Could The New York Times Be As Harmful As Cigarettes?

There’s a curious pattern I’ve noticed in writers who decide one day, for whatever reason, to dump raw sewage in the heart of their legacy and reputation by trying their hand at a bit of science.

1. They work at a moderate, somewhat oblique distance from their subject matter. Not too close, not too far.

For instance, a technology columnist writing about whether or not wearable technology could give you cancer. While his ability to address the topic doesn’t sound too unreasonable, it’s far more an article about the etiology of cancer than it is about fancy-computer-watches.

2. They mistake scientific uncertainty for potential dangers.

Places where uncertainty is expressed (which, in population-level health issues is always present to some extent) are antithetical to non-scientific writing. People want certainty. The Samsung Extra-Bollix WILL cause you to get remarried. The Apple Wossname Whatsisbox WILL make you look better.

3. Their sources, normally carefully chosen, go completely to the dogs.

This is self-explanatory. Lunatics are far more likely to discuss lunacy. If you’re going out on a limb, the people most likely to go with you are not expert arborists.

Let’s keep all that in mind, hold our collective breath and read this:

Dear me.

Let’s have a quick run-down, before we collectively lose the will to live.

“In 1946, a new advertising campaign appeared in magazines with a picture of a doctor in a lab coat holding a cigarette and the slogan, “More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette.” No, this wasn’t a spoof. Back then, doctors were not aware that smoking could cause cancer, heart disease and lung disease.

In a similar vein, some researchers and consumers are now asking whether wearable computers will be considered harmful in several decades’ time.”

That’s not a tenuous link as much as no connection whatsoever, if the rest of your article is continually mentioning — but as we’ll see in a second, being dishonest with — the presence of uncertainty.

It’s also an error of degree, seeing as the cancer risks of smoking were actively suppressed, while the potential risk of cellphones has been screamed from the hilltops in various directions for at least a decade.

“While there is no definitive research on the health effects of wearable computers (the Apple Watch isn’t even on store shelves yet), we can hypothesize a bit from existing research on cellphone radiation.”

Can we indeed.

“The most definitive and arguably unbiased results in this area come from the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a panel within the World Health Organization that consisted of 31 scientists from 14 countries.

After dissecting dozens of peer-reviewed studies on cellphone safety, the panel concluded in 2011 that cellphones were “possibly carcinogenic” and that the devices could be as harmful as certain dry-cleaning chemicals and pesticides. (Note that the group hedged its findings with the word “possibly.”)”

‘Possibly’.

‘Carcinogenic’.

These words have straightforward normal meanings, and they have couched scientific meanings.

Possibly in this context: it’s on a list of things where the connection to any potential ability to be a carcinogen exists. A list it sits on alongside common industrial chemicals, popular herbal supplements and extracts, and coffee. Dangerous, deadly coffee.

Carcinogenic in this context: no one is claiming that cellphone ‘radiation’ is going through your body randomly punching your tissues willy-nilly — the research is squarely focused, as might be expected, on brain cancer. More on that in a second.

Harmful in this context: confuses immediate toxicity with eventual carcinogenesis. Example: if you eat a bowlful of fertilizer, it’s likely you’ll die long before you can get cancer.

A longitudinal study conducted by a group of European researchers and led by Dr. Lennart Hardell, a professor of oncology and cancer epidemiology at Orebro University Hospital in Sweden, concluded that talking on a mobile or cordless phone for extended periods could triple the risk of a certain kind of brain cancer.

NO. This is not a study, it’s a meta-analysis — aggregating 18 other studies (with what seem like some fairly arbitrary distinctions, but never mind that for now). It concludes that:

In a meta‐analysis, ipsilateral cell phone use for acoustic neuroma was OR=2.4 (95% CI 1.1 to 5.3) and OR =2.0, (1.2 to 3.4) for glioma using a tumour latency period of >= 10 years.

A few quick points: this is an aggregate of a lot of other studies which don’t show associations, most of the studies which show positive associations seem to be from the Hardell guy’s lab (???), and this is ONLY for gliomas. These are unpleasant but rare cancers, with an incidence is about 6 per 100,000 person years.

In other words, even if this was all absolutely accurate, we’re talking about a rare type of cancer getting slightly less rare — NOT the oncological equivalent of reds under the beds.

Oh, and the ‘triple’ appears to just be made up.

There is, of course, antithetical research. But some of this was partly funded by cellphone companies or trade groups.

A dismissal of other research which is this fast, this glib and this wrong should have a name. I propose “The Monsantos Gambit” in honour of the precious lunatics on the internet who think all research into agriculture (and specifically cereal crops, and carbohydrate consumption, etc.) is somehow a very-well maintained conspiracy (run by a scientist who drives a 2004 Ford Focus because she spent all her Big Ag money on white cats and eyepatches).

Here’s a good example of this ‘antithetical’ research.

The energy absorbed from the radio-frequency fields of mobile telephones depends strongly on distance from the source. The authors’ objective in this study was to evaluate whether gliomas occur preferentially in the areas of the brain having the highest radio-frequency exposure. … The study included 888 gliomas from 7 European countries (2000–2004), with tumor midpoints defined on a 3-dimensional grid based on radiologic images. … These results do not suggest that gliomas in mobile phone users are preferentially located in the parts of the brain with the highest radio-frequency fields from mobile phones

Link here

Good idea, eh? It comes up with a really good specific hypothesis from the facts available, and then uses appropriate brain imaging and statistical methods to test it.

Oh, and it found absolutely no relationship between RF fields near the ears and glioma incidence, AND it seems to both publicly funded / conflict-of-interest free.

Dr. Joseph Mercola, a physician who focuses on alternative medicine and has written extensively about the potential harmful effects of cellphones on the human body, said that as long as a wearable does not have a 3G connection built into it, the harmful effects are minimal, if any.

At the point where Dr. Joseph Mercola is involved, everyone should be switching from quietly shaking their heads to the gathering of pitchforks and the lighting of torches.

Mercola is not an oncologist — quite the opposite, if anything.

Move all sharp objects away from where you’re sitting and click here. Have a quick look through that.

• Kelley Treatment: The Cancer Treatment So Successful — Traditional Doctors SHUT It Down
• It sent this incurable brain tumor into full remission with no toxic side effects, yet the FDA is blocking this treatment. Here are the dark reasons why.
• Could Mushrooms Aid in the Treatment of Cancer?
• Only this type of vitamin E was found to be useful in preventing lung cancer.

Pure, unadulterated quackery. And not the benign kind, with dreamcatchers and potpourri and $12 LOL-it’s-just-water cures for a sniffle, but the sinister kind that keeps adults away from chemotherapy, children away from vaccines, and people of all stripes away from the best efforts of trying to get the sick well and the very sick not dead.

Quoting Joseph Mercola in an article on cancer is like quoting Joseph Mengele in an article on race relations.

Do I have a broader point? Not this time. This is inaccurate and irresponsible journalism, and it should be recorded as such. End of story.