NY Times follows up with story on cell phone cancer risks
Yesterday, I noted here that the New York Times, among other respected outlets for science journalism, had failed to cover the largest-ever study of the potential for cell phones to cause cancer.
Today, the newspaper continues to ignore the study, but Tara Parker-Pope shows up with a story on her Well blog. And she gets it wrong.
She begins by backing into the story, often a bad sign of what is to come: “A long-awaited study of cellphone use and brain health has finally been released, but the data are raising more questions than answers.”
She doesn’t get to the lede until the third graf, when she writes, “The final paper states that overall there is no link between cellphone use and brain tumors.”
I don’t think so. The study was inconclusive. It neither found nor disproved a link.
The Times was a day late, and it fell short.
- Paul Raeburn
May 18th, 2010 at 10:27 pm
Equally interesting was what the Globe and Mail in Toronto did. On Monday it ran a story headlined”Heavy use of cell phones may increase tumour risk.” It got slammed on the Globe’s website by commenters for not differentiating relative from absolute risk, but more importantly for seemingly being at variance with other reporting that said the study had been inconclusive. The next day the same piece – let me underscore “same” – appeared with a different top pointing to its inconclusiveness.
“Cellphone safety study sends mixed signals about usage” now read the hed.
See http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/cellphone-safety-study-sends-mixed-signals-about-usage/article1572131/ and http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health/heavy-use-of-cell-phones-may-increase-tumour-risk-study/article1571108/ for both stories.
May 19th, 2010 at 6:47 am
Yes it is inconclusive so far and will remain i believe. Many papers say that including the street at following link :
http://www.thestreet.com/story/10760197/1/cell-phone-cancer-link-proves-inconclusive.html?cm_ven=GOOGLEFI
May 19th, 2010 at 3:30 pm
Always interesting to see how the news media play risk stories about studies that are less than unequivocal. The release from IARC seemed pretty direct…”no link” with the four types of tumors most likely to absorb radiation, though a possible relationship between tumors and usage in the heaviest users, not statistically strong enough to have faith in one way or the other, and worth following. Fairly reassuring, but not unequivocal. Some coverage (the BBC) had it that way, and, as did Parker Pope, noted there is no known biological way the levels and frequencies from mobile phones can cause tumors. Most, however, (that i read) raised doubts about the study itself because of the disagreement between the Interphone authors, questioned the reliability about retrospective epidemiology that relies on participants’ memories, and emphasized the increased presence of tumors in heavy users as though it was a “finding”, even though the authors say it’s too small to hang anything definitive on. In other words, they played up the doubtful and worrisome despite the general conclusion of “no risk” in the study itself.