Was T.Kennedy's brain cancer caused by cell phone use?

Now please don't flame this! Just an honest question. I realize he was an alcoholic(recovering?) for some time...just wondering if there were more in-depth reports regarding his condition?

It was a medical study paid for by "Physicians for cell phone truth" which is absolutely, positively NOT funded by Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, and AT&T, so stop saying that.

Right?

that vaccines don't cause autism.

I know it to be true, in my heart. So peer reviewed studies are meaningless to me.

I have Jenny McCarthy on my side, she's a lot prettier than all those "scientists" and "doctors".

Anyone who says otherwise is a shill for big pharmacy.

would like everyone to believe since they probably paid for any study that would say that.

He died in 6 months from discovery of the tumor

Yes, there are studies that show no effect, but the Swedes ...may be a bit less corporate.. :shrug:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/mobile-phone-use-raises-childrens-risk-of-brain-cancer-fivefold-937005.html

Alarming new research from Sweden on the effects of radiation raises fears that today's youngsters face an epidemic of the disease in later life

By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor


Sunday, 21 September 2008

Children and teenagers are five times more likely to get brain cancer if they use mobile phones, startling new research indicates.
The Swedish research was reported this month at the first international conference on mobile phones and health.

It sprung from a further analysis of data from one of the biggest studies carried out into the risk that the radiation causes cancer, headed by Professor Lennart Hardell of the University Hospital in Orebro, Sweden. Professor Hardell told the conference – held at the Royal Society by the Radiation Research Trust – that "people who started mobile phone use before the age of 20" had more than five-fold increase in glioma", a cancer of the glial cells that support the central nervous system. The extra risk to young people of contracting the disease from using the cordless phone found in many homes was almost as great, at more than four times higher.

Those who started using mobiles young, he added, were also five times more likely to get acoustic neuromas, benign but often disabling tumours of the auditory nerve, which usually cause deafness.

By contrast, people who were in their twenties before using handsets were only 50 per cent more likely to contract gliomas and just twice as likely to get acoustic neuromas.
...
The research has shown that adults who have used the handsets for more than 10 years are much more likely to get gliomas and acoustic neuromas, but he said that there was not enough data to show how such relatively long-term use would increase the risk for those who had started young.

What studies have been done and what do they show?
Numerous studies have investigated the relationship between cellular telephone use and the risk of developing brain cancer, but results from long-term studies are still limited.

Several studies have investigated the risk of developing three types of brain tumors, namely glioma, meningioma, and acoustic neuroma. Results from the majority of these studies have found no association between hand-held cellular telephone use and the risk of brain cancer (3–8); however, some, but not all, long-term studies have suggested slightly increased risks for certain types of brain tumors (9, 10). Further evaluation of long-term exposures (more than 10 years) is needed.

A series of multinational case-control studies (comparing individuals who have a disease or condition with a similar group of people who do not have the disease or condition ), collectively known as the INTERPHONE study, are being coordinated by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) (11). The primary objective of these studies is to assess whether RF energy exposure from cellular telephones is associated with an increased risk of malignant or benign brain tumors and other head and neck tumors. Participating countries include Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom (12). Several reports describing data from individual countries have been published independently by researchers involved in the INTERPHONE study; however, these reports represent only a portion of the entire INTERPHONE dataset. The combined INTERPHONE analysis is underway and will provide more comprehensive and stable risk estimates than analyses from the individual countries.

Two reports published in November 2004 by researchers from individual countries that are participating in the INTERPHONE study described results of assessments of cellular telephone use and the risk of acoustic neuroma. One report described a Danish case-control study that showed no increased risk of acoustic neuroma in long-term (10 years or more) cellular telephone users compared with short-term users, and there was no increase in the incidence of tumors on the side of the head where the phone was usually held (13). The other report described a Swedish study that examined similar populations and found a slightly elevated risk of acoustic neuroma in long-term cellular telephone users but not in short-term users (14).

A pooled analysis of data from Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom did not find relationships between the risk of acoustic neuroma and the duration of cell phone use, cumulative hours of use, or number of calls; however, the risk of a tumor on the same side of the head as the reported phone use was higher among persons who had used a cell phone for 10 years or more (9).

-snip

http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/cellphones

Studies funded by the Cellular Telephone Industry Association (CTIA) are the only ones I'm aware of to have concluded that cell phone radiation won't cause brain cancer. But we should be mindful that the cell phone industry is inclined to only release results from studies which conform to its profit interests. To my knowledge, such cell phone danger studies have always been conducted by companies hired by the CTIA itself.

It's a scientific fact that ultrahigh frequency RF radiation at close proximity superheats soft tissue; that's exactly how a microwave oven works. Microwave ovens emit a concentrated radio signal (in the 2400 MHz RF spectrum) to cook food. Although a cellular telephone transmitter puts out dramatically less signal strength than a microwave oven, as the radiating element (ie, its antenna) moves closer to an object, the field intensity of that RF signal multiplies exponentially around and within the object. This goes for the soft tissue in the human body as well.

I don't know if cell phones, in and of themselves, can trigger cancer events in the brain. But I'd be willing to bet that some tissue damage may occur from their prolonged use. Especially in brain tissue regions adjacent to the phone's antenna, as well as perhaps occasionally to the eyes (eye tissue is extremely sensitive to RF radiation at certain frequencies).

It's not a rare tumor and people have been getting it for a lot longer than there have been cell phones.. A friend of mine died from it ....long before cell phones..

...

...after getting vaccinated right next to high-tension power lines.

A simple no would be way more mature.

and you are no exception.

Just flickered a little. :)

I bet

:sarcasm:

Either that or the abnormal amount of chemtrails over Massachusetts last year.

nt

The most powerful phones from the 90's and 80's generated 3W max power.

Todays phone operate at 300mW power (10% of the 90's).

Your home microwave probably leaks more power than this. If microwaves caused "brain cancer" we'd all have it, from our microwave ovens, NOT our cell phones.

Meanwhile, people who talk about the microwaves from cell phones are apparently oblivious to the fact that their old CRT televisions and computers in fact generate X-rays (far higher energy/photon) and much more dangerous.

X-rays are far above the visible light spectrum, microwaves are far below it in frequency and are thus far less able to ionize molecules that might lead to mutations and cancer than X-rays.

:tinfoilhat:

about electrical disturbances and shared. I learned something from your post. SO, it's not idiotic to open a discussion!

and yes I do know a lot, I've worked for cell phone mfg and done quite a lot of RF (radio) test engineering.

I recall the cell phone/brain tumor stories. It was early in the explosion of cell phone use and the companies were frantic to clear it up quickly. So there were a couple of studies whipped out and all was fine.

Being very cynical about big businesses and their level of concern about our health, I was skeptical.

If there is solid, impartially gathered evidence to support the safety of putting cell phones up to your head for several hours a day, then I am very happy to stop worrying.

But if there is not, I think people should be able to ask questions without being branded a conspiracy theorist.

Not the least bit rude, as well. I appreciate it!

I was surprised how venomous this thread became right off. It's hard to discuss things when people flip out. I guess there is some history here that I am not familiar with.

What some of these dismissive types fail to consider is that 300mW (3 tenths of a watt) of UHF RF energy emanating from an antenna 1/2 inch away from one's parietal lobe has virtually the same effect on the lobe (field intensity-wise) as if one were sitting across the room from an antenna that's emitting a multiple-hundred-watt UHF RF signal.

This can be easily demonstrated with an RF field strength meter. One merely need compare the signal intensity level from a high-power UHF transmitter's antenna positioned 15 feet away from the meter, to the signal intensity level of an active cell phone's antenna positioned just 1/2 inch away from the meter. The levels will be similar.

The effective field strength of a low-power RF signal intensifies exponentially as the radiating element approaches. When 300mW of UHF RF energy is directly next to one's brain, the field strength will be quite intense.

Perhaps it was a yeast infection that cause it, right? Because according to you that's what causes cancer. Of course age and genetics have nothing to do with it:sarcasm:

<<Several studies have investigated the risk of developing three types of brain tumors, namely glioma, meningioma, and acoustic neuroma. Results from the majority of these studies have found no association between hand-held cellular telephone use and the risk of brain cancer (3–8); however, some, but not all, long-term studies have suggested slightly increased risks for certain types of brain tumors (9, 10). Further evaluation of long-term exposures (more than 10 years) is needed.>>

<<Although research has not consistently demonstrated a link between cellular telephone use and cancer, scientists still caution that further surveillance is needed before conclusions can be drawn about the risk of cancer from cellular telephones (1).>>

http://www.nci.nih.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/cellphones

sorry but microwaves aren't even infrared and the power levels are infinitesmal compared to what you get just by walking out in ordinary sunlight every day.

You really need to go take a physics class and understand why Einstein won his Nobel prize on the photoelectric effect and what Planck's constant is before you can BEGIN to have an understanding of whether microwaves pose an ionizing radiation threat.

Once you throw the human body into the mix, you are dealing with a lot more than just straight physics.

I have had the experience, personally, of having the doctors insist that - based on the principles of physics - certain things were happening in my body. It took me refusing medical treatment and insisting they draw confirming labwork before the acknowledged that apparently my body wasn't working in precisely the manner that physics would have predicted it would work.

Human bodies obey the laws of physics. If you doubt me jump out a window and see if gravity still works.

:crazy:

Doug D.
Bachelor of Aerospace Engineerig,
Georgia Institute of Technology

The precise damage done to your body, and whether you live or die, is a different question somewhat beyond straight physics - and that is what is at issue here.

Not whether the principles of RF apply with respect to somehow magically creating ionizing radiation where there is none (i.e. disobeying the laws of physics) - but what the long-term impact on the human body of that non-ionizing radiation is - either directly or because of the minor heat generation that occurs, either alone or combination with background radiation, cumulative lifetime exposure, or genetic predisposition, and a whole host of other things that neither physics nor medicine (yet) understand or model well.

second (or in this case third) order effects are negigible and can reasonably be ignored. 300mW of microwave energy in the 800-800MHz band simply does not compare to what leaks out of your 1100 Watt microwave oven or to the X-ray energy produced by the CRT style TV or computer monitor you sit in front of every day for hours on end.

It is simply NOT reasonable to ignore high energy / high ionization sources and focus on the low energy non ionizing ones. If HEAT is your only argument, then we should ban hair dryers which certainly heat our heads up a lot more than cell phones. :rofl:

cancer and the impact of radiation the human body suggest that your ROFL is a bit premature.

statistical correlation is NOT causation and a lot of these "studies" in the end turn out to be junk science.

Show me CAUSATION.

challenges with precision.

You misread what I wrote earlier (asserting that the only thing I was suggesting might be an issue was heat), and now you are reading the assertion by the NCI that further study is needed as an assertion of causation.

Don't see a thing that indicates they are a bit confused about the distinction between correlation and causation. What they said is more study is needed to figure out why there is a correlation - rather than just dismissing the correlation as meaningless.

We also don't necessarily need to introduce radio-induced heating.

It *MIGHT* be sufficient to simply introduce the electrostatic field and
the changes in ion transport through various cellular mechanisms.

The correct answer, given in a reply above, is that the jury is still out.
We're in the midst of a truly massive experiment with over 1 billion
experimental subjects worldwide, so I'm sure the answer will eventually
be perfectly clear, but it isn't clear yet.

And I say this as a person whose family income comes from the mobile phone
industry.

Tesha

or maybe you are.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/distasteful

But that's hard to explain to idiots.

Btw, my mother died of one. Didn't use her cellphone that much, and was certainly not an alcoholic. But I'm sure you could find a reason to blame her for the cause of her death.

78 yo people die.

Mine did, too. Yes, everyone has to eventually. There's always a reason for death, maybe it's not sensational enough to talk about, but there's always a reason.

Again, most brain tumors are idiopathic...the cause is unknown.

so how can we say?

(unless it happened to occur in someone who never used cell phones - in which case you can pretty definitively say it didn't cause it), but the studies are mixed enough that the National Cancer Institute says the question of the impact of long term use of cell phones on health (and specifically on an increased risk of brain tumors) requires further study.

before people smoked Camels. one doesn't necessarily relate to the other.

that said. until I see peer-reviewed longitudinal studies on cell phone use and brain cancer, I'll take the risk, myself. mobile phones have been in use for twenty plus years now, certainly we'd start to see data showing a connection (especially since early phones were much more powerful emitters than today's are.)

(or nearly) has a cell phone stuck to the side of their head--driving, grocery shopping, in the line at the bank, etc.).

that mobiles have become reasonably priced enough to truly become ubiquitous. in Europe it's been 15. you need 20 years for a real study.

...So if you're looking for an explanation, genetics would be a good place to start.

and I doubt it was from cell phone use. Maybe from scotch??? :sarcasm:

Are you serious?

The man hasn't even been dead 24 hours and there is already wild speculation about what killed him?

Can we bury him first?

Great response!

... if it didn't seem like you were under the impression that alcoholism could cause brain cancer.

I've heard of and seen a lot of conditions that alcoholism can cause, but I've never heard of brain tumors being one of them. Unless you have access to research I do not? Without that, it seems like mentioning it is just trying to defame his character, something few here appreciate, especially with how low people have gone lately.

I just always assumed that severe alcoholism(meaning years) had a detrimental effect on the brain, therefore leaving it open for the possibility of cancer. If that makes sense.