illuminating science

In an interesting and potentially scary study, a Swedish study has found that using a mobile phone for more than 10 years doubles your chances of getting a benign type of head tumour. It sounds like the study does have good statistical backing (unlike many of these types of reports), in particular havingh a large sample size. Particularly impressive, is that the tumours seem to form on the side of the head where users claim they held their phones (although, as they point out, people with a tumour on one side might be more likely to say they held their phone there.) The research was part of INTERPHONE, an international effort to investigate mobile phones and related technology, with full reports to be released in 2005.

Keeping things in perspective, though, mobile phones seem unlikely to cause mass deaths. It does give us some interesting social questions, though. If it’s proved beyond doubt that mobile phones are linked to benign tumours, would you change your habits? (Note that hands free kits may or may not reduce exposure.) What if it increased your chance of a malignant tumour by 1%? Or by 5%, over your whole life? Would you stop using your mobile? Even more generally - what risks would you be prepared to take in order to keep using your mobile phone?

Oh, and I’m off to Ireland for the weekend, so there won’t be any posts for a couple of days. If you need to contact me, I’ll have my mobile on…