The One Blog I Never Wanted To Write (but now have to) - first link found to mobile phones and brain cancer

Today we have received the one bit of news I had hoped never to hear. It is the one blog story I most hoped never to have to write. But also, I have promised to be vigilant of the research into cancer and mobile phones, and have promised to be open about any credible research findings that show a link with mobile phone use and cancer.

Includes corrections

Today the various press have started to report on the giant Interphone research into whether mobile phone use can cause brain tumors (cancer). The international study in 13 countries over 10 years covered 13,000 people including 5,000 who had one of two types of brain cancer. The study was sponsored by the World Health Organization with partial funding from the mobile telecoms industry. Its very credible major research. The press stories seem bizarrely wild about the findings, where some very major press sources like Reuters say that one of the findings is that prolonged phone use does increase chance of brain cancer, and other equally reputable major press like CNN report on the same study that it found no cause at all and others like the BBC said the findings were 'inconclusive'.

Understand how much the world has changed today. Up to now, all major research into cancer and mobile phones ended very un-ambigiously with 'no evidence of a cause'. This same 10 year old interphone running study of cancer effects which has published some dozen separate findings since 2004 has consistently - up to now - reported no data to support a cause. This time, while there are conflicting findings in the study, the director of the study run by 21 scientists, Dr Elisabeth Cardis of the Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology in Barcelona, Spain, said:

"There are indications of a possible increase. We're not sure that it is correct. It could be due to bias, but the indications are sufficiently strong... to be concerned." She was referring to that part of the participants who had used mobile phones for 'very long' on a daily basis.

So my interest? I am a consultant and author on the mobile industry and I have openly advocated increased use of mobile phones and reported on them and various ways mobile phones can be used. I have been one of the most vocal advocates of the mobile industry and have celebrated various services that make money in this business. When a client (or perhaps a random question from the audience after one of my public presentations) has asked me - Tomi, what do you think is the biggest threat to the mobile industry? I have always said, the number 1 biggest threat to the long-term viability of the mobile industry is if any link is found between mobile use and cancer.

My reply has always continued with the comments that - first of all - so far with several dozen international studies on this very topic all around the world - not one has yet found any link between cancer and mobile phone use. And I have always ended my answer saying that I am actively monitoring this space, and should any such research be published, I will be among the first to report it. Today is that sad day, that I do have bad news for our readers. The first international health study has concluded a clear increased risk of brain cancer due to mobile phone use by humans.

Now, I am not a doctor. I also have not read the full study, the Interphone Report by the WHO (I hope to get to read the full text). I have read several press reports (so far over three dozen) with direct quotes from the study. This is my first blog article on this topic and it is only based on those press stories. I will return to this blog if I find that some early press stories were mis-quoted, and then correct this blog. Also, obviously, I may have misunderstood some parts of the story - and will come here to correct any misunderstandings.

MY UNDERSTANDING OF STUDY

This is what I believe is the newsworthy major health finding from the WHO Interphone study. The research across many countries and thousands of brain cancer patients has run for many years, reporting on national and cross-country findings as part of the International Agency for Cancer Research. The interphone study has released previous findings and reports at least since 2004 and so far found no evidence of a link to cancer. But that has changed now. For the first time they have found clear evidence of one link - that those with 'heavy use' of mobile phones daily - will find an  increased risk of brain cancer. The threshold for 'heavy use' was 30 minutes of mobile phone calling per day (normal use of mobile phones today is an average of about 10-12 minutes per day). The effects would show after years of such levels of use (according to the study results).

Please do not panic. Remember that there had been some 30 major international studies into mobile phones and cancer, and every previous international study found no link. And the findings in this study according to its authors are not definite, they are inconclusive. So even in the worst case, if there is a true causal effect, that was now for the first time discovered, that is likely to be reasonably 'rare' and one that only shows up after prolonged exposure, and not in everyone. You don't have to stop using your phone today. Lets not over-react. There are several major studies already going on, and we'll find out in the coming months when the next studies report, whether there is any supporting data to verify this first finding.

Also please understand, it is possible - but I am not holding very much hope, but it is certainly possible - that the research was faulty in some ways. The findings are not perfectly clear and some are already disputing the methodology etc. Again, I am not a doctor, and I am not an expert on radiation. But the research data findings have a bizarre and very unusual conclusions as well this time, which does lend credibility to think it may be an error in their methodology - as they found that at the low end of use, the research data does suggest that a little amount of mobile phone use daily decreases the chance of cancer.

This really cannot be. If mobile phone radiation somehow increases cancer risk, then the data should be consistent, a little amount of exposure causes a tiny tiny increase in cancer, then added exposure caused more cancer. It cannot possibly be that 'little amounts of radiation is good for you but only in moderation' haha like with many food products. It has been proven (in vastly greater dosages of radiation than typically exposed to in mobile phone use) that radiation does cause cancer. This strange finding at the low-usage level of this same study gives at least some reason to hope that perhaps the study itself is an anomaly, and follow-up studies come up with the same finding as the approx 30 major international studies so far, that all have found no link with mobile phone use and cancer.

But I am not about to sugar-coat this for you, and I am not going to hide from the facts. The fact is, that for the first time now in May 2010, a major international health study, by a most unbiased and irreproachable source, the World Health Organization, has indeed found a significant link between heavy use of mobile phones and brain cancer. I can hope that future follow-up studies come with opposite results, but am afraid, that there will be more that fit in this pattern. And either way, I will be reporting on them here on the blog and in my upcoming books. I am not an expert on cancer but at least I owe it to my readers to hear what sources have studied the health risks where such risks have been found. And then, I want to use my knowledge of mobile to point out some facts and give some "layman's advice" on how you should consider proceeding (and on how to advise your loved ones, your children etc)

YOUR PHONE IS FAR WORSE THAN THOSE 30 MINUTES

This study was about mobile phone exposure and causes of brain tumors. So it was a study of brain cancer. That means obviously that the cancer has to be inside the head. For that, the study had examined which side of the head the cancer patient held the phone primarily and whether that side was also the side where brain tumors had appeared, etc. With this focus, it made sense, that they measured the 'time' of how long a phone was at the ear, near the brain.

And if we speak on the phone, the phone is as near to the ear as is physically possible. If we use the same phone to surf the web or send an SMS message or select a song from our play list, then we are 'looking' at the phone, holding it in our hand in front of us, not touching our ear/head, and the phone is far away from the head. Generally, the amount of radiation received decreases in the square of the increase in distance. If your phone is twice as far, the amount of radiation is not one half, it is one fourth. Etc. So it is in our interest to keep the phone as much as possible away from areas where cancer has risk of occuring.

So far so good. Now the bad part. We have far more types of cancer than brain tumors. If it really is true, that prolonged exposure to mobile phone radiation increases occurance of cancer in the brain, then very likely that will also be true of most other forms of cancer. Now we get to the problem. For most people they carry the phone upon their body all waking hours. It is in a pocket. In our jeans or the shirt pocket or perhaps hanging on a string around our neck, etc. The phone is very likely always in the same pocket regardless of what clothes we wear. Even if its a ladies' handbag, that is often with the woman or right next to her.

And for those who are not very familiar with the operation of the cellular mobile phone - it may feel like you only use it when you speak on the phone. The natural assumption is that its 'dangerous' only when you talk on it. No, the cellular telecoms network is designed so, that your phone is continuously sending a signal (literally your phone transmits a signal thousands of times per second) - it is emitting a radio contact (ie it transmits radiation) to the antenna of the nearest cellular tower. So even if you never make calls on your phone, it will generate a steady flow of radiation 24 hours a day. I understand (but am not a radio engineer, so this may be faulty and I will correct if I had it wrong) that the amount of radiation from the phone is roughly speaking the same whether you are speaking on the phone, or if there is no active phone call and the phone only maintains a steady connection.

Correction - I have now heard from several radio engineers who tell me that  a phone does not transmit as much when it is inidle mode. But it does still send out a signal (ie creates radiation). And also a bit of good news here, modern 3G phones are dramatically more efficienbt, and use far less power than older 2G mobile phones.

I do know that the phone will make attempts to discover a network if the phone is on the edge of radio coverage. And I understand (but am not a radio engineer, blah-blah-blah) that when seeking a network, the phone radio output (its amount of radiation) is greatest. So for example if you are driving a car in poor radio coverage, the phone will emit a lot of power attempting to contact the network - occasionally lose contact - and then try very hard to re-establish contact, time and again. This drains the battery rapidly, and that is due to heavy radio activity (ie more radiation).

Regardless, understand that the mobile phone you now have, whether a brand new Google Nexus One or a six year old well-worn basic Nokia - every second you have it turned on and connected, it will produce radiation. You are exposed 24 hours a day to radiation from your phone, not only the 12 minutes you spend talking on the phone.

SIMPLE ADVICE THAT MAKES SENSE AT THIS POINT

So, up to now, I could honestly say that no study ever had proven a link with phones and cancer. I could convince myself not to 'worry' about cancer and my phones. I have that luxury no more. Now, the rational person will make decisions on the level of risk, but also will monitor if further such evidence appears from future health studies - you can be sure the number of phone-cancer studies will now increase. I would suggest that until perhaps a lot of conclusive research comes in the future to prove that there is no link to cancer, that you consider the following steps in you phone use.

First, consider where you carry your phone(s). The studies of prolonged exposure to various forms of radiation (at far heavier dosages than mobile phones) on rats, etc, have been rather clear to show that cancer effects are increased with repeated or prolonged local application of radiation, and therfore your risks are lessened if the radiation is spread over wider areas of your body. So, where do you regularly carry your phone? If you carry it in your left shirt pocket, consider switching from the left pocket to the right pocket, give the phone location more variance, reduce the amount of radiation to the left breast side of your body (near your heart and lungs). If possible, try to rotate your phone location often to other places, perhaps a pocket in your pants, or if you wear a sports jacket or suit, then move the phone to one of the coat pockets etc. If you wear a pouch for the phone, consider moving the pouch to the other side of your pants/belt. Please consider the most sensitive parts of your body in terms of cancer (heart, sexual organs, brain etc) and try to keep the phone as far from those as possible.

Then consider how you speak on the phone. You probably have a primary 'ear' ie I am right-handed and always tend to use my right ear. Now swap ears, and try to make a habit for the next year to never use your primary ear to answer your phone, always try to start with the 'other ear'.

If you have a hands-free kit, a wired headset or bluetooth wireless headset, try to use that often - it keeps the actual phone further away from your brain. When you do use the hands-free kit, try to keep your phone as far away from your body as is practical - ie if you're a woman and carry a purse, try to keep your phone in the purse as much as possible when you speak. If you are a man with a briefcase, perhaps you can try to keep the phone in the briefcase (especially with bluetooth). If you are sitting at your desk or at home watching TV, then keep the phone at arm's length on the desk etc rather than in your hand for example, and again use the hands-free kit.

 

(UPDATE - note this following advice may be useless or even counter-productive) If you were thinking of getting some external case for your phone - many iPhone users for example seem to love them - then please do that. Whether leather or plastic or whatever material, there is now more of a barrier to radiation between the phone and your body. If you already have one, but have stopped using it, now's a good time to bring it back to use.

In your pocket if its practical, use some such barriers too - in my case I always have to carry my passport wherever I go, and as I tend to carry my phone in my breast pocket of my suit, I have for years already learned to keep my passport on my 'body side' with the phone on the 'outside' of the pocket. I don't know how much of an added 'radiation barrier' the 42 pages plus heavier covers of a standard EU passport add to my protection but it does add something. It can't hurt.

A totally McGuyver gimmick - that I thought of but have no idea if this really helps at all - I will try to find out from radio engineers - is aluminum foil. I understand (but am not radio engineer blah blah blah) that aluminum foil blocks all cellular frequency signals. If so, then that seems to me to be the logical 'lining' to that part of your phone case which is near your face when you hold the phone at your ear. And in my case of my passport, I will now add a single sheet of aluminum foil to my passport haha - I am sure some passport control people will freak out, but yeah, I have a good story now haha..  But yeah, this is totally McGuyver - so I will also go explore if this gimmick has any chance of blocking radiation and will return to this blog to verify or dismiss that solution.

Any readers - if you have any ideas, please submit in comments.

TWO PHONES, IN BED, 3G LAPTOPS, WIFI

So, then more of Tomi's insights? If you are like increasingly popular among young employed adults - if you carry two phones with you - then of course both phones radiate just as much. Same rules for both phones - try to rotate them to different pockets, etc.

If you are like most people and you use your phone as your alarm and thus have the phone in your bedroom - now's a good reason to move it away from your bed and pillow. I know its a drag to put it on the bedside table, but think - those 8 hours under your pillow are awefully close to your brain - and 30 minutes of contact-level exposure to your head are a cancer risk. That phone in bed with you is potentially very close to your brain too - but far longer exposure. Yes, do move it to the bedside table, that's close enough for late-night messages etc and your alarm clock, but then you won't sleep right on the device.

And then the 3G connection to your laptop. This really hit me. Where do we like to keep our laptop? In our lap. Thats awefully close to some very sensitive body parts in terms of radiation. If you have a 3G data card/modem/dongle and it is turned on/connected - (and you use your laptop) it will radiate even if you are not currently surfing. Many 3G data connections have a flashing light when it is connected (or seeking connection) and that now means cancer risk.. Same rules as the above. If you can, turn off the data card.

And WiFi ? Well, if cellular connection causes a cancer risk, then your WiFi connection is likely in the same class. Better safe than sorry. Keep your WiFi turned off when its not needed, and when you use your laptop (or PSP or iPod Touch or iPad or any kind of smartphone) with WiFi, remember - same precautions as with phones. The problem with WiFi on especially on a laptop is that we often do sit for hours on end doing our surfing etc.

At work, if your job requires you to speak on a cellular mobile phone at length on a daily basis, ie if you're in sales or tech support or whatever kind of job that you regularly clock conversations that run an hour or more, several per day, on your mobile phone - then be extra careful. Get yourself some hands-free kit and use it religiously for work calls.

And obviously, whenever possible, try to use SMS if a text message can deliver the same communication that a voice call would have done. For both you the potential caller, and the person you'd talk with - if a text message is used, both of you will avoid bringing the phone to your ears (heads) and will keep it a good distance from your body when composing or reading the text message. Oh yeah, obviously, if you are one of those who has resisted SMS text messages up to now - now is the real time - today - for you to learn this communication tool - if retired Norwegians can use it, you can use SMS haha.

PLEASE CONSIDER YOUR KIDS

And lastly - up to now I said any press hysteria stories of some weirdo journalist mis-representing some past study (when the actual study in that case said no cause was proven between phones and cancer) obviously had been no cause to change behavior. That changed today. I am changing my behavior now. But even if you don't think you are at risk yourself, please consider very closely how to advise your kids. Its a bit now like cigarettes and alcohol and drugs etc.

If the industry starts to recommend protective cases for phones, get one for each of your kids for their phones and urge your kids to use them. Teach your kids to be cautious with phone radiation. We have only been exposed to mobile phone radiation personally for 10-20 years or so in most cases (first customers in Tokyo Japan have had the maximum prolonged exposure of 31 years). But your kid will live the next 60 years or more with a mobile phone, very likely 50 years of those with two phones and one laptop/netbook/notebook/iPad type of PC as well so they will have 3 radiation devices upon their body most of the time in their lifetime.

 

And when we started using our phones, we still tried to put most of our telecoms traffic on the fixed landline. So our early telecoms use was not particularly mobile phone-intensive. Kids today don't even know what a fixed landline phone is. Their total cumulative exposure will be easily 100 times more in their lifetimes than we have experienced so far into our bodies. If there is ANY harmful effect of radiation - they will experience it severely much more than we have so far. Its a bit like sun block and skin cancer haha, now that we know about it, we are also wise about sunbathing and the use of sun blockers. I don't mean you should try to tell your kids to stop using a mobile phone - but please do teach them about the risks and how to minimize exposure.

I WILL MONITOR AND REPORT MORE

I will be launching a discussion thread on Forum Oxford about this issue today (there may be one there already). I will seek the opinions of people I trust including doctors and including radio engineers. I invite experts to comment here on this blog to help our readers. I will of course report on any news I find, one way or the other (or most likely both).

But yes, the mobile world changed today. Please do go read articles about the Interphone study by the World Health Organization and please seek articles on 'both sides' of the story and then decide for yourself how seriously you should take this first bit of bad news about our fave gadget and our health. I don't think its any cause for alarm, but I can tell you, today I am revising all my behavior relating to my two phones and my data connections on my other devices including my laptop. On any related news, I will keep you posted.

PS thank you all who submitted comments here, on Twitter, at Forum Oxford and sent private email messages helping me with the details on this blog. I will consider this still a draft document and will return to revise and correct it as per the advice I receive from people I trust.

Comments

[Jody]

I think you are overracting. It seems that the conclusion to the study was that there was no conclusion. There are some odd results, but they are all within the margin of error.

But in any case, you are mistaken about the transmissions from the phone. It is not transmitting at the same level all the time. Most of the time the phone and its transmitter are sleeping.

This is extremely easy to see with a GSM phone and unshielded speakers. You will hear the "chirp, chirp" only every few minutes when the phone is idle. But when you are talking it is almost continuous. When using data it is somewhere in between depending on the amount of data being transmitted.

[arild]

Having quickly read a bit about this study, like you I do not have the full report, it seems that this study has exactly the same problem as several previous studies. It relies on people remembering how much they used the phone. Firstly our memories are notoriously unreliable: A well known study on memory easily managed to make people believe they had seen Bugs Bunny at Disneyland, something that is not possible, as this character belongs to Warner Brothers: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=98195

And due to the fact that they would have known what the research is about, this introduces what in the social sciences is known as "auspices bias". That is, as they know the reason for the study they try to "please" the researcher by fitting in with what they suspect is the reason for the study, which affects their responses.

Also, with as serious a condition as brain tumour, we all would think "why me", this is a normal human reaction (which is why so many religions were invented). We are not very good at accepting the randomness of life, which again means we might exaggerate our memories of mobile use as it would "explain" our condition.

Also (speaking as a sociologist here) everything has trends and fashions, and cancer is certainly a key issue in the developing world, an illness that is frequently terminal, so it scares us. Hence a lot of research goes on, that often finds "links" between certain activities and cancer. See for instance this (rather amusing list) of what the British tabloid newspaper Daily Mail reports as "causing" cancer: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=269512464297

A key problem here is "link". If someone has used a mobile phone for more than half an hour a few years ago (assuming their memories of the usage is correct) it would indicate they were business people as charges per minute were very high. If so, there might have been other issues making them prone to brain cancer (diet, sleep patterns etc). The mobile phone use is simple associated with the same life style.

All of this is not to say that one should not research and try to find out more, one should, but we need to improve the research methods, currently they are unreliable and prone to errors and not really proving anything.

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi Jody and arild

Thanks for the comments, both of you. Will respond to both individually

Jody - good points and yes, there are clearly inconclusive findings, but if you look at the quotes from the actual researchers (not those experts who comment on the study) - this is very clearly a big change in what the reserachers say, compared to all the previous studies so far. All previous studies concluded quite clearly 'no link found at all' but this study found clearly some evidence of increased risk for that group with heavy usage. Yes, then there is confusing data, so we may be luckly, that future research proves this study was flawed and there is no link after all. I will be most happy to report that. But equally, this is the first time the researchers themselves report for one group an increased level of risk. That to me, is an alarming finding, don't you think?

It may be Jody as you were first to comment, that when you read this blog it didn't have that actual quote from the leader of the study. Please read that and re-consider, should we really dismiss this?

I had been very comfortable up to yesterday to say unequivocably to anyone anywhere, who asked, 'Tomi, is there a cancer risk to mobile phones' - that there have been many studies and every one of them had found no risk. Today I can no longer say that. This study did find some level of increased risk for heavy users (even if that study is found to be faulty in its methodology, I am not expert enough in medical studies to make that determination haha, that is what scientific peer review is for haha)

About the radio transmission. Thanks. I do recall that rather strongly from my last cellular telecoms training I had at Oxford a few years ago, that the phone transmits 'several thousand times per second' (you know how some things stick in your mind) and I was pretty sure that was at all times, not just when we talk. Now, that was 3G cellular training and my GSM training was so far ages ago, I honestly do not recall at all. Are you sure about it (for GSM)? And do you happen to know if that is so also for 3G ie WCDMA? I have launched the discussion thread at forum Oxford and hope to gain expert commentary there as well. I will bring it here for us if and when.

arild - thanks. I hear you, and your reasons all seem very sensible and plausible and reasonable. There are many reasons why the findings may be suspect. But.. the results could have been 'we found no evidence' - as all previous studies have concluded. This time they said 'we have inconclusive evidence' which is obviously different. And then, they say that their data for the heavy user group did show an increased risk of cancer. Now, just like I wrote to Jody - if we find later, that the methodology was flawed, and this finding was an error - then obviously future research, done 'properly' will reveal the truth and that there is no link. However, even if the methodology was found to be flawed, its possible that insipite of problems in methodology, this research was the first to expose a heightened risk due to long exposure.

As we know from other radiation research (at far greater dosages but over shorter periods of testing), there is a fairly consistent pattern that almost any tested frequencies and types of radiation will increase cancer risks if the amounts are big enough. In mobile phone types of radio usage, the previous studies on rats found some quite astronomical over-dosage levels like 20x the output of maximum allowed by phones, over an hour a day or something like that, which did cause cancer in rats. But those levels were impossible to be had in a normally funcitoning phone even if we used it 24 hours a day haha..

But yes, radiation does cause cancer. The point up to now was, that no study anywhere, suggested that any normal usage level of mobile phones at their modest power output had any measured increase in cancer rates. This study did for the first time find that kind of evidence.

Yes, the methodology may have been faulty. I am hoping future research clearly proves this to have been a wrong conclusion to draw and that phones are totally safe. But this is the first time this finding was made, I am concernced now. I do think this can be like the first finding about cigarettes - it was a common view among doctors even, around the time of the second world war and before, that cigarettes were not just 'not dangerous' - that they were actually healthy haha... and obviously we've since learned that the cigarette industry was aware of health risks for years and hid the findings.

I know one study does not a fact prove, haha, but this is a bad sign for us today. We have to wait for more studies, but certainly I am taking this that seriously that I am changing my phone behavior. Even if its only a 'contributing' factor to cancer in the end (like many of your examples) - haha, I have many of those other causes too, an irregular lifestyle of heavy travel, bad sleep, stress etc - so yeah, I want to diminish all my risks of cancer haha, including now, unfortunately, my fave toys...

Thank you both for writing. I do hope this turns out to be an anomaly among research and future research reveals there is no risk..

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Alexander Gödde]

Maybe a bit early to react so strongly regarding this study. As to studies generally - I heard a podcast about a journalist (from Harper's?) who found that there was a funding bias to previous studies, i.e. studies funded by the mobile phone industry tended to find that there was no correlation, while others (a lot of them, presumably, funded by groups critical of mobile phones)did find correlations. So if you want to worry, there was reason before.
Still, of course it is best to be careful and limit your exposure.
Regarding the amount of radiation a phone creates in standby: The fact that when left in standby, in a place with good reception, a phone's battery can last for days, while even the strongest ones are exhausted after a few hours of talking would strongly indicate that the radio transmissions are less during that time. Sure, there is overhead for processing of voice data, speaker etc., but not enough to explain a difference of more than an order of magnitude.
The problem here are probably not regular phones in stand-by, but smartphones with always-connected applications such as VoIP. My phone's battery easily lasts a few days if I turn off my VoIP client, but often just a day if I keep it running. Like many people, I am not easily willing to give up the extra connectivity.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out if the study is conclusive, and how much of an added risk of illness people will be willing to trade for connectivity. Since our mobile phones have become so much of a part of our daily lives, I think the scare would need to be pretty big. I for one cannot imagine a life without a mobile phone anymore (and in the way mobile phones find their way into memories of times when there were none, this seems to be at quite a deep conceptual level).

[Robin Wilton]

Hi Tomi - Thanks for your balanced post on this new research material.

Just a couple of comments on your recommendations; a couple of the ideas you suggest have been around for a while. I remember in the late 80s/early 90s thinking the same as you: (i) an earpiece would keep the phone further from my brain, and (ii) what about some tinfoil shielding.

More technical colleagues (I was at IBM at the time) were sceptical. Like you, I'm going to offer a disclaimer here; this is only anecdotal, and I have no evidence either way: (i) apparently in some cases the earpiece and cable were found to act as an antenna and, essentially, "carry" the phone's radiation directly to the ear. (ii) Tinfoil/shielding, under some circumstances, actually caused the phone to increase its emissions, as it had more difficulty maintaining a strong signal to the nearest base station.

As I say, please take these comments with a pinch of salt; scientific fact and "common sense" expectations do not always agree...

[chip_mk]

Typical tech specification of a contemporary mobile phone states something like ‘up to 630 h (2G) stand-by time and up to 12 h talk time’. I doubt the difference in power consumption would be so big if the radio transmission keeps going even in the stand-by mode.

Since the talk time is typically much shorter over 3G connection I guess 3G transmission produces proportionally higher radiation level. I switch to 3G only when I need to transfer many MB of data. Rest of the time I stay on 2G.

Chip

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi Alexander, Robin and chip_mk

Thank you guys for great comments.

Alexander - good points. Obviously in this case, as this study was funded partially by the mobile industry - then if they can cause bias in the finding, the 'truth' might be worse than in the finding? But also, honestly - I have been trying 'diligently' to monitor this space (as I have promised my relatives in Finland several of whom have young kids) and I have read the press reporting at least of every 'significant' study that has crossed the news threshold, globally. And up to now, while many said 'may have effects that future studies may uncover' not one (that was otherwse credible, university etc study, reasonable sample size, academic peer review reported etc) had found facts to support a link with cancer and phone use (in humans, one weird study had huge radiation levels far in excess of phones, which did find cancer in rats).

My point is, this - even with its cautious tone and 'inconclusive' final opinion, does find for the first time some connection. To me that is 'total' change where all previous studies - including at least a dozen previous findings from this same group - found always 'no data to support cancer from mobile'.. this study finding is different. I am hoping it turns out to be some statistical anomaly etc, or that the study process indeed somehow corrupted the data as many analysts in the various reported stories had tried to explain.

Thanks about the radiation, I have been hearing that from several sources. I have to go edit the blog.

Agree with point 'will be interesting to see how much people willing to trade' their cancer risk to the utility of the phone. I am not in any way suggesting we should stop using them haha - but also, I do hope I have the integrity, that if we find as strong evidence in some years, as cigarettes were proven to be killers - that I can also come strongly against the industry. Obviously we all hope that will never happen haha...

Robin - thanks! Wonderful stuff, yes, I hear you, we're a bit like the blind leading the blind on this, but great points - yeah, just what we need, an antenna to focus all the radiation into the ear haha, or yeah, enclose the phone inside tinfoil only to find its intelligence jack up the radiation output haha... Both sound very reasonable. I am hopeful we'll have some 'real engineer' advice coming over at Forum Oxford for example to help sort out the silliness and the potentially helpful advice. I will edit the blog to clean out all of my dumb ideas when any are verified to be counterproductive or useless haha.. I really laughed about the antenna part, yeah, good call Mr Telephone man, now my doctor tells me that I have cancer in my ear.... (shouldn't make fun of cancer, sorry..)

Chip - thanks. Yeah, seeming very similar advice from many sources, I think I do have to edit that part of the story. Thanks!

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Mike Stead]

1. Modern 3G mobiles emit sometimes thousands of times *less* power than 2G ones to maintain a signal. They have to, or UMTS networks simply don't work. So any study *must* take into account the different network and handset types involved. Someone talking for 12 minutes in a London flat 100m from the nearest BTS will be using about a gnat's testicle worth of power compared to someone in a suburban USA house on a 2G network.

2. The idea of the earpiece acting as an antenna is bogus. Some handsets use it as an FM antenna for RECEIVING the signal. None use it to emit the signal.

3. Covers or cases or shields are also utterly bogus. Anything that can block the signal causes the phone to increase its power output to compensate. These are sold by snakeoil salesmen.

4. Mobile phone manufacturers and network hardware vendors spend literally billions engineering their networks, devices and the global standards to keep the transmitted power in both directions to an absolute minimum. This is mostly to preserve the battery (and therefore keep paying customers connected!), then to preserve valuable spectrum, then to decrease BTS power consumption. The algorithms involved in power control of 3G networks are literally rocket science - I have foot-thick manuals in my loft from a former life as a mobile network RF engineer to prove it.

5. The link will be tenuous, if it exists. I can prove 100% that eating tomatoes will kill you, as 100% of people who eat tomatoes die. Hang on, was that cause and effect? Maybe not. I would hope that the study had effectively removed all confounding elements like socio-economics, age, diet, environment, other technologies used (DECT handsets at 2.4GHz get FAR more use than mobiles in modern houses). Etc, etc.

The risk to your children from going to the playground is FAR FAR higher than any mobile could ever be. Every year hundreds of children around the world die in playground accidents, many thousands more are disabled for life. But we accept this risk in trade for the joy and benefits from physical activity that playgrounds bring. Ditto cycling. Or any other activity.

The media will seek to sell lots of papers, generate lots of hits etc on this. The cry "Will no-one think of the children!" will echo for years. The perfect mix of a ubiquitous technology, apparent risk to innocent children, something *forced* on you by your council allowing the installation of a mobile mast nearby, and the involvement of massive business is a perfect storm for media outrage.

I despair, I really do. But I'm not worried one jot about letting my wife or children use mobiles.

Mike

[Sami]

Wow, lots of points to make. I will probably miss many and repeat what others have already said, but:

1) As already pointed out, the phones do not emit nearly as much radiation when "idle" than when speaking; the standby time-vs-talk time figures give you a rough estimate on the differences between transmit levels.

2) The vast majority of scientific studies end up officially as "inconclusive" since the proof for something like this really has to be airtight. That they have raised concerns about increased usage causing cancer is, indeed, a cause for concern. But not panic.

3) The usage of a handsfree headset has been mentioned as a way of avoiding radiation; I believe it does, but it was also mentioned that it possibly also acts as an antenna / conduit for the radiation in some circumstances. I don't know if this is actually the case, but just to be sure I could recommend Bluetooth headsets. Bluetooth maximum transmit power is far less than the cellular.

4) 3G maximum transmit power is less than on 2G, but Mike's point on "Modern 3G mobiles emit sometimes thousands of times *less* power than 2G ones to maintain a signal" is not true. While 3G transmission powers are generally less than 2G, the difference is not "thousands" of times. Check out the maximum transmit power levels of various devices on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DBm - most 3G devices are power class 3, i.e. have max transmit power of 250mW. And, of course, it is important to remember the devices rarely transmit at maximum power. In comparison, Bluetooth headsets have maximum transmit power of 2.5mW - a hundredfold difference. WLAN falls in between BT and cellular, but is much closer to Bluetooth.

5) Believe it or not, it actually IS possible for low levels of radiation to be good for you and high levels bad. UV radiation is a good example.

6) Arild's point on that the users must have been business people if they used the phone a lot a few years back is not true; cellphone charges have been quite reasonable for 10 years or more in many countries. Also, Arild's point on reporting bias after having been diagnosed with a tumor cannot apply if the study was constructed even half-

[Sid]

A few things about power and radiation that need to be considered from the technical point of view:

GSM - GSM Radio behaviour uses frequency hopping. So the phone itself does not stick to one frequency for a large period of time.

3G - Not only is UMTS radio power much lower than GSM, but it is also spread spectrum, not concentrating on any specific frequency (UMTS is spread across 5Mhz).

Both of those behaviours, combined with the fact that the wavelengths typically used do not correspond to size of human cells, make it very hard for mobile phones to have an effect. But nothing is impossible.

Not having the study methodology in front of me, the standard study statistical disclaimer should apply: "correlation does not imply causation". How do we know it isn't raising your hand to the ear for more than 30mins/day that's causing the slightly positive results? As a distant theory, maybe that constricts blood-flow to the brain in a way that affects cancer forming cells?

[Romain Criton]

@Tomi
about wi-fi: since wi-fi transmit less power than cellular, it should be less dangerous
about wrapping The phone in tinfoil: won't help you much since The phone Will have to transmit at a higher power
what would protect you would be to wrap YOURSELf in tinfoil... or at least your most sensitive parts... Think tinfoil hat, tinfoil shirt or.... tinfoil underpants...

@Mike Stead, regarding your point #2
whereas it is correct that no phone uses the earpiece wire as an antenna, it is actually true that The wire can unvoluntarily act as an antenna emitting cellular signal, so this is absolutely not bogus. You see, antenna work both ways: so if the wire can receive signals, as in your FM radio example, it can also emit rf signals
now i don't know exactly how much of The cellular rf Power The earpiece may transmit, so i can't tell if it is equivalent to holding The phone to your ear

[Jody]

I think I'll go with the BBC one this one.

"No proof of mobile cancer risk, major study concludes", http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8685839.stm

Plus there is also this little fact that they mention, "There is no known biological mechanism by which mobiles could cause cancer". Remember that the "radiation" from a mobile phone is electromagnetic. This is totally different from the ionizing radiation that typically causes DNA damage.

Of course the spread of mobile technology is easily traceable as Tomi has been analysing for years. And countries usually track cases of cancer. So it is a simple matter to do an epidemiological study that tracks rates of both over time. If there is any increase in brain tumours over time then it should relate directly to the market penetration of mobiles by each country. And this is easy to do and the fact that it has never been reported makes me believe there is no link to be found.

[Jody]

I should have read the BBC article more fully.

"The overall rate of brain cancer has not risen in countries where use has long been prevalent - like Sweden, and studies have mostly found no evidence of an increased risk. This latest research is consistent with this."

[Alex Birkhead]

Hi Tomi, Kudos for putting this and yourself out. Hopefully, something you'll be able to raise a wry smile over one day, but the big C is definitely something to be better safe than sorry. Good comments, too.

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi Mike, Sami, Sid, Romain, Jody (twice) and Alex

First just a general observation to all - did you notice that the press now report that this final report of the study has been argued about by the researchers for ..six years.. until they got the wording so that all agree. I think again, there is more to this, if it was an easy obvious case of nothing to it, why couldn't they resolve the wording in a month or two or three. Six years of argument? I do sense a little bit of a stink somewhere underneath haha.. hoping its just me haha and my suspicious mind :-)

About comments, great stuff, thank you all!

Mike - thanks. I really appreciate the technical stuff and I also understand your 'despair'. I trust you understand my view too. Up to now, we've had the quarterly media scare on some slow news day, when some clueless journalist has picked up some published phone-cancer study and reported in big headlines, experts say phones cause cancer. And when I've hunted down who said what in what study, we have always found that the study was totally clear, no evidence whatsoever, and the only recommendation was that a further longer study was recommended - or that some expert who was not part of the study disagreed and said the sky is falling. But the studies have been CLEAR and conclusive, no harm.

This study - which I have not yet read obviously but hope to do - according to published reports found 40% increase in one type of brain tumors and 15% increase in the other type of brain tumor - but only for the heavy user group. This is the first time any study on humans has found any such data. The researchers have spent the last 6 years arguing how to present the data, which says something. Its not clear-cut. Now, its two possibilities - one, that there is no harm in reality, and this is a mistake. In that case, ok, this one blog took a day out of my life considering the rushing around to read several dozen press stories about it, launching two Forum Oxford threads on it, and the blog here and our discussions. I think out of my effort, that is not a big cost, considering the only alternative.

It is equally possible that this finding did for the first time uncover a previously unknown risk - remember there was a time when legitimate scientists and doctors thought cigarette smoking actually had a positive effect on health. So in the case that if there actually is a risk, then that will be revealed in follow-up studies, and some day we would be as sure of phone effects to cancer as we today are of cigarette smoking. Its either or. Either there is no effect - and future studies will show, or there is an effect and this was the watershed moment. I do think I needed to make that blog and also, that this time 'it is different' from all those earlier truly false alarms where some clueless journo had massacred the truth... Make sense?

Sami - thanks once again to you and technical details, and also for your similar reply at Forum Oxford. I knew I could count on you haha.. (you note I had already posted an update to the blog, I will do another later when I have collected all the different comments here and at the Forum)

Sid - thanks. Thank you for the technical stuff, and for the commentary about causality and correlation. I am also going to be somewhat 'lazy' about the topic here in the sense, that I don't think its a 'mobile money consultant' job to rigorously examine the methodology of the scientists involved. Their work has been published and its the job of other health research scientists to expose any weaknesses in their methodology and conclusions haha (although I do want to read the study). I will happily let the real experts explain where the errors are if any, and what an independent peer review of the published findings will conclude - and report on those when we get those of course.

Romain - great point about tin-foil haha loved the tin-foil underpants (makes me think of David Letterman jokes haha, "I'm not wearing pants!"). Hey, I meant not to wrap the phone, but to use a tin foil 'shield' on the 'body side' in the pocket of where I keep the phone. In my case rather easy, as I have my passport in the same pocket - so not to wrap the phone - or myself - but to just add a sheet of tinfoil but keeping it permanently between the phone and me. Good idea or silly science?

Jody - great comments thanks. Good point about early adopter markets should have higher rate (I used that argument myself when the crazy 'bees are confused by mobile towers' story spread what a year or two ago). Makes very much sense.

But I read that BBC article too, and earlier BBC had a different news item on it. The point I see in several of the stories is that 40% increase in brain tumors - on the side that the person holds his phone - of one type and 15% of the other type, in heavy users. This finding then is explained away by the researchers in the conclusions 'as inconclusive'. They do not say 'did not occur' or 'was definitely not' the cause. I do think that BBC article is again taking too general a sweeping statement. It does bug me that I haven't read the actual published article yet, but there were enough published quotes by the actual researchers involved including the study's director, that I would not be able to conclude as the BBC did that there is no proof. But again, I appreciate it that you posted the link and yes, that is clearly what the BBC says now. Meanwhile, when CNN first reported it, CNN said no proof. Now CNN today said the same study has said there is a risk among heavy users. I think the press themselves are having a very hard time with this story haha..

Alex - thanks! Yeah, hope this will be something we can laugh about some day.

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Romain Criton]

@tomi
yes the tinfoil shield will probably greatly reduce body exposure to rf, however this will still degrade the reception. I don't know exactly how much, but having worked at a mobile phone manufacturer (in sw, not rf Team), i remember how sensitive is a phone to outside perturbation. For instance they had once to subtly change the mechanical design so as to avoid that the user rests his finger on the antenna while calling, which hampered the reception. Or they also had to change the back cover a little in order to slightly prop up The phone when it layed on a flat surface like a table, again to improve reception. Seems like Rf engineering is more art and magic than a science...

[Rita El Khoury]

Hello Tommi,

As I pointed to you on Twitter, your statement "It cannot possibly be that 'little amounts of radiation is good for you but only in moderation' haha like with many food products" gives the pharmacist/medical researcher in me a little itch.

Before I go on to explain my POV, let it be known that I still haven't read that study fully to see what the fuss is all about.

Back onto the topic, you point a linear relation between dosage and effect. If only it was that simple with medicine! Our lives as scientists would've been much easier. The thing is that the body is a butload of complicated pathways, and while sometimes a small amount of substance X can cause effect Y, it's not a given that double the amount of substance X will give an increased Y effect. This is mainly due to the fact that different pathways can be involved/saturated at different levels of exposure to whatever substance X is.

The most obvious and documented example is Aspirin. At the regular 300mg level, it's an antipyretic, meaning it decreases the temperature of the body. At toxic levels, Aspirin causes hyperthermia, ie it increases the body temperature. Just the opposite! I won't go into the details, but it gets even more complicated when you consider that at 81-100mg, Aspirin is an anti-coagulant used to prevent heart disease. The end conclusion being that different amounts of a certain substance can have different effects on the body.

Another example, still unexplained scientifically, is the whole Homeopathy domain. If you don't know what that is, it's an alternate medicine that gives you infinitesimally small and well agitated amounts of a substance that causes the SAME symptoms as the one you're having, to cure you. As an example, we have Apis Mellifica, the venom of the bee, which is used in homeopathy to cure bee stings, swelling, redness, oedema. As I said, it's still not scientifically proven, but people who have used homeopathic remedies tell you that they work. As with everything in science, I believe that we should not dismiss something on the basis that we don't understand it or can't explain it, we should just consider it a possibility until a tangible study proves it true or not.

Back to the article at hand, I'm not saying that small amounts of radiation definitely reduce the amount of brain cancer, I'm saying that it's possible that a linear relation doesn't exist (or exists but is broken at incredibly small and incredibly high dosages) and that small amounts have a different effect than high amounts. Just possible.

As a mobile enthusiast, I'm very concerned by this study. I have lately noticed a lot of headache and while I don't know for sure, I've definitely changed a lot of my habits. Turning Off WIFI when not necessary, putting my phone on Offline/Flight mode at night, keeping it away from me when not necessary...

[Romain Criton]

@Rita
Now I'm going off topic but as far as I know the therapeutical efficiency of homeopathy (beyond placebo effect, that is), has never been conclusively proven in any serious scientific study, or at least it is still subject to intense debates among the scientific community.
Pretty much like this whole "cell hpone & health" issue actually, so I guess it's not that much off topic after all !

[Matthew Artero]

We don't have to worry about this too much. New uses of existing tech and new tech will solve the problem.

For example, a phone doesn't have to send a signal as much as it does because the towers are already doing that. The only time a phone needs to send a signal is when it detects it is now using a different tower.

More towers with weaker signals can be used so phone can also send weaker signals.

They'll think of something. If they can protect radioligists they can protect cellphone users.

[Jenna]

These are just the products and effects of our modern fast paced world. We just have to accept and fact the truth and well do something about it. Thanks for the news. By the way, this group of medical research assistants might interest and help you in some ways. More power!

[دردشة عراقية]

thank u man

[Polly]

A key problem here is "link". If someone has used a mobile phone for more than half an hour a few years ago (assuming their memories of the usage is correct) it would indicate they were business people as charges per minute were very high. If so, there might have been other issues making them prone to brain cancer (diet, sleep patterns etc). The mobile phone use is simple associated with the same life style.

[resume writers]

Unfortunately now most people just can't live without their mobile phones, especially managers and businessmen, who have to be in touch with their colleagues all the time.

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