I’m amazed that so many people on the web are overreacting to the claims in this Sunday Times (UK) article reporting an association between cell phone use and a particular form of eye cancer.
All anyone concerned about getting eye cancer needs to do is scan to the end of the study’s abstract to the last line which says, “Several methodologic limitations prevent our results from providing clear evidence on the hypothesized association.” That’s scientific-jargon for “We’d like to say our study demonstrates that cell phones cause cancer, but there’s no way to do make that sort of leap with the sort of study we performed.”
One of the more peculiar findings of the study that casts doubt on exactly what it is measuring is the researchers’ report that, “Other sources of electromagnetic radiation such as high-voltage lines, electrical machines, complex electrical environments, visual display terminals, or radar units were not associated with uveal melanoma.” I.e. someone getting dose X of radiation from a mobile phone was three times as likely to get eye cancer, but someone getting the same dose of radiation from a computer display had no elevated risk. If the exposure is the same, it is very surprising one would cause cancer and not the other.
It is also odd that there is no mention of exactly what a) the incidence of eye cancer in the general population in the UK is and b) what general incidence of eye cancer was in the control group. Without knowing either of those, it is difficult to tell exactly what is being measured here.