Cellular Cancer

Your article could have been very informative and interesting. However, with poor editing, sweeping generalizations, unsupported claims and an overall amateur style of writing, it left a bad taste in mouth.

I don't mean to discourage you but I'm just a bit surprised that this article was published-on chowk more so than in The Nation.

Javeria,

At last you have given an explanation for the paki use of mobile phones for bombs, well and truly their brains are shot because of the mobile phones. Thsi must be something genetic, the arab blood line of the abdul bin masood of faislabad.

Better still, sfter blaming the americans for jihad, zia for hoodood, and here is yet another pak concoction to explain the pak deviant minds set that drives the jihad.

pathetic is the only word to sum up the article.

Ahh! So that explains a lot about the nasty headaches I've been having! My brain is probably riddled with cancerous tumors and about to explode. Just like that Tetsuo guy in the Akira movie who's organs enlarge, pop out of his body and blow up into nothingness.

All that because of a cellphone.

well i do agree wid u to some extent but not completely.

And the Food and Drug Administration Center for Devices and Radiological Health and the Federal Communications Commission offers the following advice to people concerned about their risk:
"If there is a risk from these products -- and at this point we do not know that there is -- it is probably very small. But if you are concerned about avoiding even potential risks, you can take a few simple steps to minimize your exposure to radiofrequency energy (RF). Since time is a key factor in how much exposure a person receives, reducing the amount of time spent using a wireless phone will reduce RF exposure. If you must conduct extended conversations by wireless phone every day, you could place more distance between your body and the source of the RF, since the exposure level drops off dramatically with distance. For example, you could use a headset and carry the wireless phone away from your body or use a wireless phone connected to a remote antenna."

Dear Javaria,
Excessive use of everything is bad no doubt, but donot scare away the chowkie kids please with such unproven data:
According to www.cancer.org

"To date, no claims have been made that cell phones are responsible for any other health problems. A small epidemiologic study from Germany found an association between uveal melanoma (a rare form of eye cancer) and exposure to mobile phones and other RF-transmitting devices, but this has not yet been examined in other studies. However, evidence has shown that the use of cell phones while driving increases the risk of automobile crashes. Another concern, without much evidence one way or the other, is that cellular phones may interfere with medical electronic devices such as pacemakers and insulin pumps.

3 recently published, large case-control studies and one large cohort study have compared cell phone use among brain cancer patients and people without brain cancer. In each of the 3 case-control studies, patients with brain cancer were compared to people free of brain cancer, in terms of their past use of cellular phones. If the patients reported more cellular phone use than those in the study who did not have brain cancer, and if no other differences between the 2 groups could account for the brain cancers, these observations would provide evidence of a possible link between cellular phones and brain cancer.

The first study compared 233 brain cancer patients diagnosed between 1994 and 1996 in the Stockholm and Uppsala regions of Sweden with 466 controls. The second study, conducted by the American Health Foundation, compared 469 brain cancer patients diagnosed between 1994 and 1998 in New York, Providence, and Boston with 422 controls. The third and largest study, conducted by the U.S. National Cancer Institute, compared 782 brain cancer patients diagnosed in Phoenix, Boston, and Pittsburgh between 1994 and 1998 with 799 controls.

All 3 case-control studies had similar results:


First, the patients with brain cancer did not report more cellular phone use overall than the controls. This finding was true when all brain cancers were considered as a group, when individual types of brain cancer were considered, and when specific locations within the brain were considered. In fact, most of the studies showed a tendency toward a lower risk of brain cancer among cellular phone uses, for unclear reasons.


Second, none of the studies showed a "dose-response relationship" -- a tendency for the risk of brain cancer to increase with increasing cellular phone use, which would be expected if cellular phone use caused brain cancer.


Third, the studies did not show a clear link between the side of the head on which the brain cancer occurred and the side on which the cellular phone was used (with the possible exception of the Swedish study).

Recent results from the Swedish Interphone study of long-term cell phone use, using a population-based case control design indicate the same conclusions. There was no association with risk of any of the brain tumor types studied (glioma or meningioma), or with duration of use, side of use, or amount of use.

Results of the long-term cohort study, which linked data on all of the 420,095 cellular telephone users in Denmark between 1982 and 1995 to the Danish Cancer Registry, agree with the findings of the case-control studies. Cellular phone use, even for more than 10 years, was not associated with an increased risk of developing brain tumors or cancer overall, nor was there an association with any brain tumor subtypes or with tumors in any location within the brain. As in the case-control studies, no link was found between brain tumor risk and RF dose, as assessed by length of cellular phone use, date since first subscription, age at first subscription, or type of cellular phone used.

However, these published studies have only limited ability to examine the association between cell phone use and specific subtypes of brain cancer. One subtype that has been studied is acoustic neuroma, a relatively rare, slow-growing tumor of the acoustic nerve (which transmits the sensation of hearing from the ear to the brain) that occurs in less than one adult per 100,000 people per year. At least 9 epidemiological studies have looked for an association between the use of cellular telephones and acoustic neuroma. Results of these studies have been inconsistent, due largely to variations in study design and statistical challenges posed by the rarity of these tumors. One of the largest and most recent studies analyzed data from the 5 northern European countries, and found no relation of acoustic neuroma risk with cell phone use, duration of use, or number of calls made. According to the researchers, “The study suggested there is no substantial risk of acoustic neuroma in the first decade after starting mobile phone use. However, an increase in risk after longer term us or after a longer lag period could not be ruled out.�

In summary, there is now considerable epidemiologic evidence that shows no consistent association between cellular phone use and overall risk of brain cancer. Some uncertainty remains regarding a possible association with acoustic neuromas. Several large studies now in progress will add markedly to the evidence within a few years."

This really half-cooked stuff in many aspects. There was need to focus more on harmful affects preferably if any research data is available. This is very neglected subject and no one wanna read about it seriously especially news like mobile bursting out killing or damaging people ending as rumors in Pakistan.

whats ur cell number?