This Time It's Cell Phones
In this weeks top story
Calming Fears, I discussed the difficulty that most people have in accurately assessing risks, sometimes fearing small risks, such as that of being near someone who has had radioiodine therapy, while dismissing larger risks, such as those of smoking. I also discussed the role media plays in sensationalizing stories about certain risks.
Today, press stories are fanning fears about cell phone use, based on a the unpublished work of a single English physician that contradicts the findings of the American Cancer Society, which are based on peer-reviewed published studies. Indeed, the press (including Fox News.Com and New York's Daily News) even go as far as quoting the doctor, Vini Khurana, as saying that "It is anticipated that this danger has far broader public health ramifications than asbestos and smoking." To make this assumption he noted that 3 billion people worldwide use cell phones, while only 1 billion smoke.
Wait a minute, later in the full article, as published in the UK paper the Independent, it notes that some 5 million people worldwide die of cancer each year. Now since the ACR reports that 4 times as many people get malignant brain cancer from metastases as get any sort of primary brain cancer (benign or malignant), Dr. Khurana's statement seems a little off, especially since the primary cause of metastatic brain cancer is from lung and breast cancer.
Furthermore, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Cancer Statistics Review puts a lifetime risk of developing cancer of the brain or other nervous system at 0.6 percent. Based on statistics for the same time frame (2002-2004), the NCI puts the lifetime risk of developing cancer of the lung (for the entire population, not just current smokers) at 6.98 percent.
Indeed the American Cancer Society has this to say about cell phone use:
"This has been the subject of a huge number of studies, most of which find no connection with brain tumors. A few studies, mostly from Sweden, suggested that people who used cellular phones extensively for many years did have a higher risk for brain tumors. Some studies also suggest there may be some increased risk of brain tumors from long-term use of analog phones, an older kind of cellular phones that have been replaced by newer digital phones. Most experts feel that more studies are needed before coming to any conclusions."
Indeed, results from a multi-national study did find one Danish study, which suggested a increased risk of a benign acoustic neuroma in long-term cell phone users, it did not see any increase in short-term users. Furthermore, other studies showed no increased risk from cell phones of more malignant cancers such as meningioma or glioma.
Although all the cancer groups say that there needs to be further studies to accurately define if there is a risk from using cell phones, the debate is certainly not helped by sensationalizing a single study that has not yet met peer-reviewed scrutiny. Indeed, in my opinion, the public is not well served by this story or by any other press reports, such as CT radiation concerns or radiotherapy concerns, that are based more on conjecture and sound-bites than on facts.