Comments on Spin and the glioma study: Frans van Velden
From Frans van Velden:
Again misinformation to the media
October 2005, Interphone researchers did not inform the public that 1.8 times more acoustic neuroma after ten years mobile phone use was found. Instead, they told the media that there is no heightened risk (Interphone study by M.J. Schoemaker, A.J. Swerdlow, S.J. Hepworth, P.A. McKinney, A. Ahlbom and others). Reuters forwarded the message to the world apparently without checking the report.
See: http://www.nature.com/bjc/journal/v93/n7/index.html (last item)
and: http://www.powerwatch.org.uk/news/20050901_neuroma.asp
January 2006, they did not inform the public that significantly more glioma was found at the side of mobile phone use, and significantly less glioma was found at the non-side. They told the media that the participants did not remember the side they used, and that a pattern was not seen for handedness (Interphone study by S.J. Hepworth, M.J. Schoemaker, A.J. Swerdlow, P.A. MacKinney and others. Yes, the same researchers). Reuters forwarded the message without checking the truth: a person’s preferred hand for holding a mobile phone cannot be predicted from knowledge of their hand dominance.
See: http://www.flinders.edu.au/speechpath/LINNETT_1.pdf
and: http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/rapidpdf/bmj.38720.687975.55v1
The researchers left out about 49% of the patients with glioma, because they died rapidly. They analysed the other patients, found no increased risk and concluded that the ones who died rapidly could not make a difference.
The researchers write, that radiofrequency fields emitted by mobile phones are thought to be unable to cause malignancies by damage to DNA. Well, that is the paradigma that should be left. Instead, the Interphone studies take it for granted, though it has been shown by many studies that DNA is damaged by electromagnetic fields (Lai and Singh (Verenigde Staten), Adlkofer (Reflex, EU), Zhengping Xu (China), Xu Xi Shan (Korea) and others).
The Interphone studies are funded by the EU, the Mobile Manufacturers Forum and the GSM Association. The United Kingdom studies are funded by the Department of Health and five netwerk operators.
The University of Leeds also received some financial support from five mobile network operators. One of the researchers has received funding from four mobile network operators before, for a feasibility study.
Research funded by network operators and mobile phone organisations tends to find nothing.
See: http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CAE3A.htm and elsewhere.
The researchers say, their results are consistent with studies showing a lack of convincing and consistent evidence of any effect of exposure to radiofrequency field on risk of cancer. Who says so? ‘Epidemiology of health effects of radiofrequency exposure’ (A. Ahlbom, D. Swerdlow and others. Yes, they are authors of the Interphone acoustic neuroma study) and ‘Health risks of electromagnetic fields’ (M. Repacholi and others. Repacholi is the coordinator of the EMF-radiation project of the WHO. He is the one who discards all the research showing evidence). Studies who find associations between tumours and mobile phone use are called ‘individual’, a word used by Repacholi who calls effects of electromagnetic fields ‘a myth’.
As usual, future studies will be able to address longer latency periods.
Frans.
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