WSJ: Cell towers don’t cause child cancer (and then there’s that study saying cell phones SHIELD one from cancer..)
A splurt of news is coming over the transom that, in the UK, a study of mobile telephone transmission towers – the cellular ends of cellphone systems – finds no significant correlation with cancer rates in children born to women living nearby when pregnant. There’s little reason to think otherwise, but people are worried so health doctors and other public health epidemiologists are running studies. I wouldn’t much bother with this null result except for the link embedded in the Wall Street Journal on line by blogger Katherine Hopson. She does a fine job putting the UK study in perspective, and also provides a service with the link.
It goes to a clever story last month by the Journal’s numbers guy, Carl Bialik. He reviewed a study that, on the face of it, indicates that using a cell phone protects one from brain tumors. Of course, cell towers and cell phones provide different exposures, so the stories don’t have much to do with another except that both examine potential perils that on principle (lack of ionizing radiation) make them unlikely cancer causes.
Anyway. Bialik took advantage of the ambiguity of any study that tries to put hard numbers on obscure things that are nearly not there, and maybe not there at all. Cell phones, one has to think, don’t shield one from cancer. But if they also don’t cause it, error bars can make a given study shade into nonsense territory. Voila, says Bialik, here’s a study whose naively-viewed results make NO SENSE. This is a good way to make a point about the misdirection of small number statistics.
A few other stories on cell towers in UK:
- Guardian : No link between childhood cancer and mobile phone masts ;
- deck of the day prize to Register – Bill Ray: Mobile phone masts not such a menace / Unlikely to hurt babies unless they actually fall on ‘em.
- Washington Post (Checkup Blog) Jennifer LaRue Huget : Do cell phone towers cause cancer?
- Charlie Petit
