In a study that will be widely ignored by zealots, researchers have pretty well put away the junk science theories about cell phones. The so-called studies that showed cell phones caused "brain cancers" have been refuted by a very, very large scale study in Denmark. How large? 420,000 people large.
WASHINGTON – A huge study from Denmark offers the latest reassurance that cell phones don't trigger cancer. Scientists tracked 420,000 Danish cell phone users, including 52,000 who had gabbed on the gadgets for 10 years or more, and some who started using them 21 years ago.
They matched phone records to the famed Danish Cancer Registry that records every citizen who gets the disease — and reported Tuesday that cell-phone callers are no more likely than anyone else to suffer a range of cancer types.
The study, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, is the largest yet to find no bad news about the safety of cell phones and the radiofrequency energy they emit.
But even the lead researcher doubts it will end the debate.
"There's really no biological basis for you to be concerned about radio waves," said John Boice, a Vanderbilt University professor and scientific director of the International Epidemiology Institute in Rockville, Md. "Nonetheless, people are."
So Boice and colleagues at Copenhagen's Danish Cancer Society plan to continue tracking the Danish callers until at least some have used the phones for 30 years.
But, oh, do I remember the screaming headlines about cell phones and brain cancers not that long ago. And the screeching about EMF. And the screeching about trans fats. And the list goes on. And, as the researchers note, the true believers will continue to truly believe. While dialing their cell phones, no doubt.
