Re: testicular cancer paper by Davis and Mostofl

["Drew Thatcher" <Thatcher.Drew@home.com>]

Dr. Moulder:

I'd like to ask you a follow up question regarding your paper.  You mention
that Davis and Mostofl generally did not follow the major steps in
evaluating cancer clusters, in this case testicular cancer.  Could you
expand on this for me.  I've reviewed their short paper and based upon the
major steps you outlined for studying cancer clusters, it appears to me that
perhaps they were lacking in not identifying the exposure adequately.  Is
this interpretation correct?  Any additional insight/information on this
paper would be appreciated as I'm clearly not an epidemiologist not am I
familiar with these types of studies.

This issue has resurfaced in the state again and an epidemiologist and
myself are meeting with Dr. Davis to discuss his methodology prior to
meeting with interested parties to discuss those findings (and limitations).

Thanks again,
Drew Thatcher
thatcher.drew@home.com
360.236.3255

-----Original Message-----
From: John Moulder <jmoulder@mcw.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list <radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu>
Date: Sunday, May 02, 1999 4:21 PM
Subject: Cell Phones and Cancer


>Cell Phones and Cancer:  What Is the Evidence for a Connection?
>
>JE Moulder, LS Erdreich, RS Malyapa, J Merritt, WF Pickard, and Vijayalaxmi
>
>Radiation Research 151:513-531, 1999
>
>ABSTRACT
>There have been allegations in the media and in the courts that cell phones
>and other types of hand-held transceivers are a cause of cancer.  There
>have also been numerous public objections to the siting of TV, radio and
>cell phone transmission facilities because of a fear of cancer induction.
>A recent publication in Radiation Research by Repacholi et al., 9147,
>631-640, 1997), which suggests that exposure to radio-frequency (RF)
>radiation may increase lymphoma incidence in mice has contributed to this
>controversy.  The goal of this review is to provide biomedical researchers
>with a brief overview of the existing RF radiation-cancer studies.  This
>article begins with a brief review of the physics and technology of cell
>phones.  It then reviews the existing epidemiological studies of RF
>radiation, identifying gaps in our knowledge.  Finally, the review
>discusses the cytogenetics literature on RF radiation and the whole-animal
>RF-radiation carcinogenesis studies.  The epidemiological evidence for an
>association between RF radiation and cancer is found to be weak and
>inconsistent, the laboratory studies generally do not suggest that cell
>phone RF radiation has genotoxic or epigenetic activity, and a cell phone
>RF radiation-cancer connection is found to be physically implausible.
>Overall, the existing evidence for a causal relationship between RF
>radiation from cell phones and cancer is found to be weak to non-existent.
>
>John Moulder (jmoulder@mcw.edu)
>Electromagnetic Fields and Human Health FAQs
>http://www.mcw.edu/gcrc/cop.html
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