Jan 13, 2016
According to Microwave News, "Senior officials at the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP) pressured the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) into deleting the cautionary language that appeared on the CDC web site in August 2014. In response to external pressure from NCRP, CDC changed its fact sheet and retracted its precautionary recommendation, "Along with many organizations worldwide, we recommend caution in cell phone use.”
According to Microwave News, "Senior officials at the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP) pressured the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) into deleting the cautionary language that appeared on the CDC web site in August 2014. In response to external pressure from NCRP, CDC changed its fact sheet and retracted its precautionary recommendation, "Along with many organizations worldwide, we recommend caution in cell phone use.”
Microwave News reported that the NCRP last reviewed the radiofrequency health literature and issued exposure guidelines 30 years ago so the advice provided to CDC was obsolete. Moreover, the NCRP chairman of the board who led the effort to pressure CDC has a serious conflict of interest as he has served for many years as an expert witness for the cell phone and broadcast industries.
Jan 1, 2016
Jan 1, 2016
Today The New York Times published an exposé about the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) retraction of warnings about cell phone radiation.
In June 2014, the CDC
issued a public warning about the potential health risks from cell phone
radiation, “We recommend caution in cellphone use.” The warning included a
statement regarding the potential risks to children from cell phone
use. Ten weeks later, the CDC withdrew the warning.
The Times obtained more than 500 pages of CDC
internal records which revealed considerable disagreement among scientists and other
health agencies about what to tell the public.
Even though the CDC had
spent three years creating the new warning, the agency was unprepared for the publicity
it received. For example, a public official from Vermont raised the potential
liabilities for schools and libraries that allow use of cellphones and wireless
technology.
Some CDC officials
argued that the Agency should just state that other
nations, including Austria, Canada, Finland, Israel, and the United
Kingdom, warn their citizens about cell phone radiation.
A CDC spokesperson
told the Times that the cellphone industry did not
weigh in before the new warnings were released. Does this imply that the
industry "weighed in” after the warnings were published given that they
were abruptly removed?
Dr. Christopher Portier,
former director of the CDC National Center for Environmental Health, disagreed
with CDC’s decision to retract the warnings. He believes there is sufficient
evidence for parents to be cautious about their children’s cell phone use, and
that parents should be warned. Dr. Portier was among 31 international experts for
the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) of the World Health
Organization (WHO) that declared cell phone and other wireless radiation a
possible cancer-causing agent.
In spite of divided
scientific opinion, the European Environment Agency and other European governmental
agencies have called for a precautionary approach, “There is sufficient
evidence of risk to advise people, especially children, not to place the
handset against their heads.”
Dr. Elisabeth Cardis who
directed a major cell phone study for the WHO stated, “If there’s a risk, it’s
likely to be greater for exposures at younger ages, simply because the skull is
thinner and the ears are thinner in children than in adults. Basically your
phone is closer to your brain.”
The cellular industry
has rejected health concerns and sued Berkeley, California which passed a cell
phone law last spring requiring local retailers to inform their customers about safety information mandated by the Federal Communications Commission.
The Times article concluded, “‘Some organizations
recommend caution in cellphone use,’ the agency’s guidelines now say. But the
C.D.C. is not one of them.”
Microwave News posted a piece which poses important questions about the Times article.
Jan 2, 2016
Environmental Health Trust posted a piece which documents the changes CDC made to its cell phone radiation warnings after receiving input from industry-funded scientists.
Danny Hakim. “At C.D.C., a Debate Behind Recommendations on Cellphone Risk." New York Times. Jan 1, 2016. A version of this article appears in print on January 2, 2016, on page B1 of the New York edition with the headline, "At C.D.C., Evolution Of Advice On Phones." http://bit.ly/cellphoneNYT
Microwave News. "New York Times Looks Behind CDC Reversal on Cell Phone Risks. Jan 1, 2016. Updated Jan 2, 2016. http://bit.ly/1TvL8nj
Environmental Health Trust. "Information The New York Times Left Out of its Exposé on CDC's Retraction of Cell Phone Radiation Warnings." Jan 4, 2016. http://bit.ly/EHTCDC
CDC Freedom of Information Request. CDC Changes in Cell Phone Warnings. 518 pp. http://bit.ly/CDCFOIA
Martyn Warwick. "The signal and the noise: the cancer v. cellphone debate grinds on." Telecom TV. Jan 4, 2016. http://bit.ly/1VFlqht
An Open Letter to The New York Times from Raymond R. Neutra, MD, DrPH:
Dear Mr. Hakim:
Thanks for your
interesting article on CDC's reversal on its advice with regard to the possible
ways to use cell phones.
I am
exasperated about four aspects of my public health colleagues' behavior:
First: the
misleading way that some have characterized the volume and quality of data
pertaining to possible hazards "there is NO evidence of a hazard"
really means "the many studies suggesting a hazard do not meet my unstated
criteria for entering them into evidence."
Second: their
unhelpful way of characterizing their willingness to certify a causal link
between cell phone use and cancer. How would we react to a TV weather reporter
who said "I can't say for sure that it will rain tomorrow, but I can't say
that it won't rain either." What we have come to expect is a statement
like “After considering the evidence we certify that there is a 40% chance of
rain tomorrow." This second statement allows the girl wearing a
satin Prom Dress to bring an umbrella just in case, and the person wearing a
tank top, shorts and flip flops to leave his umbrella at home.
Third: The
unspoken assumption that the government can only share causal judgments with
the public if it is absolutely certain. The government has all kinds of
information about ways of using cell phones that could drastically lower
exposure. Some parents would take precautionary actions if CDC was 20% sure of
a hazard, others would take action only if CDC was 90% certain. They have a
right to take informed action. Why is CDC not packaging their judgment in ways
that the public can use?
Fourth: CDC's
lack of transparency in revealing the stakeholders who complained about their
first statement and their reasoning in rephrasing it. My exasperation is
influenced by being a co-author of a text book on quantitative decision
analysis in medicine and from heading up a decade-long policy project about
magnetic fields from power lines at the California Department of Public Health.
Raymond Richard
Neutra, MD, DrPH
Dr. Neutra retired in 2007 as Chief of the 200-person Division of Environmental
and Occupational Disease Control after 27 years in the California Department of
Public Health. He received his medical degree at McGill University in 1965 and
his doctorate in epidemiology from Harvard School of Public Health in 1974. He
has taught epidemiology at the Harvard Medical School and School of Public
Health and University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) Schools of Medicine
and Public Health. He is author and co-author of more than 100 articles and
co-authored a text book on quantitative decision analysis in medicine. Between 1994 and 2002 he was in charge of the
Electric and Magnetic Fields Program in the California Department of Public
Health, a seven million dollar policy-relevant research program. It
asked the question "How certain must we be of how much EMF-related disease
before we move from the status quo to cheap or expensive avoidance of magnetic
fields?"
Jan 4, 2016
Environmental Health Trust posted a piece which documents the changes CDC made to its cell phone radiation warnings after receiving input from industry-funded scientists.
References
Danny Hakim. “At C.D.C., a Debate Behind Recommendations on Cellphone Risk." New York Times. Jan 1, 2016. A version of this article appears in print on January 2, 2016, on page B1 of the New York edition with the headline, "At C.D.C., Evolution Of Advice On Phones." http://bit.ly/cellphoneNYT
Electromagnetic Radiation Safety. Press Release. "CDC Issues Precautionary Health Warnings about Cell Phone Radiation." PRLog, Aug 13, 2014. http://bit.ly/1Rf32LF
Electromagnetic Radiation Safety. Press Release. "CDC Retracts its Precautionary Health Warning about Cell Phone Radiation." PRLog, Aug 20, 2014. http://bit.ly/1SQEU1m
Microwave News. "CDC Calls for Caution on Cell Phones, Then Gets Cold Feet: First Federal Agency To Acknowledge Risk Soon Backs Down." Aug 16, 2014; Updated Aug 20, 2014. http://bit.ly/1OBLaf3
Microwave News. "New York Times Looks Behind CDC Reversal on Cell Phone Risks. Jan 1, 2016. Updated Jan 2, 2016. http://bit.ly/1TvL8nj
Environmental Health Trust. "Information The New York Times Left Out of its Exposé on CDC's Retraction of Cell Phone Radiation Warnings." Jan 4, 2016. http://bit.ly/EHTCDC
CDC Freedom of Information Request. CDC Changes in Cell Phone Warnings. 518 pp. http://bit.ly/CDCFOIA
Martyn Warwick. "The signal and the noise: the cancer v. cellphone debate grinds on." Telecom TV. Jan 4, 2016. http://bit.ly/1VFlqht
