[eusman]

good link bait, clueless article.

"Mobile phones could kill far more people than smoking or asbestos"

I am surprised by the ease of spreading panic. Really bad taste of them.

There is not even a link to a a url of the research. the quality of YC submitted stories are in downhill.

If everybody has a mobile phone, then it's impossible to limit the cause for their health failure to a mobile phone, so no study can proove anything...

for every study that "proofs" the negative effects of a mobile phone there is another that does the opposite.

Until there is one that proofs the problem either use a hands free or limit the use...

[whalliburton]

I would not say that this is a clueless article.

The doctors website and the article in question: http://www.brain-surgery.us/mobilephone.html

The doctor appears competent to me, but I haven't actually performed any brain surgery so cannot rate his work, but at least he claims "success".

http://www.brain-surgery.net.au/c_a.html

Another similar article: http://www.brain-surgery.net.au/media/MobilephoneCT27-3-08.p...

[tptacek]

The notion that brain surgeons are automatically qualified to conduct and evaluate complex biomedical research in oncology and neurology strikes me as approximately as valid as the idea that skilled software developers are automatically qualified to evaluate cryptosystems, compression algorithms, or semiconductor process technology.

[mechanical_fish]

But I am qualified! I designed a cryptosystem just last week, and nobody's broken it yet!

Moreover, the PDF that I published on my personal website sounds very erudite, and doesn't contain any obvious spelling errors. I have over fifteen years' experience in the lab [1], have authored nearly a dozen scientific publications in prestigious journals such as Physical Review Letters and Cancer Research [2], and have seven years' experience as a semiconductor process technologist. [3] So I don't see how you can dismiss my work out of hand, particularly since you, as a security professional, have an obvious conflict of interest. [4]

[1] At least two years of which involved making photocopies, washing glassware, and ordering pizza.

[2] This is actually true, for reasonable values of "nearly" and "prestigious". You must also remember that being Nth author counts as "authoring".

[3] Also true. And so relevant, too!

[4] Notice that "the desire to toot your own horn" never seems to count as a "conflict of interest".

[tptacek]

While noting that nobody else is going to toot your horn for you, I'll say that cryptography was just the first thing to come into my head, for obvious reasons. I can't tell from the tone of your comment, but if you've worked in semiconductors, cancer research, and cryptography, let me be the first to proclaim that you have a bad-ass resume.

[mechanical_fish]

Oh, I totally lied about the cryptography. :) I have a copy of Schneier on my shelf that I occasionally put under my pillow at night... does that count?

All that I know about cryptography is that anyone who claims to have written their own unbreakable system, but hasn't had that system vetted by other cryptographers, is nearly 100% likely to be completely full of it.

The semiconductors and cancer research are true. It sounds so much more impressive than it actually is, though, which is kind of my point. Yeah, I've worked in several fields, and I like to think I learned something from all of that time, but if I wrote a crypto paper I would still be talking out of my ass. Hell, if I wrote my own cancer research paper I'd be talking out of my ass -- my role in the cancer lab was mainly "physics guy who knows how to change the light bulbs on the multiphoton microscope".

[tptacek]

So then, I made a half-assed analogy:

  programmer : semiconductor engineer :: surgeon : researcher

Was I talking out of my ass? Because of the three CS fields I mentioned, I barely work in one of them. =)

[logjam]

But more than a little more qualified than you are in this area, if you want to play that game.

At least the guy giving the "warning" argued from something a little more substantial than "look where this was published." And now your entire argument has further devolved to "look at the resume of this guy", instead of on the paper itself.

No wonder PG has to tutor some of you on logical thought.

[KirinDave]

Being a successful surgeon does not necessarily mean he's an authority on brain cancer and tissue interaction with EMF over prolonged periods.

[whalliburton]

Correct, but your statement assumes that there is some other field that is better attuned to "brain cancer and tissue interaction with EMF over prolonged periods." I dont know.

It does mean that he is most probably aware of trends in brain cancer, such as certain increases. He is also in the front lines in dealing with the possible results of cell phone EMF damage. He also could possibly have very good communication with other brain surgeons dealing with similar problems.

[mechanical_fish]

The field is called "epidemiology" or "biophysics", depending on whether you are studying the rate of brain cancers or the mechanism by which EMFs interact with tissue.

It does mean that he is most probably aware of trends in brain cancer, such as certain increases.

Not at all. To a brain surgeon, the world is full of brain tumors. They see lots of brain tumors every day. Meanwhile, cancer patients are even closer to "the front lines" than surgeons, yet they know even less about what causes tumors. In fact, they quickly seize upon whichever half-baked explanation the media offers them, which is why so many cancer patients now run around complaining about their cell phones, instead of cigarettes or environmental chemicals or obesity or -- just possibly -- sheer random chance.

What you're looking for is a paper by an epidemiologist -- a person who is trained in statistics -- that talks about the rate of incidence of brain cancer. The paper needs to be peer-reviewed, because even the people who are trained in statistics tend to make mistakes occasionally, particularly when the mistakes make their research more interesting or more personally profitable.

[RK]

The field is called "epidemiology" or "biophysics", depending on whether you are studying the rate of brain cancers or the mechanism by which EMFs interact with tissue.

The study of interactions of radiation with biological materials is called radiobiology. Generally, the people who study these kinds of effects on populations are health physicists and epidemiologists.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiobiology

[tptacek]

You need help finding a reliable source? Let me help:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_of_Clinical_Oncology

[KirinDave]

I'm implying there is no such specialist. The literature is so sparse on long-term studies that no one possibly can be, yet.

It'll be a few more years before we start getting real, credible answers back to these questions.

[eusman]

if the article is ready to spread panic then it is their responsibility to include the url.

[xirium]

> "Mobile phones could kill far more people than smoking or asbestos"

They may. They may not. Unlike smoking, it would be entirely foreseeable.

> If everybody has a mobile phone, then it's impossible to limit the cause for their health failure to a mobile phone, so no study can proove anything...

I disagree. A Finnish study found that cochlea cancer was more common in the right cochlea of mobile telephone users.