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Some bracing headlines have been circulating about cell phones and cancer. A new study, run by the government’s National Toxicology Program, proposed a link between exposure to the radiofrequencies used by cell phones and certain kinds of brain and nerve tumors. The study was conducted in rats, but big, population-based studies of humans have made similar suggestions.
…But some experts were critical of the report’s conclusions. Both Michael Lauer, the NIH Deputy Director for Extramural Research, and Donald Berry, chair of statistics at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, said they think the study’s results are purely due to chance. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society and a very skeptical researcher, actually thought the study indicated that cell phone radiation may raise the risk of these uncommon cancers.
But even Brawley’s summation of the results strikes me as less alarming than the first headlines that emerged from the press. The Wall Street Journal, one of the first with the story, blared: “Cellphone-Cancer Link Found In Government Study.”
Read full, original post: Yesterday’s Cell-Phone Cancer Scare Scares Me A Little About The Future Of Journalism
