Tumor-row, Tumor-row...gliomas and acoustic neuromas, Tumor-row

June 15, 2007

"THE COLUMBIA JOURNALISM Review plays darts every issue with unworthy
journalists, but its Darts & Laurels feature for May and June threw
one at the entire "U.S. news media." Launching a dubious metaphor, CJR
took the American media to task "for failing to pick up a long-
distance signal."

The item explained that when major papers in Britain, Germany, Canada,
Israel, and other countries "recently rang, sometimes on page one,
with the findings of a five-country study that showed a statistically
significant increase in a certain type of brain tumor among people who
had used cell phones for ten years or more, one might have expected
the American press to at least record the message." But it didn't,
said CJR, even though "the telecom industry here keeps hoping that the
FCC and the federal health agencies will raise the levels of cell-
phone radiation currently allowed.

"Memo to journalists: call waiting."

Cell-phone radiation is non-ionizing, which means it produces heat
but, at least in theory, doesn't threaten biological organisms at the
atomic level. The idea that noniodizing radiation is a menace
regardless goes back at least as far as the 1977 book The Zapping of
America: Microwaves, Their Deadly Risk, and the Coverup, by New Yorker
writer Paul Brodeur.

"There is a vast conspiracy among the press, especially newspapers,
not to write about the biological studies, especially the
epidemiological studies done in Europe," Brodeur told me this week.
Like other vast conspiracies, this one shows every sign of being able
to live on indefinitely, never confirmed beyond doubt or discredited
to everyone's satisfaction. That a long period of latency precedes
whatever damage cell phones might do only hardens both sides'
convictions.

CJR singled out two publications for praise: the Florida Sun-Sentinel,
for reporting the study, which was published in January by the
International Journal of Cancer, and Microwave News, a newsletter that
provided a "comprehensive, comprehensible account of the controversial
findings." Brodeur tells me its editor, Louis Slesin, got his start by
studying the Zapping files and is now "the authority on microwave
radiation."


And the very day I conducted my search, May 29, MSN.com touted a story
by MSNBC science editor Alan Boyle on the possible link between cell-
phone radiation and low sperm count and played it for laughs: "There's
no known connection between cell phone radiation and health risks, but
thankfully there's silver-threaded underwear for those who are
concerned."

Ho ho. Slesin was so concerned that the American press wasn't telling
the public something it needed to know that he wrote and shopped
around an op-ed sounding the alarm. It began, "Two billion people now
use cell phones, many for hours on end. But are they safe? Could
putting a small microwave transmitter next to your brain lead to
cancer or a neurological disease?"

He couldn't be sure, "but some of the early returns are disquieting."
Citing studies that other reporters took comfort in, Slesin said they
"point to a problem over the long term. These studies show that using
a cell phone for more than ten years leads to higher rates of two
different kinds of tumors: gliomas, a type of brain tumor, and
acoustic neuromas, a tumor of the nerve that connects the ear to the
brain. In each case, the tumors were more likely to be on the side of
the head closest to the phone."

"To be sure, these are still preliminary findings," Slesin
acknowledged, but he didn't think it made sense to ignore them. In his
view skeptics who assert that "the worst microwaves can do is heat you
up, and even then only at power levels much higher than you could ever
get from a cell phone" not only "abound" but dominate the debate in
this country. "The heating-only advocates, many of whom have links to
industry, are in control even though laboratory research has shown
that microwave radiation can damage DNA, upset sleep patterns, alter
cognitive function, increase the flow of chemicals through the blood-
brain barrier and bring on headaches."

Here in the U.S., Slesin wrote, no epidemiological studies are being
made of cell-phone radiation, the American Cancer Society has called
the idea of cancer risk a "myth," and Consumer Reports published a
long recent report on cell phones that didn't even take up the
question of radiation. But "it's a completely different story in
Europe."

The op-ed wasn't published. Slesin says the New York Times and Boston
Globe both turned it down.

When I asked Brodeur to explain what he meant by a "vast conspiracy,"
he took a verbal step back, as if to distance himself from the lunatic
fringe. "What there is is self-censorship," he replied. "The reason
is, as always, money. You follow the money trail and the newspapers
have a vested interest in the big telecommunications companies. It's
an enormously powerful industry and it has managed to convince a lot
of people there is absolutely no harm." Slesin said something similar
in his op-ed: he claimed the "wireless industry has a stranglehold on
the health debate" and "Motorola and Nokia, the two largest phone
manufacturers, dismiss all claims of a possible hazard."

When I looked harder I began to find studies that backed Slesin up.
For instance, "Tumour risk associated with use of cellular telephones
or cordless desktop telephones" appeared in the World Journal of
Surgical Oncology in October 2006. And in January of that year,
"Cellular Phones, Cordless Phones, and the Risks of Glioma and
Meningioma" ran in the American Journal of Epidemiology, where it was
reported that "among long-term cellular phone users [ten years or
more] a twofold risk of glioma was observed."