3/30/2008

Cell Phone Use and Brain Cancer?

A new study claims that "Cell Phones Could Be More Dangerous Than Cigarettes" in causing cancer. The claim is that it takes about 10 years for this to occur, but that cell phones can double the risk of brain cancer. Given the number of people using cell phones for a long time, one would think that the impact of this would have begun to show up. The Census Bureau claims that:

The number of cell phone subscribers in the United States reached approximately 159 million in 2003, up from 34 million in 1995, according to the latest edition of the national data book released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. . . .


But look at these numbers on brain cancer rates from the National Cancer Institute. Brain cancer rates have been flat for the last decade. If cell phones doubled brain cancer rates for those who used them, one would think you would see something in these numbers. The researcher may be correct about the direction, but the effect must be relatively small.

One possibly unrelated question that I have is: why is the brain cancer rate for whites so high relative to other groups?

Labels: , ,

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home