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Dear Colleagues: It¹s time to end the deadlock. It¹s time to release the results of the Interphone project, the largest and most expensive cell phone epidemiological study ever attempted. Microwave News has learned that a completed draft of the results was completed TWO YEARS AGO. Yet, the paper has not yet been published and the participants refuse to discuss what they found. Many observers believe that the Interphone study points to a long-term risk of developing tumors. But we will not know for sure until the results are made public. Any further delay would be close to scandalous. Read the complete story on our Web site: http://www.microwavenews.com Best, Louis Slesin
January 30... It's time to end the deadlock. It's time to
release the results of the Interphone
study, the largest and most expensive cell phone epidemiological
study ever attempted. Any further delay would be close to scandalous.
A draft of the final paper with the combined data from the 13
participating countries was completed close to two years ago.
One member of the Interphone team —Canada's Dan Krewski—
has said that the holdup is due to disagreements over editing the
manuscript, that is, changing a comma here or a comma there. We doubt
that what's going on. Krewski told us this close to six months ago
and the paper has still not been submitted for publication.
The
real reason, we believe, is that the study shows that there are tumor
risks following long-term use of a mobile phone and that some of the
Interphone researchers don't want to go public.
Why? As
Elisabeth Cardis, the Interphone study director, explained last
October, the interpretation of the data is "not straightforward"
(see our October 9 post).
This allows one faction to hold up the process by arguing that there
is no point scaring the public if the elevated risk estimates may be
spurious.
At the same time, the worldwide wireless industry
—now worth on the order of a trillion dollars— and the
governments that tax them are applying pressure, subtle or otherwise,
to keep the lid on.
The willingness of some Interphone
players to downplay the risks has been apparent for a long time.
Here's how U.K.'s Tony
Swerdlow, advised
the press on an Interphone acoustic neuroma study back in 2005: "The
results of our study suggest that there is no substantial risk of in
the first decade after starting use. Whether there are longer-term
risks remains unknown…" This was, to put it kindly,
outright misdirection. The published paper indicated a statistically
significant increased risk after ten years on the side of the head
the phone was used. That finding was even in the study's abstract.
The next day's headlines were predictable. "Mobile Phone Cancer
Link Rejected," the BBC
announced.
This 1995 study was based on the pooled data from
five Interphone countries: Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden and the
U.K. Last year, researchers from those same five countries reported
a parallel elevated, ipsilateral risk for brain tumors after ten
years.
Add to those five, the German
and the French
Interphone groups. Both have also reported increased risks of brain
tumors after ten years (see our January 29, 2006 post
and September 19, 2007 post,
respectively). A few weeks ago, the French Ministry of Health called
for precaution with respect to the use of mobile phones by children.
In December, the Interphone team from Israel brought a third
type of tumor —of the parotid gland— into play. (The
gland lies just under the skin in the area of the cheek near the
ear.) One striking finding
was the "exceptionally heavy" use of mobile phones among
Israelis. Not only was there an elevated tumor risk, but it showed up
earlier, often in less than ten years.
In an interview with
the Israeli newspaper Haaretz,
Siegal Sadetzki, the leader of the Israeli Interphone group, also
called for a precautionary approach to cell phones. "The time is
past when it could be said that this technology does not cause
damage; apparently it damages health," she said.
We
asked Sadetzki what she could tell us about the risks of brain tumors
and acoustic neuromas among Israelis. She declined to comment saying
only that these results had not yet been submitted for publication.
They may well be a key indicator of the long-term risks and need to
be made public.
The absence of the Interphone paper has made
it easy to avoid dealing with all the signals that point to a cancer
risk. A good example is the list of research priorities from the
National Academy of Sciences, released on January 17. It skirted the
critical data from seven different Interphone countries because, we
were told, the Interphone final report was not yet in hand (see
below).
Just how absurd the situation has become was apparent
at a workshop on Dosimetry
Meets Epidemiology hosted by the Swiss National Research
Program on Non-Ionizing Radiation (NFP57)
in Zurich on January 11. Many of those attending were working on, or
had some connection to, the Interphone study, including four of the
principal investigators (Anssi Auvinen, Elisabeth Cardis, Maria
Feychting and Joachim Schüz). Yet, Interphone was never
discussed. Everyone ignored the 800-pound gorilla in the room.
It's
easy to see why some people are getting more and more nervous about
long-term cell phone use. If Interphone does in fact point to a tumor
risk as many observers now believe, the public should be informed.
Parents should warn their children. Two billion cell phone users
deserve to know what only a select few know now. The next step would
be to fund more research.
The code of silence about Interphone
must end. Public health demands it.
Elisabeth Cardis is
leaving IARC on March 21st to join the Centre for Research in
Environmental Epidemiology (CREAL)
in Barcelona. The Interphone paper should be submitted for
publication before she leaves Lyon —in a journal which can
expedite the review process. The sooner the results are posted on the
Internet and available to all, the better.
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