada.
While LTE does have a lower peak power, it doesn't enjoy the far lower duty cycle of GSM. So, you have to calculate at 1
Re:1.8 GHz (Score:5, Informative)
The 2.4 GHz water resonance bogus claim appeared many years ago on QST [arrl.org] and, like many urban legends spread by ham radio buffs, is misleading people from physical truth.
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2.45 GHz is used because it's unlicensed spectrum, so it's less likely to interfere with other uses.
Larger industrial microwave ovens often use 915 MHz, which is also unlicensed. The wavelength is 2.5x longer, which means a larger resonant cavity, which is why this frequency isn't used for domestic or smaller commercial ovens.
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Surely at 915MHz, it would be a milliwave oven?
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OK, but why then is it the frequency used by microwaves?
Because that is the frequency natural magnetrons that come from magnetron plantations naturally use. Rumour has it GMO magnetrons are being developed which will allow for some variation in the frequency.
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well the study also.. well.. 2. two rats more got cancer.
no explanation how the other type happened only with female. ..and blowing up the story by someone who sells scare books on the subject, so...