Cause or Correlation?
As we go about our lives, each of us have opinions about what is and is not safe, what is and is not risky. Overall though, we now seem to be more paranoid about the world around us than we used to be. I think this is a shame.
My personal approach is to try and retain a measure of objectivity.
In general, that means I try and avoid things that are clearly and demonstrably likely to result in injury (eg. driving whilst using a mobile phone), and I don’t bother myself with things that are unproven scientifically (eg. mobile signals, or wi-fi, cause cancer).
So this latest spate of stories about mobile signals causing cancer (alerted by this post on SMS Text News) are of great concern. For most people reading such stories, their perception of mobile phones will be seriously prejudiced after reading these articles, despite the demonstrable benefits of the technology:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2158118/Community-wants-mobile-phone-mast-dismantled-after-cancer-fears.html
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/49330/Suicides-linked-to-phone-masts-
The Express article is particularly egregious, linking as it does a horrific spate of teenage suicides with proximity to mobile phone masts. This post does a good job of analysing the very poorly conducted research that is reported without question by the newspaper. Meanwhile the Telegraph article plays on very real fears of cancer, something I am horribly familiar with in the context of my own family, without offering any analysis of whether the cluster reported in Kingswinford is in any way abnormal in comparison to other controlled influences.
For the record, here is the official statement given by Cancer Research on this topic. Do your own research, and resist the temptation to jump to conclusions.
http://www.cancerhelp.org.uk/help/default.asp?page=5265
I hope that Ben Goldacre at Bad Science can apply his sharp analysis to this area. He has already done a good job of electrosensitivity in general.
1 year ago