Science vs. Politics on Cell Phones Safety

Posted on June 30, 2010 by Sean Wajert

The contrast is striking.  Recently, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted 10-1 vote in favor of an ordinance requiring cell phone retailers in that city disclose cell phones' specific absorption rate, or SAR, to customers.

The same day, a study was published that further substantiates the safety of cell phone use.  Mobile phone base stations and early childhood cancers: case-control study, BMJ 2010;340:c3077.  The study, in the British Medical Journal, showed no link between proximity to cell phone towers and increased cancer risk to children whose mothers were pregnant while living near such towers.

The study looked at almost 7,000 children and incidence of early childhood cancers across Great Britain.  This was compared with data from Britain's four national mobile phone operators -- Vodafone, O2, France Telecom's Orange, and Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile -- on more than 80,000 mobile phone towers used from 1996 to 2001.   The researchers found that those who developed cancer before the age of five were not more likely to have been born close to a tower than their peers. The scientists found no association between risk of cancer in young children and estimated exposures to radiofrequency from mobile phone base stations during pregnancy.

MassTortDefense notes some strengths in the study: its size and national coverage, avoiding selection and reporting bias in the choice of cases and areas for study. Also, because it focused on early childhood cancers, it avoided issues of long latency that can affect interpretation of some mobile phone studies in adults.

The study adds to a growing body of scientific research which has found no links between cell phones and cancer. Use of mobile phones has increased markedly in recent years. In the United Kingdom, the number of mobile connections has risen from just under nine million in 1997 to almost 74 million in 2007.

In light of the real science, we wonder if the ordinance will actually mislead consumers with point of sale requirements implicitly suggesting that some phones are "safer" than others based on radiofrequency (RF) emissions. In fact, all phones sold in the U.S. must comply with the Federal Communications Commission's safety standards for RF emissions.  

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BPA Update- Part II

Posted on November 19, 2009 by Sean Wajert

Yesterday, we posted about events in the MDL.  Today, the science, and it probably shouldn’t surprise readers of MassTortDefense that studies suggesting a product bears some risk get far more media attention than studies showing a product is safe, even when the latter are more rigorous. Similarly, studies funded by industry are dismissed by the media as hopelessly biased, as if product sellers have no interest in exploring their products, but studies from a pro-plaintiff, pro-litigation, anti-business, pro-regulation, big government biased interest group are deemed “neutral.”

Such continues to be the case with BPA. Consumer Union came out with a report of BPA levels detectable in 19 canned foods. They admitted that the study was limited and that the tests only “convey a snapshot of the marketplace and do not provide a general conclusion about the levels of BPA in any particular brand or type of product tested.”  Levels in the same product purchased at different types or places or in other brands of similar foods might differ from CU test results, they acknowledged. Published reports have noted that the group refuses to release the names of the external laboratories they used for testing; and the "study" would not have been published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal without a detailed description of the analytical methods used. The CU also apparently relies on animal studies in which the animals were injected with BPA, instead of ingesting it. Basic toxicology would indicate that the route of administration is important.

However, BPA has been confirmed as safe for use in food contact materials by the world’s major regulatory agencies. The food contact materials in your supermarket, including epoxy can linings, meet current regulatory standards, and as importantly, actually enhance food safety and extend product shelf life. Thus, BPA-based epoxy coatings in metal packaging provide important and measurable health benefits by reducing the potential for the serious and often deadly effects from food-borne illnesses. This packaging enables the high-temperature sterilization of food products when initially packaged and continuously protects against microbial contaminants. The head-long rush by a few zealots to ban BPA overlooks the need to balance this factor.

The levels CU says it detected are substantially below the advisory level of 600 parts per billion established by the European Union as a level of safe consumption for all ages, and below current U.S. guidelines that establish the daily upper limit of safe exposure as 50 micrograms per kilogram of body weight. They thus do not pose a health risk to consumers, of all ages.

The media gave far less attention to a study released that is a significant development in better understanding the safety of BPA. See Ryan, et al., In Utero and Lactational Exposure to Bisphenol A, in contrast to Ethinyl Estradiol, Does not Alter Sexually Dimorphic Behavior, Puberty, Fertility and Anatomy of Female LE Rats (Toxicological Sciences 2009). The study was sponsored by the Environmental Protection Agency. The study conclusion states: “The lack of effect of BPA on female and male rat offspring after oral exposure to low doses in our studies is consistent with the lack of adverse effects on growth, vaginal opening, fertility and fecundity of low doses of BPA in several other robust, well designed, properly analyzed multigenerational studies (Cagen, et al.,1999; Ema, et al., 2001; Tinwell, et al., 2002; Tyl, et al., 2002).”  This new rodent study thus finds that low-dose exposures to BPA showed no effects on the broad range of reproductive functions and behavioral activities measured. Well-conducted, peer-reviewed studies such as this should provide the basis for reasoned government assessments and regulatory decisions -- not the murky at best, results driven CU report.


 

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