«Latest  ‹Forward   News item: 3769  Back›  Oldest» 

Association between Mobile-Phone use and headaches, vertigo
Denmark Created: 5 Feb 2009
The Danish Cancer Society team of "Danish Cohort" fame brew up a new study from same old data - and exclude all "heavy" corporate user (again).

Today DR, the national Danish Radio & Television actually reported something unfavorable to the Mobile-Phone industry.
The headline was: "Headaches and migrane from Mobile-Phone use". The article is about a new study from the Danish Cancer Society. This study is based on the same 1982-1995 cohort pool as the famous Danish Cohort mobile-phone cancer study that was hyped by industry as "the largest study ever" and "the final word" on mobile-phones and brain cancer.
Same methods again too: exclude all corporate users, the "heavy" users of that time.

This new study finds an inverse association between more serious neurological diseases such as dementia, Alzheimer and epilepsy but does report a n association with headaches & vertigo.

The studies summary of findings states:
"In this cohort study of mobile phone subscribers between 1982 and 1995, we observed weak positive associations with migraine and vertigo but inverse associations with Alzheimer disease, vascular and other dementia, Parkinson disease and epilepsy among men. No associations were seen with ALS, multiple sclerosis or epilepsy among women. These findings were also made for long-term subscribers, i.e. persons who had had a subscription to a mobile phone for 10 or more years before their disease was registered."

Wait up! Didn't the Danish cancer cohort find a "protective" effect from mobile-phones use on cancer? Yes it did and now this new study, based on the same pool and with the same discrimination of heavy users finds a eerily similar "inverse" association with serious neurological diseases.

The headline at the Danish Cancer Societies website was somewhat different. It reads "Mobile-phones do not cause Dementia". The headache & vertigo association is mentioned further down in the text.

Another funny thing is that this time the Danish Cancer Society brands it's own study as "too small to provide any definitive answers". Their last study, that found "no risk" of cancer was hyped no end, also by the Danish Cancer Society itself, as evidence of no risk from mobile-phones.

We are most surprized to read that Dr. Christoffer Johansen from Danish Cancer Society is quoted as saying to DR that "he is not surprized that there can be a link between exposure to electromagnetic fields and headaches".
That's odd because on the 22'nd of January Dr. Johansen was quoted in another Danish newspaper article, about the harmlessness of mobile-phone basestation, as saying "We have researched this [EMF] since 1995 and continue to do so, but if there are any ill effects from mobile-phone use then no one has found any yet". The newly published Danish Cancer Society study was submitted to the PLoS ONE journal in October 2008 so Christoffer Johansen was perfectly aware of the headache & vertigo association when he made the above statement.

Seeing DR publish news that is unfavorable towards the mobile-phone industry was quite a shocker. For years DR has exclusively reported positive news on mobile-phones and wireless technology. Last year Danish campaign group "Our Childrens Future" brought to our attention that the DR website archives had been wiped clean of negative mobile-phone related news. Google cache kept a copy of many of the articles though.

Links:
The study at PLoS ONE journal:
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0004389

Article at the DR website (in Danish):
http://www.dr.dk/Nyheder/Indland/2009/02/05/054000.htm

Earlier article with "no risk" quote from Christoffer Johansen (in Danish):
http://www.dagbladetonline.dk/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090122/LN_SOLROED/596336789/3000

Article at Danish Cancer Society website (in Danish):
http://www.cancer.dk/Cancer/Nyheder/2009kv1/mobildemens.htm

For english speakers interested in reading the Danish links, try Google translate:
http://translate.google.com/
Source: Mast-Victims.org, H.Eiriksson, 05 Feb 2009

«Latest  ‹Forward   News item: 3769  Back›  Oldest»