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Federal scientists released partial findings Friday from a $25 million animal study that tested the possibility of links between cancer and chronic exposure to the type of radiation emitted from cell phones and wireless devices. The findings, which chronicle an unprecedented number of rodents subjected to a lifetime of electromagnetic radiation, present some of the strongest evidence to date that such exposure is associated with the formation of rare cancers in at least two cell types in the brains and hearts of rats.
There are some major caveats, though. The results were only observed in male rats; there weren't any significant effects seen in female rats. Exposure in utero didn't seem to affect cancer risk. And in male rats, the incidence of those two cancers was quite low. But even a small increase in the incidence of those cancers could have a major public health impact given how many people in the world regularly use cell phones.
(Score: 1) by Viadd on Sunday May 29 2016, @07:03PM
This is one of many results that will come out fo the study. This is the first published, the most publicized, and therefore the one most likely to be spurious.
Most of the statistical power P-value for this study is due to the fact that the control group had an abnormally low cancer rate.
The control group had Zero heart and brain tumors in 180 rats, whereas their historical rate for other control groups would predict 3.6 in that population. This may be because the the control group died off at a higher rate than the treatment group (only 28% of the controls survived to the end of the study, whereas historical rates are 47%) so maybe some who would have gotten cancer died early.
If your controls are abnormally lucky (P 0.027 for 0 when 3.6 expected) normal rates for the treatment group suddenly look bad. (Lucky in this case may mean dying before you get cancer.)
And there is no significant dose response: the 1.5 W/kg group got about the same rate as the 6 W/kg rate.
For comparison: 6 W/kg of absorbed radio energy is about 60 kcal/day for a 500 gram rat, which coincidentally is about how much a rat that size normally eats. So basically you are doubling the energy input into an animal and having little if any effect.