Phoney War

Jaysus, just when I thought it was safe to go back in the water, here comes another risk. This time it’s my mobile phone. Last month it would have been coffee. Or was it alcohol? Who cares, we’re all at risk and should take “pragmatic measures”. Or so say the WHO.

Yes, that’s the World Health Organisation, the same WHO that gave us the swine flu pandemic that wasn’t actually a pandemic and made lots of money for the pharmaceutical industry. So we should really heed what they say... shouldn’t we?
According to a press release, the WHO’s international agency for research says the radiation given off by mobiles is “possibly carcinogenic”. This follows a week-long review by 31 scientists from 14 countries. The scientists enter a caveat – they admit there is limited evidence to support their assertion. Well, you can sing that one. But that disclaimer hasn’t stopped the predictable flow of hysteria and conspiracy theories.
The Irish Times – normally the most reliable of the Irish media on scientific matters – put the story right at the top of its front page on June 1, a piece written by its science correspondent Dick von Ahlstrom, and followed up a week later with a piece by its medical correspondent Muiris Houston.
The first was non-committal, just a news piece but, curiously, the tagline on Houston’s piece read that, “Research confirms safety fears are warranted” – even though the article simply reiterated the bones of the research and the author himself pointed out that, “there is no data showing a greater incidence of brain cancer as the use of mobile phones has surged.”
Just so we know, the WHO’s news has been lacerated by many science observers. For example, researchers in the University of Maryland’s Clark School of Engineering, which specialises in researching the biological effects of wireless telecommunications technology, expressed concerns regarding the validity of the findings.
I say the WHO’s news in the previous paragraph because, as Ben Goldacre, whose Bad Science column is such a welcome feature of The Guardian on Saturdays, points out... there is no report. Those citing the “report” were in fact just citing the press release!
This churnalism is standard practice where journalism and public relations intersect. On the whole it’s harmless enough. But sometimes it’s not harmless, it is very bad practice. This is especially the case in science and health.
Goldacre carefully points out the multitude of problems with methodologies deployed in the studies that led to the WHO conclusions. Everything is changing, especially the technology of mobiles, so how do you isolate the “possible” causes of an increase in cancer in research animals?
He is not saying the conclusions are wrong, nor is he saying that mobiles are 100% safe. But the evidence doesn’t support the claims or, more especially, the alarmist follow-ups in the media.
He notes that one study found that “very, very high phone use was associated with a 40% increase in tumours, this would still only take you from 10 cases in 100,000 to 14 cases in 100,000.” Very, very high means over 12 hours a day talking on your mobile, and it raises the risk from 0.01% to 0.014%.
Irish science blogger Brian Hughes also had a go in his excellent www.thesciencebit.net site. He too notes that the actual report hasn’t been released and that the international media frenzy arose from a press release. He also makes the point that there is no reference to the use of meta-analysis or systematic reviewing, which would be required to properly draw aggregated statistical inferences from the combined dataset represented by the research literature as a whole. What we have here are impressions.
He also tackles the word “possibly”, pointing out that among the other things the WHO has (at various times) identified as possibly carcinogenic are bracken fern, condensed coconut oil, talcum powder and naphthalene (which is used in moth balls, very much back in vogue these days).
When you look at it, it’s daft. A world-wide scare arising from a press release describing impressions formed by people reading old reports and not, emphatically not, from a peer-reviewed report on research presenting new empirical evidence.
But like I said above, it’s all too common. A good scare story sells newspapers by the cartload. Besides, journalists operate to deadlines. If someone helpfully summarises a report, as often as not they’ll go with the summary. It happens all the time.
And if you think the hooha over mobiles is bad, take a look at reporting on alcohol issues, where the agenda is largely set by epidemiology. This, to sceptics, seems a quasi-scientific discipline rather than a science. Many of the most fundamental premises of scientific research seem dispensable, for example the need to identify variables that might explain a result and to factor them into calculations.
But more of that anon. In the meantime, just remember, as Brian Hughes helpfully points out, “what is being spoken of as the (cancer) danger posed by mobile phones is actually barely equivalent to that posed by talcum powder — and less than that posed by being a hairdresser.”
Phone, phone on!!!