Can you hear me now? Sometimes I'm truly baffled at the things the powers-that-be spend exorbitant sums of money to research. Back in December, the Journal of the National Cancer Institute published a Danish study that is supposedly the definitive answer (according to the research team, at least) on cell phone use and cancer risk. The researchers collected information on cell-phone usage from the entire population of Denmark and compared the incidence of cancer among over 420,000 cell phone users to that of the rest of the population. Their conclusion? Cell phones do not increase the risk of cancer. The lead researcher of the study, Joachim Schuz, commented that he thinks "the results of this study are quite reassuring." Forgive me for not feeling the same way. But my reservations have less to do with the cell phone/cancer link than with the study as a whole. Even if they could arrive at such a definitive conclusion after such a general investigation on such a huge pool of people (which, by the way, I have a very hard time believing), my question is this: Why are we so focused on the "what ifs" of cell phone use when there are so many other factors involved in cancer formation that we DO know about? If we all spent more time focusing on eating right, being as active as possible, and living the healthiest lifestyles possible, maybe we wouldn't need to worry so much about what our electronic devices "might" do to our brains.
Sources:
"Cell phones don't raise cancer risk: study," Reuters Health News, 12/6/06
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