(No Ratings Yet)
Loading ...Hopefully you haven’t wasted money on one of those alleged “radiation shields” that stick on your cellphone and claim to block the harmful rays: A report from New Zealand’s Wellington School of Medicine has found no increase in the incidence of cancer tumours since the introduction of cell phones to the country back in 1987. The research, published in the New Zealand Medical Journal was based on collecting data from the New Zealand Cancer Registry between 1987 and 1998 on cancer incidence in people aged between 20 and 69. Corresponding data on cell phone usage was also collected.
The objective of this study was to determine whether incidence rates of head and neck malignancies in New Zealand have varied since the introduction of cellular telephones in 1987. In particular, we sought to compare trends in tumour rates in anatomical sites that receive high, medium and low levels of cellular telephone radiation (based on dosimetry data).
The graphs for high, medium and low exposure sites did not display any significant changes in trend patterns for either gender over the years 1986 to 1998. The report concluded that incidence rates for malignancies arising in the head and neck, including those sites that hypothetically receive the highest levels of radio frequency radiation during cellular telephone use, have not changed materially since the introduction of cellular telephones to New Zealand.
As for the claim that Power Lines cause cancer?. The notion that electric power lines can cause cancer arose in 1979 with a single flawed epidemiogical study that created a stir. Subsequent epidemiologic and animal studies have failed to find a consistent and significant effect. No plausible mechanism linking power lines and cancer has been found. In recent years, the verdict from large-scale scientific studies has been conclusively negative, and scientific and medical societies have issued official statements that power lines are not a significant health risk. In short, there is nothing to worry about.
The power line “issue” illustrates how persistent a health scare can be when promoted by an author who tells a frightening tale. The power-line scare has certain things in common with other health scares: Magnetic fields are not understood by the public. Nor can they be felt, tasted, seen, or touched. This makes them mysterious, easily portrayable as threatening, and profitable to their advocates. [Comment on this Post]
