Israeli study finds cancer risk improving by 50% from cellphones

[Skybird]

http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/actualites/societe/20071207.OBS8960/les_telephones_portables_augmentent_le_risque_de_c ancer.html

Dr. Sigal Sadetzki and his reaearch team from the Chaim Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan say that if you telephone 22 hours per month with the phone always at the same ear, or live in rural areas (higher emitting energy of the cellphone due to longer emitting distances), you risk a 50% increase in risk for salivary gland cancer. The examined pantient group held 402 persons with bening ulcers, and 58 with malignant ulcers.

The study will be published in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

One more reason for me to hate these things! :lol: They make people loose their manners and polite behavior. :down:

And females should be banned from using them anyway, due to that endless meaningless chatter. :rotfl:

-----

Meanwhile an internal German study has found that within a 5 km area around one of the 16 German nuclear powerplants, 37 children suffered leucaemia. Statistically only a mean value of 17 cases had to be expected. The study is quoted with saying that the link between increase in leucaemia rates and decrease in distance to nuclear powerplants statistically is "highly significant". The german government finds the study so alarming and seems to take it's substance that serious that it embarked on further investigations immediately. Such findings are not new, but usually they get more or less ignored or talked down by official politics.

[Letum]

As one of my aquantiance's professors used to say back in those days: "conduct examinations with sharper and sharper tools and methods - and you end up with finally finding just anything, even unimportant things, non-harming somethings, no matter how useless the finding is." ;)

That said, I have no idea as I can't read the study.


If you really want to increase you cancer risk, just live somewhere close to large,
dense rock formations like the old batholith I live on top of, or on high ground.
The background radiation from the earth and space fluctuate a lot depending on
where you live and effects the development of cancers dramatically.
And then of course, there is solar radiation, but looking at the snow out side my
window, I doubt that will be a problem for some time.

[Skybird]

As one of my aquantiance's professors used to say back in those days: "conduct examinations with sharper and sharper tools and methods - and you end up with finally finding just anything, even unimportant things, non-harming somethings, no matter how useless the finding is." ;)

It seesm it was a very wise man saying that! :yep:

However, both findings are not alone. When the community of the house my parents once owend a small holiday appartement wanted to raise trasnmission masts on the roof, my Mom started a counter campaign and searched for material on raditation from telephone masts. She found many studies being done in canada since the 80s, and presented the material finally, with help by a physic scientist from the university in Münster. the project then died, since neither the telephone company nor any of the house community members were able to counter the medical material. So, the issue is being known to the open mind since twenty years or longer.

Same could be said about the corelation between cancer risk and closeness of nuclear facilities. Without being able to provide any material out of the blue, in the past 20 years or longer, time and again such studies were showing up, bitterly fought by governments and lobbyists, of course. And by internatonal standards, german nuclear technology belongs to the world's top-rated concerning safety technology and radiation safety. It's just that many site over here are simply outdated by now. but still i expect the situation in many other states to be far more serious. and I must not refer to extreme examples like Russia.

In the end it does not make sense to always reject the reasonable thought that organic tissue being exposed to energetic radiation (no matter if cellphones or low-radiation from nuclear facilties) and having not evolutionary adapted to these energy levels over a longer time, will not react to these energies. It seems to react indeed. that we have adapted to comsic background radiation and natural levels of radioactivity does not change this.

[STEED]

And females should be banned from using them anyway, due to that endless meaningless chatter. :rotfl:

I hear you loud and clear on that one Skybird. :yep: :up:

For part of my walk home from the super market I had to put up with this women who was loud and brash, here's basically what she said.

"Honey baby love I'm almost at your street just turning in now, at your gate, that's me knocking on you door."

I give up. :damn:

[Letum]

IIRC the raise in background radiation near a Nuclear power plant is only the equivalent of
a change in altitude of a few hundred feet.

The study you quote may well be right, but it is also wise to take a very critical view
upon it before you make up your mind.

A lot of unfair bias arises from fear of the new, unknown and "unnatural".

[Skybird]

IIRC the raise in background radiation near a Nuclear power plant is only the equivalent of
a change in altitude of a few hundred feet.

The study you quote may well be right, but it is also wise to take a very critical view
upon it before you make up your mind.

A lot of unfair bias arises from fear of the new, unknown and "unnatural".

True, but usually such studies do not make governments headstarting into further examination. The study was ordered by a ministry's sub-organization that exclusively deals with reactor security and radiation protection. Every reactor being built had to gain permission by this governmental office. They probably did not get what they expected when ordering it. we also had several accidents at German "AKWs" this year, and there were two very serious incidents in Sweden - maybe that is why they are very nervous at the oment, since there is growing demand to early switch-off at least older reactors. some weeks ago there was another study finding that the reactprs are by far not that safge against aeril attacks or accidents as was assumed for deacdes - the major protection building would NOT survived midsized and large airplanes crashing onto them. Also, the concrete walls showed more "corrosion" then was projected at the time they were build.

[Skybird]

The study on reactors and children cancer giot more specified in the evening TV news today. They said that not only 37 children suffered from Leucaemia where statistically only 17 cases of general cancer would have to be expected, but that in fact 77 children in total got ill from cancer (37 of which are leucaemia) - that is 4.5 times as many as would have to be expected normally. The alarming thing is, say the authors, that indeed a causal relation is not being proven by the study, but a statistical relation is beyond any doubt. What worries them and the federal office for radiation research is that the factor that links the cancer to the factor of ditance to reactor - is not known. the study says such a link exists - and it is not identified.

Thus it seems we still have to learn about in how far reactors affect their close-by environment beyond the known facts of radiation. there is a contamination taking place that currently all who should know must admit they do not know about at all.

I could imagine it is not about constant radiation form the faciltiy itself, which is ver low indeed, but that we talk about leaking of isotopes of short lifespan, that get freed in intervals only and that have a lifespan long enough to enter the air or water and getting absorbed by organisms exposed to them, but do not survive long enough after having caused some cellular or genetical damage to be measurable by detectors. another option is that we are dealing with a completely new elem,ent or radiation that so far is unknown and thus no detectors can find it.

But that is my private novice reasoning only.

Talking of distances of 5 km or less. The study was ordered by the Bundesstrahlenamt, and was conducted by the university Mainz over many years. New exmination now takes place on how the statisticallink is being caused, and what variable so far has been overseen.

[Letum]

How very strange.
Does it say how many power plants where in the study?

Did they gather their own statistics from the study for both those in and
out the 5km radius?


Im not trying to find holes, I am not qualified to!
Just intrested.

[Skybird]

How very strange.
Does it say how many power plants where in the study?

All 16 we have.

Did they gather their own statistics from the study for both those in and out the 5km radius?

The whole country was examined, the numbers I have refer to the zones around the sites, 5 km and less. Inside these zones, the found rates of cancer where higher than in nation-wide mean, weighted for population density, and probably some more factors. 17 cases should have beemn found in these 16 zones, but 77 (37) were the actual finding.

Im not trying to find holes, I am not qualified to!
Some kind of holes may be what they are looking for now :D

One commentor from a citizen's initiave said the surprising thing were not the outcome, but that the examination was even conducted and the finding becoming kown in public. I too am surprised that they did not keep in internal from beginning on. that is the usual routine when it comes from nuclear powerplants (that are far from being popular in germany).

[Letum]

Im no statisticion, but if they just checked the 5km results against the national mean, then
that might be where they went wrong if they did not also measure the national mean
themselves.

Mixing data etc.

But, I assume they accounted for this, or atleast know about it.


Hum, ho, something to keep a eye on.

[Skybird]

Im no statisticion, but if they just checked the 5km results against the national mean, then
that might be where they went wrong if they did not also measure the national mean
themselves.
That's what I meant: the have examined all Germany, and weightened the values according to regions and population densitiy and such factors. Pretty much standard i would say for academical field studies. In the end it was no non-profit organisation of concerned citizens, but a team of profis from a university who received an official request to conduct the study by a federal institution, and probably got payed for it as well.

So, i cannot tell for sure, but I very strongly assume that they did not make such beginner's mistakes like just taking the general mean values, and that's it.