Disconnect: The Truth
About Cell Phone Radiation, What the Industry Has Done to Hide It, and How to
Protect Your Family by Devra
Davis, PhD is touted as a book about the issue of cell phones and health. It is
instead a tract that conspiracy theorists will love that sheds no objective
light on the often confusing scientific data in this area. The tag line on the
jacket sets the tone: The TRUTH about cell phone RADIATION. What the
INDUSTRY has done to hide it, and how to PROTECT your FAMILY. In the area
of EMF and health, there are a certain number of studies that appear to find
biological “effects”. This is perfect fodder for alarmists like Davis, who
ignore the fact that virtually none of these “effects” have been reproduced in
follow up studies. If you were expecting an objective review of the often
confusing scientific data in this area, you should avoid this book.
Disconnect focuses almost exclusively on
studies that support its alarmist conclusions while either ignoring or
falsifying information about studies showing no harm. The quality of scientific
studies varies greatly. Disconnect is highly selective and totally
biased in discussing only studies that support its point of view, it rejects
contrary studies accepted by the majority of mainstream scientists as the
product of some vast conspiracy, and it completely misstates the findings of
key studies that find no harm from cell phones. She interviewed only a
relatively small group of dissident scientists who are outside of the
mainstream. The book is completely lacking in objectivity.
Major
Factual Misstatements
There are so many things wrong in Disconnect
that it is difficult to know where to begin. We will start by reviewing a few
of the most blatant examples of how it misrepresents key findings of some of
the most important cell phone studies.
Basic physics
Early in Disconnect, Davis
gets some facts on basic physics wrong. On P. 17 she states: Electromagnetic
waves ability to travel depends on how long they are. The faster a wave
oscillates and the smaller it is, the shorter the distance it can reach.
Hello, did she check with NASA? The Voyageur 1 is the most distant man made object.
After doing a Grand Tour of the outer planets in the 70s and 80s, its still
operating at a distance of 17 billion km. Travelling at the speed of light, it
takes 15.4 hours for its signals to reach earth. Its transmitter operates in
the X band at approximately 5X the frequency of a cell phone, and at 19W or
only roughly 100X the power of a cell phone. A first year physics student could
tell her that all electromagnetic waves follow the inverse square law. The
frequency has no effect on distance.
Interphone & cell phone use for
10+ years
Davis only discusses a handful of
the thousands of studies that find no harm from either EMF or cell phones. She
gets some critical facts about these studies completely wrong. A prime example
is the claim by Davis that all studies that have looked at cell phone use for a
period of more than 10 years have found an increased risk of brain cancer. P
193 But when you look at those few studies that included people who had used
phones for a decade or more, the results show that heavy cell phone use causes
brain tumors. If you consider all of the studies that have been published, most
of them have not followed people for a decade. But if you examine only those
studies that have analyzed people for a decade or longer you find one thing:
Every single one of them shows that long-term heavy use of cell phones has
increased the risks of brain tumors.
This is totally false; several
important studies find no harm. All of the studies that Davis refers to are a
particular type of case control study. The case control studies she cites are
considered much less reliable because they depend on memory to assess past
exposure. People diagnosed with brain cancer and healthy controls respond to a
questionnaire in which they are asked to remember how much they used their cell
phones. Recall is known to yield different estimates than actual phone records.
In addition, because people who have had cancer have heard about the potential
link to cell phones, they are more likely to err by reporting higher exposure
than controls. Therefore such studies are subject to a limitation called recall
bias. Davis does not even mention this key weakness.
Most of the 10 year plus studies
that Davis refers to were the work of a single Swedish researcher, Dr. Lennart
Hardell. His methods have been widely criticized. Most of the others were
components of the Interphone study (* 12). Some of the individual components of
Interphone were released prior to the final comprehensive report. Contrary to
Davis claim, not all of these found increased cancer risk for 10+ years. The
final conclusion of the Interphone study is important: “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.” In the
text, the authors discuss the considerable evidence for recall bias that they
found during the study. The overall conclusion of no increase in risk is
the key finding.
Misstating Key Danish cell phone
study
One of the most important studies on
cell phones was a Danish study of 420,000 cell phone users (*13). It was a
cohort study, not a case control study. Exposure was assessed based entirely on
actual cell phone records. It also used actual medical records to verify the
diagnosis. Such studies do not suffer from any recall bias. Because it is based
on objective data, it carries much more weight than memory based case control
studies. While this particular study has other possible limitations, it is one
of the few that is based on actual hard data.
Davis gets most of the major facts
about this key study completely wrong. For example on Page 193 she says it included
only two cases that had used a phone for a decade. The real number of users
for a decade or more was 53,204 (42,549 for 10 – 14 years, 10,655 for 15 21)
years. No increase in brain cancer or any other illness was reported for any
class of cell phone users including the long term users.
On P 182 She says: All of us have
cell phone bills that provide detailed records of our use; and most of these
can be accessed online. These were not used in this study, or in any study of
the industry to date. This is also false. In the U.S. this information is
private and confidential and to date has not been available to interested
researchers. The Danish study used cell phone records to establish the number
of years of use of a cell phone for each of the 420,000 individuals in the
study. The authors obtained the approval of the required Danish government
agencies such as the Danish Data Protection Board to protect the privacy of the
information. The study was entirely based on record linkage.
Brain cancer trends & her
unpublished result
Another example of a major falsehood
in the book is the section she calls My Unpublished Result. She says: Papers
showing no increase in the overall brain cancer rate adjusted to the entire
population have been published, while those taking a more sophisticated look at
growing rates of brain tumors in young persons remain under review. Davis
claims she has unpublished results showing brain cancer is increasing in young
adults. Technically these time trend data may have limitations. For example, in
the 70s and mid 80s new technology led to apparent increased rates of brain
cancer, due to better diagnostic equipment.
However, since the mid 80s, which
happens to coincide with the introduction of cell phones, overall brain cancer
incidence rates have been constant. Contrary to what Davis claims, at least 4
studies (* 14, 15, 16, 17) have been published for brain cancer by age group.
None shows any significant increase for any age or sex group that can be linked
to cell phones. For example, another Danish study (* 17) looked at incidence
rates by age group in 5 Northern European countries. No significant change in
brain cancer rates were found for any age group. A recent US study came to a
similar conclusion (* 15). In science, unpublished results rank lower that self
published articles, which are at least published.
Brain cancer is one of the rarest
forms of cancer. For example it ranks at #15 in Canada. There are more that 4
billion cell phones in use worldwide. The absence of any change in the
incidence of brain cancer is the simplest evidence against any connection with
cell phones. Davis mangled commentary on these brain cancer studies are the
most blatant examples of the many misstatements in Disconnect.
Bad science
and sowing confusion
Defending scientific misconduct
She devotes a whole chapter of the
book to defending Dr. Hugo Rudiger, who was found guilty of scientific fraud;
the most serious offense in science. Rudiger had published a couple of papers
purporting to show that cell phone radiation can damage DNA. If true, this
would be quite serious. A couple of other scientists reviewed the data in his
paper and found compelling statistical evidence that critical parts of the data
were cooked (Lerchl et al. *6 ). An attempt to reproduce Rudigers experiments
found no DNA damage (Speit et al. *7 ). The University of Vienna held two
inquiries and found that Rudiger was guilty of scientific misconduct and
recommended that the papers be withdrawn. Davis spins these damning facts into
an elaborate whodunit claiming that Rudiger was the victim of an elaborate
conspiracy and frame-up. This is simply not credible.
Mens fertility
Davis devotes another chapter to the
assertion that cell phone radiation affects male fertility. On P. 140 she
states: A report from researchers (*8).garnered headlines around the world,
such as Cell Phones Lower Sperm Count. On P. 141 she continues with The
Cleveland researchers referred to their results, in the customary voice of
science, as preliminary, and duly called for more research. Despite this
caution, she proceeds to tie together a handful of disparate sperm studies to
back up her sensational claim that cell phones reduce male fertility.
She ignores the fact that all of the
studies she cites have been criticized for poor methodology, and some have
failed attempts at replication (9, 10). In its 2009 assessment Health
Effects of Exposure to EMF, the European SCENIHR (5 P 32 – 33) had this to
say: The authors reported (*8) that reduced sperm quality was associated
with duration of daily exposure to mobile phones assessed by interview and with
duration of use of mobile phones assessed by questionnaire. However,
possible confounding due to lifestyle differences (associated with
differences in the use of mobile phones) may have biased the results of
both studies. Davis sums up her case with this bold claim on P. 146 We
must remember that we live in a world in which some continue to believe
evolution itself is a sort of preliminary theory.
SAM the standard head
Davis devotes large sections of the
book to SAM (specific anthropomorphic mannequin), the model head that was
developed by international standards bodies (IEEE and IEC) and is used by cell
phone manufacturers to test and certify compliance with RF exposure safety
limits. This limit, which is known as the SAR (specific absorption rate), is
set at 1.6W/kg averaged over 1 gram of body tissue in the US and Canada (2 W/kg
averaged over 10 gram of body tissue in countries adopting the ICNIRP
guidelines). She states P 74 In coming up with ways to estimate exposures
from cell phones, scientists in 1996 relied on a fellow named SAM, which stands
for Standard Anthropomorphic Man (sic). SAM is not an ordinary guy. He
ranked in size and mass at the top 10 percent of all military recruits in 1989
weighing more than two hundred pounds, with an eleven-pound head, and standing
about six feet two inches tall. P. 75 These standards were set in 1993
and based on SAMs big brain, not for the much smaller heads of children, of
women, or other adults.
She implies that regulators and the
industry have callously continued to use SAM as the reference, without
considering the issue of smaller heads. This is simply not the case. The IEEE
1528 standard for SAM was published in 2003. Dozens of studies have been
published comparing the SAR exposures of SAM to various sizes of heads
including those of children. Many of these studies have concluded that SAM
absorbs more energy than any human head, and is therefore a conservative model
for certification tests. For example in Beard et al. 2006 (*11) conducted an
international study by 14 laboratories: The results show that when the pinna
SAR is calculated separately from the head SAR, SAM produced a higher SAR in
the head than the anatomically correct head models. Also the larger (adult)
head produced a statistically significant higher peak SAR for both the 1- and
10-g averages than did the smaller (child) head for all conditions of frequency
and position. In addition, it should be noted that the established SAR
limits have a safety margin of 50X.
The fine print
Davis devotes an entire chapter to
the so called warnings in fine print in the user manuals for cell phones. On P.
217 she says: The HTC Droid Eris cell phone from Verizon contains a Product
Safety and Warranty Information booklet. On page 11 it is recommended that no
part of the human body be allowed to come too close to the antenna during
operation of the equipment.To comply with RF exposure requirements, a minimum
separation distance of 1.5 cm must be maintained between the users body and the
handset. Davis further states: A reader might think it was just a matter
of complying with a silly rule that government had produced.
Well yes actually, such a procedure
is called for in government regulations (FCC OET Bulletin 65 Supplement C, IEEE
Standard 1528 and IEC 62209-1). When cell phones were first developed, they
were quite bulky and could not fit into a shirt pocket. They were often carried
in a holster and were always used with the phone held to the ear. The original
testing standards were written at that time to reflect this. Todays ultra slim
iPhones and Blackberries can be carried in a shirt pocket much closer to the
body. They are tested and comply with SAR limits when held to the ear (or pinna
in technical jargon). However, if the phone is used while near body such as in
your shirt pocket, the SAR limit may be exceeded if it is closer than the
required test distance of 15 to 25 mm. This is not considered to be a safety
issue, since the SAR limit has a 50X safety margin (according to the new IEEE
C95.1-2005). It is a technical compliance issue.
Davis implies that cell phone
companies have included these fine print warnings as a potential defense in
liability lawsuits from brain cancer patients. There is no record of this
defense ever having been used in any of current liability suits and none of
these lawsuits has yet succeeded. The separation distance is for body worn and
not for the head position and therefore is irrelevant to brain cancer.
Expert
Groups
Disconnect completely ignores the fact that
each of the public health organizations of the industrialized world does
regular expert reviews of the scientific literature on EMF and health.
Virtually every one of these expert reviews has come to the same conclusion as
the World Health Organization that current evidence does not confirm the
existence of any health consequences from exposure to low level electromagnetic
fields. This conclusion is echoed by the expert reports of the public
health organizations of virtually every industrialized country including the
American Cancer Society, Health Canada, and the European SCENIHR (* 1 – 5).
Instead, Davis implies that there is
a massive worldwide conspiracy to cover up data, and disprove or dismiss the
alarmist studies. The book is full of anecdotes about data that was altered, or
disappeared, funding that was cut off, and alleged threats. This is the stuff
of a Hollywood conspiracy movie. Such a massive conspiracy, involving virtually
all the worlds most prestigious health science organizations, is simply not
plausible.
Conclusion
Davis and other EMF alarmists are
attempting to do an end run around the mainstream scientists responsible for
public health standards. They even have their own self appointed organization
with the impressive sounding name: International Commission for Electromagnetic
Safety (ICEMS). The goal of alarmists is to scare enough members of the public
about the dangers of EMF in order to sway politicians to do their bidding.
Davis was one of the organizers of a conference held in Washington, DC on Sept.
15, 2009 timed to coincide with Senate hearings on cell phone safety. Such
tactics have already achieved some “success” in Europe and a few other countries
where politicians have ignored the advice of their own scientists to impose new
restrictions on EMF.
Disconnect is a good example of the kind of
material used by the EMF alarmist movement. Virtually all the alarmist studies
that Davis cites used a poor methodology and/or have not been replicated in
follow up studies. In fact, most have been refuted by far more comprehensive
and rigorous studies. In many cases, serious flaws have been found with studies
that show harm. It is at odds with the conclusions of mainstream expert groups
such as the SCENHIR (* 5 P 8): It is concluded from three independent lines
of evidence (epidemiological, animal and in vitro studies) that exposure to RF
fields is unlikely to lead to an increase in cancer in humans. Disconnect
is designed to bamboozle and scare the lay reader, not to inform.
About the
Author
Lorne Trottier is a co-founder of
Matrox Ltd. and holds B. Eng., M. Eng., and Doctorate (honoris causa) degrees
from McGill University. He has had a lifelong passion for science and
technology and believes in the importance of combating pseudoscience. He is
President of the Board of the Montreal Science Center Foundation, and is also a
board member of a number of science outreach organizations including the NCSE,
CFI Canada, and The Planetary Society. Trottier sponsors the annual Trottier
Symposium at McGill University that deals with a variety of science topics of
interest to the public, such as Confronting Pseudoscience. Trottier also maintains a web site
on the subject of EMF and Health.
This article has been published in
different forms at Skeptic North and EMF & Health. The current post is based upon
these two previous posts, but has been significantly edited and altered for
SBM.
References
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