IP: CELL PHONES AND CANCER: DOES THIS STORY SOUND FAMILIAR?: What's New for Dec 22, 2000

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

> 1.  It
> should, it features many of the same players who brought you the
> power line controversy.  It began on Jan 23, 1993; a guest on
> Larry King Live, whose wife had died of brain cancer, was suing
> the cell-phone industry, claiming her cancer was caused by a cell
> phone: "She held it against her head, and she talked on it all
> the time," he said (WN 29 Jan 93).  With such "evidence," story
> after story in the media focused on the cancer question.  At that
> time, people still thought power lines caused cancer.  The power
> line controversy was not put to rest until the National Cancer
> Institute released a definitive epidemiological study of the
> connection between childhood cancer and residential EMF exposure.
> Any link, the study concluded, is too weak to detect or to be
> concerned about.  This week, two major studies of cell phone use
> and cancer were published, one by an industry group and one by
> the National Cancer Institute.  Both concluded that cell phone
> users are no more likely than anyone else to have brain cancer.



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