The BMJ (British Medical Journal) published last week an extensive study by researchers at the Institute of Cancer Epidemiology in Copenhagen, Denmark . The study include all Danish Mobile Telephone subscriber during the time period 1990-2007. In total the 358 403 subscription holders accrued 3.8 million person years. What ones was looking for was tumour in the central nervous system (i.e. “Brain Cancer”). The study showed that the difference in the number of brain cancer cases among the mobile telephone subcribers and the non-users was not statistically significant (in some cases even lower for the mobile phone users).
Will this rather compelling piece of evidence lessen the anxiety about health hazard of wireless technology ? Hardly. The scientific language is full of complicated words such as “not statistically significant”, “we have not found evidence to support…” etc, which are hard to communicate to a general audience. The risk involved in using mobile phones is hard to understand which makes us worried, although we cannot come up with any conclusive evidence that using mobile phones is in fact harmful. We seem to be much better at understand the risk of cancer caused by smoking cigarettes, being involved in a fatal car accident etc. Thousands die every year, but people still smoke and drive cars. On the other hand, life is a fatal condition..