Cellphones Linked to Cancer. Well, Not Really.

May 26, 2010 - PRLog -- My Monday, May 17 edition of the Calgary Herald had the following headline listed under TOP NEWS: Largest study suggests cellphone link to cancer risk.

That’s scary. Not true mind you, but scary.

The article written by Sarah Schmidt of Canwest News Service refers to the recently released INTERPHONE study. It plays fast and loose with the truth, but we can’t point fingers at the media alone in this case. The efforts of researchers to suck ever increasing amounts of money from agencies and organizations whose research grant evaluation standards are more about political correctness than scientific merit, can also be blamed here.

So let’s start with the findings.  The research found that there was no association between cellphone use and either glioma or meningioma. At the same time, according to the Herald, researchers argued, There was suggestions of an increased risk of glioma at the highest exposure levels.

Suggestions of an increased risk? What is that? I have been involved in the evaluation of research for most of my adult life and I have never heard of a hypothesis test for a suggestion. Sounds more like a plea for additional funding.

Ooops, what do you know. That is exactly what the researchers want. Leader of the research team Elisabeth Cardis of the University of Ottawa is quoted as saying: possible effects of long-term use of mobile phones require further investigation. Isn’t that always the case?

This is the standard plea of those that conduct worthless research. The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) in the United States, one of the National Institutes of Health, has spent billions of dollars trying to find some alternative therapy that actually works.  So far nothing except that the, more research is needed, plea is always good for additional funding from a Congress willing to sell out the health of citizens for a few extra votes.

In this tradition, Jack Siemiatycki, Canada research chair in environmental epidemiology and population health at the University of Montreal, one of four Canadian researchers on the project is quoted as saying: the scientific information we have right now , there is no way for us to legitimately tell the public whether we think it’s one way or the other that’s more likely true. Huh?

This is the tactic of the elusive conclusion. If the evidence in a study shows, as this one did, that there is no link between cell phone use and cancer, claim that the study failed to find a link and suggest more research is needed. This makes it appear that there is a link, but that the study simply failed to find it. In fact, the study failed to find a link because there isn’t any, which is in itself, a very definite conclusion.

No more research is needed. The money would be better spent investigating plausible sources of cancer rather than this politically correct, pseudo-scientific nonsense.

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ASkepticRTN is dedicated to battling pseudo-science and superstition in the media. Specifically where facts, rationality and truth have been sacrificed upon the alter of entertainment.