- More on that Interphone study Archived Message
Posted by walter
on May 22, 2020, 12:38 pm, in reply to "For clarity, the SA article was an opinion piece by Moskowitz himself"
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Just jumping down a bit to where the writer returns to the Interphone study (having invoked it earlier by referring to the 2006 report from Germany). As explained in my post above, the Interphone study finally, because of the prevailing politics and resulting disagreements, stumbled to an eventual conclusion in 2010 (and at an expense of $24m). Most of the data would have related to well before this. From the viewpoint of industry trying not to find a risk, the further back the better. But what about the findings? Here one needs to look inside the box that he says contain the jewels. They don't. Here is what the writer claims in the article (the emphasis is mine): " The 13-country INTERPHONE study is one example: its unequivocal conclusion was that there was no causal relationship between phone use and incidences of common brain tumors such as glioblastoma and meningioma." And this is from the conclusions of the study: "Conclusions: Overall, no increase in risk of glioma or meningioma was observed with use of mobile phones. There were suggestions of an increased risk of glioma at the highest exposure levels, but biases and error prevent a causal interpretation. The possible effects of long-term heavy use of mobile phones require further investigation." The highest exposures recorded a positive finding of association: " In the 10th decile of recalled cumulative call time, > or =1640 h, the OR was 1.40 (95% CI 1.03-1.89) for glioma". and the only thing stopping a conclusion of 'causality' was alleged 'biases and error'. That's not quite was was so emphatically claimed. Unequivocal? That's a joke - especially as equivocating over the unpalatable results, delayed the publication of the study for years. Here is just one glaring example of a methodological fault: It is well known that exposure from cordless phone is similar to a mobile; a base station ("a phone mast in your living room") transmits microwaves to the phone which transmits to your head. One of the biggest problems of Interphone was that it ignored cordless use - so that a cordless-phone-only user would be classified as unexposed! This would obviously dilute any effect. The study had so many problems that the only reason it might be selected as a good example could be for spin. It was the opposite of quality. Some Interphone commentary here https://www.powerwatch.org.uk/news/20100514_approach_to_interphone_results.asp https://www.powerwatch.org.uk/news/20100518_interphone_brain_tumours.asp |